Hats, Hats, Hats

Despite common beliefs, hats can be worn for other reasons than to cover up a bad hair day! Today we took the time to decorate some beautiful hats especially for our Other Hat Club.

On May 18th Serenity is hosting a Mother-Daughter Tea or Father-Son Toast. Coffee, tea and other goodies will be served. As this is a celebration by the Other Hat Club, everyone is encouraged to wear their favorite hats – and we specifically made these hats with this event in mind!

Take a look at a couple of the fun hats we made today. Pictured above is Leona who is enjoying her creation. To the right is Arlene Tangen who had a blast making her new favorite hat!

Fun With Beads!

Jewelry is always fun to wear, and today we discovered that it is even more fun to make! We started by making our very own beads out of craft foam clay. This was by far the most time consuming part of the whole craft, but we had a blast making the colorful beads! And we had a great time just chatting with all of our friends as we made the beads. Aside from the jokes, interesting conversations and just plain fun, we all loved the final products as well. We made bracelets, necklaces and key chains which can be seen all over Serenity!

Just take a look at these photos to get a better understanding of the fun we had. To the left is Leona who is making her first clay beads and to the right is Gen who is just rolling out her first bead!

Unlucky Seven

This afternoon Sandy decided that it was high time for all her new friends here at Serenity to learn how to play her favorite card game called Unlucky Seven. It was a great way to introduce our newest staff member, Tyler; and we all had a great time laughing and chatting about the warm weather.

If you would like to play Unlucky Seven it’s actually pretty easy! Here are a few of the rules of the game:

You can play with two or more players. If you would like to play with more than four, simply add another deck to the mix!

Take a deck and match the cards according to their suits. Once the cards are in four piles (one of each diamonds, spades, hearts and clubs) remove the kings, aces and sevens.

Each player then receives one suit and places the ten remaining cards face up in front of him or her.

Once it is decided who will roll first, two dice are rolled three times by each person. When the player rolls a number on the die, he or she flips the corresponding card with that number over to show the back of the card. The first person to flip all his or her cards wins!

But it’s not that simple. The unlucky seven part of this game comes when the player rolls a seven on the die. After rolling an unlucky seven the player must flip a card that has previously been flipped. This may sound confusing but it’s really not too difficult. For example, if a player rolled a six earlier in the game and flipped the six card to reveal the back and thereafter rolled a seven, the player must flip that card over again. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the card flipped directly before rolling a seven, however; you are allowed to choose which card you must play again!

Also, if you roll a number that you have already have flipped, you must skip your turn and if your neighbor doesn’t have that number flipped, he or she then takes that number and flips the corresponding card. For example, if a player rolls a six and flips that card and on her second try she rolls another six, she must look at the other players’ hands to see if any of her friends have a six. The one that does (in clockwise order) then flips his or her corresponding six card and starts playing from there. If no one else has a six she continues with her next roll.

It may sound a little difficult upon reading these directions, but it’s really simple once you try playing it! And we had a ton of fun this afternoon when we all sat down to play. Just take a look at our faces! Pictured above is our newest staff member, Tyler, who just won his first game. To the right is a group shot of everyone who played Unlucky Seven this afternoon (in clockwise order) Tyler, Florence, Henrietta, Sandy, Leona and Hubert.

A Game of Whist, Anyone?

Finding a few good friends, getting together and simply playing an exciting card game can be a lot of fun. And this is precisely what we did this morning! Hubert Asplin, Bonnie Bratholt, Leona Jereszek and Arlene Tangen all gathered around a card table at about 10:00am this morning to play a few games of Whist. Aside from the amusement of the game, it was also nice to get out, chat with old friends and make new ones. And they sure had a lot of fun!

If you’ve never played Whist and would like to learn, here are some of the basic rules:

First of all, Whist requires four players which then make two teams of pairs. The dealer deals a standard deck of 52 cards, starting with the player to the dealer’s immediate left. The last card dealt that belongs to the dealer is flipped over and displays the suit that is trumps for that round. This card remains face up until it is the dealer’s turn to play the first trick. Now the game begins! The player to the dealer’s immediate left starts the first trick and any card may be led. The other players then lay tricks in clockwise order. The cards played should be of the same suit and the highest trump wins the trick (with Aces being high). If a player doesn’t have any of the same suit, any card may be laid. Once all 13 cards of the suit have been laid, the team that won more tricks wins one point for every trick it won in excess of six; the winner of that round deals the following round. The partnership that reaches five points first wins the game. It’s that simple!

Take a peek above at the group shot of the whole gang; Arlene (dealer), Hubert, Bonnie and Leona (in clockwise order)!