Food and Ice-Cream

Food and ice-cream...is there anything better? Well, yes, having someone else cook it, clean up afterward, and not charge a cent for it! That is what we were treated to at the village. Again, many volunteers made this possible.

The cafeteria style Gingerbread house is where we usually had our main meals. They serve breakfast and dinner and have a good variety of food for both kids and adults.


Bryce wasn't usually thrilled about the Gingerbread house since he isn't able to eat by mouth anymore. However, they did have these great table things that you could push the wheelchair up to. They came in handy for "playtime" for Bryce while the rest of us ate.


Some of the volunteers serving in Nancy's family Kitchen inside the Gingerbread house.




Here is a picture of the shelves that line the walls and ceilings. They are filled with donated stuffed animals of all kinds.


For some reason, Spencer and Jacob decided that they love eating the sugar out of the little sugar packets. One morning they downed 4 or 5 of them each while I was up getting my breakfast!


The tabletops all have a layer of candy underneath the top glass piece.




One of the many friends Bryce met. This is Mathis. Neither of these boys was verbal, but this particular morning it was very obvious that they were communicating. It was so cute to see them go back and forth with sounds and then giggle with each other.




Mathis and his family. Here from Canada.


Annalise enjoyed entertaining Bryce.


They offered lots of yummy kids food at a small cart where the kids could go and pick out what they wanted...including chocolate milk! The boys thought the free refills were the best.


This is Katie's kitchen. They had food from Boston Market that you could order there and eat outside the kitchen or call and have it delivered to your villa. We did this a couple of times.


Now, on to the Ice-cream Palace! They served a hot (Holiday Inn Express) continental breakfast here each morning from 7:30-9:30. They also served ice-cream from 7:30 am to 9 pm everyday! They encouraged everyone to have a banana split for breakfast at least once while you were there. The whole idea of this place was to be able to say "yes" to children who often hear "no".


Bryce was usually happier outside, so we would get our ice-cream and sit in these benches outside to enjoy our ice-cream creations.




Annalise eating her first very own ice-cream cone!




This volunteer, I can't remember her name anymore, has been coming to the village for 13 years. It was fun to talk to her about the changes throughout those years.




We had ice cream at least once every day