Welcome New Beginnings: January Events

It is hard to believe how time has flown and we now, once again, welcome in a new year—2014! This January, as part of our Alive in All Seasons program we will be celebrating the magic of music. Music has long been recognized as a healing tool in the writings of Pythagoras, Aristotle and Plato. A quote by Plato helps us understand the enormity and power of music; “music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything”.

Music is indeed part of our souls, our imaginations, our lives. It is no wonder that people love music; it inspires us, sparks our minds, taps into our creativity, heals our souls, motivates us to dance, to laugh, to cry. This January we will celebrate music in all its glory!

We will be hosting several open events at our community this month. Please join us for our Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog Event at noon on January 8^th, our 3rd Annual Wild West Event at 5:00 pm on January 21^st, and our Sound of Music Dinner at 5:00 pm on January 30^th. We encourage you to review our calendar for other offerings and attend any or all of the activities that are of interest to you.

It’s going to be another great month here at Juniper Village at Louisville. Let us join together in music and “Welcome New Beginnings”. 

Celebrate Little Things: December Events

"The more you praise and celebrate your life,

the more there is in life to celebrate" ~Oprah Winfrey

 

This December, as part of our Alive In All Seasons program

we will be focusing on traditions. Traditions play such an

important role within our lives by providing a shared identity

and sense of belonging, comfort and joy. Traditions allow us

to tap into our deep and rich cultural, family and religious

heritage. Our Alive In All Seasons tagline this month of

"Celebrate Little Things" reminds us that these traditions,

many of which are small, little things, can serve as the glue

that binds us together and makes our lives great.

 

Celebrations will be abundant this holiday season here at

Juniper Village as we share memories from our residents,

families and our associates about traditions, beliefs and

customs that have shaped our lives. We will learn about how

other cultures celebrate winter holidays, complete with the

singing of carols and the sampling of some delicious ethnic

treats. We will gain respect and insight into each other as

we reflect upon our unique and cherished traditions, and;

maybe create some new ones along the way!

 

You are cordially invited to join us in celebration for Ugly

Holiday Sweater Day every Thursday. Wear your favorite ugly

holiday sweater with pride and you will surely get along

with the crowd here at Juniper Village. For December 5th,

at noon, be sure not to miss our Holiday De-Stressor Party.

On December 13th at 2pm, we will be having a Chocolate

Covered Anything Extravaganza. Last but not least, enjoy

our Open House Festivus on December 19th at 1:30pm.

 

So, this holiday season please stop

by and celebrate with us as we

"Celebrate Little Things"

Giving Thanks for All We Have

The holiday season is upon us, and is in full swing. If you're feeling anything like we do, we just can't believe that we are already in the month of November, practically on our way to wrapping up the end of the year. Despite the fact that the days are shorter, and time is moving much too quickly, we do like to take this time of year to say thanks for everything that we're so incredibly blessed to have.

Juniper Village at Louisville would like to say a special thank you to our residents, they truly brighten our day each and every single day. Their wit and wisdom truly does make the work we do enjoyable. We would also like to thank our families, who allow us to care for their loved ones day in and day out, and also for being able to create relationships with them as well and work toward a unified goal of providing the best care possible (which extends beyond the work that we do here at the Village and out into the community). It is this foundation which enables us to care and give back, and for that we are exceptionally thankful.

To celebrate our thanks, we invited our residents, friends, and families to join us this past weekend for a Thanksgiving Day Feast. Our Chef, Abhaya, and his team, created a truly wonderful feast with turkey, stuffing, and all of the trimmings.  Our wonderful friends and families provided us with desserts to share with one another. It truly was a day of giving and thanks; so, thank you to everyone who helps make us what we are and supports us in our endeavors.

Chili Cook-Off

If there is one thing we love more about the cool, crisp air during Fall, it's the fact that it's time for chili! We pulled out our scarves, boots, and sweaters in preparation for our 3rd annual chili cook-off (ignore the fact that we weren't wearing scarves in the picture...they were on in spirit).

We were fortunate to have the Louisville Fire Department here to judge which chili was the best. Hats off to the Family Hospice team, who won by leaps and bounds this year for the best chili. Voting was based off of 5 criteria: smell, thickness, color, flavor and aftertaste. The next highest vote was 12 points behind the winning chili (if that tells you anything about how incredibly good it was).

Our winner received a fantastic giveaway, which included a gift card to Lulu's Barbecue in Downtown Louisville. Please make sure to join us next year for one of our favorite annual events!

Woodland Creatures Rule the Nest

If this is your first time joining us on this blog, then you don't know how exceptionally serious we are about celebrating Halloween, and not just celebrating Halloween, but celebrating it in costume. Every year we celebrate this wonderful holiday by dressing up as our favorite woodland creatures. On this special day, it would not be unusual to find gnomes running around the hallways frolicking with deer, fairies, bunnies, swans, owls, or any of our other favorite woodland friends. This year, we even had a crow and dragon roaming the halls (he was, of course, a friendly dragon).

 

After everyone is ready and in costume, we share the holiday fun with some of our favorite kids from Monarch Elementary School. This year, we gave away goodies such as bouncy balls, poppers, stickers, eraser tops, pretzels, and more to the ghosts and ghouls of the school (and other characters as well, we don't differentiate between costumes, we share with all!)

If you've never celebrated events with us, now is the time to join in on the fun. Our next big event will be November 23 at 12 Noon, and we will be celebrating Thanksgiving Day with our Residents, friends, and family. We provide the main course; we just ask that visitors bring their favorite dessert to share. It is truly a day to be grateful for everything that we have, especially the relationships that we've built in our community.

Cherish the Journey and Keep the Spirit of Family: November Events

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and, it is indeed a perfect time to celebrate with loved ones; so it is not surprising that our Alive in All Seasons focus for the month of November is families: Cherish the Journey! Matsuo Basho wrote "every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home". These beautiful words remind us of the importance of cherishing this journey of life through celebrations that bind us together; family and friends, nurturing our spirits and fulfilling us in deep and meaningful ways.

This month as we celebrate our Alive in All Seasons theme of family: "Cherish the Journey", we will be hosting many wonderful activities and events with our focus on family! We will be working with residents, families, associates and friends to create family trees and start autobiographical journals. We will enjoy rich and meaningful activities utilizing the traditions, customs and skills of many of our family members, friends and all the significant people that have impacted our lives. We will reminisce about favorite family recipes, learn about families in different cultures, and join together in giving thanks. These activities will foster the development of deep connections with one another, thus, allowing us to cherish and celebrate each others' lives. We will enjoy the opportunity to create and relish more memories of delightful moments along this beautiful journey of life together!

We invite you to join us as we celebrate the beautiful gift of family, sharing some of your time treasured stories, traditions, customs and wisdom gathered with your loved ones on your journey together! We are filled with gratitude as we give thanks for yet another year bringing joy to the lives of all those on our path! We wish all of our families and friends a beautiful Thanksgiving holiday overflowing with rich abundance! All this month we will also be hosting several highlighted family and community events that include: our Food Drive benefiting those less fortunate through the Sister Carmen Community Center in Lafayette all month, our You're The Peanut Butter to My Jelly staff appreciation celebration featuring all things peanut butter … sandwiches, ice cream, even pie … on November 8 all day, our Grandma's Homemade Bread Day showcasing all sorts of starchy goodies … breakfast sandwiches, scones, muffins, even pie (the crust is kind of like bread) … with fantastic giveaways on November 15 from 9 am until 10:30 am, and our Thanksgiving Day Feast with turkey dinner and all the fixings complete with a sampling of desserts from our own families on November 23 from 12 pm until 1:30 pm. We encourage you to review our calendar and join us for any or all of our events as we celebrate families and Cherish the Journey!

Roald Dahl's Fancy Fictional Friends Celebration

.

 

Roald Dahl is a beloved children's writer who would have celebrated his birthday on September 13th; he would have been 97 this year. He blessed us with stories such as Matilda, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and many other wonderful children's stories.

In honor of his work we decided to host a special event here at our community because by our standards Roald Dahl is one of the best writers EVER, and that is noteworthy and deserves to be celebrated! He created fictional characters; who not unlike the BFG, have stayed our friends since we first read his stories.

The best part about his works of fiction is that there is always a lesson to be learned,  and a way for us to sympathize with the protagonist. His stories are as relevant today as they were when they were first written, they have a sense of timelessness that can always be applied to current times.

To honor his works we decided to focus on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there was a special surprise visit by Willy Wonka himself...and naturally he gave away caramel apple suckers...he owns a candy factory, how could he not share some of his candy with the residents! He also graced us with a wonderful performance about "Pure Imagination." Next up we met Veruca Salt who showed up to perform her infamous song "I Want It Now," some things in life don't change, and Veruca's outlook on getting what she wants is certainly one of them! We ended with the Oompa Loompa's dancing around the room. Many of the characters from this story were there with the exception of Charlie, who is now  much too busy with running the factory, in his absence he was able to send some Oompa Loompa's, which is much appreciated!

Our residents were able to socialize with Mike Teavee, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt, Willy Wonka, and some Oompa Loompa's.

Please feel free to stop by for any of our future events. At Juniper we really believe in celebrating life in all of it's seasons, and hosting events like these is one way to do that! Our next event is Friday, October 18th at 2:00PM...it's entitled "Apple of Our Eye." We will be celebrating National Apple Month and we will have a lot of fun things to do (such as eating caramel apples, yum!)

Whimsical Fun Filled Night at The Seussicals

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again…we love any reason to celebrate. So, our most recent celebration was to honor one of the best children’s writer, Dr. Seuss. We planned an entire event around some of his most famous works as he would have turned 100 this March (on the 2^nd to be exact). “From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere”. At Juniper, we find that our days pass much more quickly if we’re enjoying ourselves by smiling and laughing, and this event gave us the perfect opportunity to do just that.  We dusted off our Dr. Seuss character costumes, put together a small skit, and then handed out fake awards as if it were an awards show.

We handed out awards for best comedic actor, best supporting actress, among many other awards…and, of course, the Grinch made a special appearance. With his grouchiness aside, the evening was filled with joyous laughter and at the end of the night we were reminded of Dr. Seuss’s words, “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” So, now that it is over, we can reflect back on this event and smile at the fun that we had while reviewing the pictures. Hats off to Dr. Seuss, who has always been able to captivate our imagination for both the young and old, and also to one of our Partners in Caring, Home Instead Senior Care, for helping us pull off such a fantastic event.

Valentine's Day & Birthday Bashes

Louisville believes in celebrating even the small things...as a small token of staff appreciation we are creating new traditions this year at our building. Those traditions include cheesy holiday gifts that bring out a smile to our staff and residents alike...so to kick off this new tradition, we started with Valentine's Day...staff were given badges that say world's best staff...not just because we like them, but because we simply have the world's best staff! They were then given temporary tattoo's, because our love for them is anything but temporary. Lastly, some sweets, because our staff always sweeten up our days by making things better.

We also started a new celebration of birthdays for staff members. We call it our walk of shame, and Cheryl, our Community Relations Director, is fortunate enough to celebrate her birthday on Valentine's Day. So, we broke out the birthday glasses and Kevin the Giraffe, and had her walk around the community for staff and residents alike so that they could all wish her a happy birthday. She insists that she is 29 one more time! Either way, we love her and wish her the happiest of days.  All staff were given a fair warning that they, too, will be up next when their time comes!

Wild Wild West

The new year is here, and we’re in full swing at Juniper Village at Louisville. We have decided that there is no better way to start the new year other than to have an old wild west party. So we all said "YEEHAW," pulled out our cowboy boots and hats and had a good ol’ time at the Juniper hootenanny hole!

Banjo’s were dueling, country crooners were singing, people were dancing, and taking a lot of old fashioned photographs. We had finger lickin’ good food with good company. Don’t miss out on our next exciting event, the Masquerade Ball, on February 12^th at 5:30pm. It’s guaranteed to be an excellent time! Y’all come down now, y’a hear!