Be Boppin’ Around Town with 50’s Flare

Every year in March we put on a good ol’ fashioned sock hop. The staff here gets decked out in our car hop apparel and we dance through the afternoon until we serve burgers, fries, and shakes. Of course, as a special treat, we also have a cotton candy machine (because cotton candy is the best, and if we can find a reason to make it for an event, we will!)

What do we do during our sock hop…well, that’s a good question, because there are a variety of things to do. Perhaps a visit to the sweet shop would be on the list of must do’s…as we have someone spinning up old fashioned shakes. In Town Hall, we can be found dancing around to the favorite songs from the 50’s, like be-bop-a-lula. While some of us actually know the steps to dances from the 50’s, others of us just jump around enthusiastically and consider that dancing (at least that can be said and is true of this writer). Over in the gym, you will find that we’ve converted the area into a backdrop for 50’s style pictures, props are there as well as costumes, including wigs that can be used to really make the pictures seem more authentic (or at the very least…much more fun). And, of course, outside in the courtyard is where we can be found spinning cotton candy.

This is always a really fun event for everyone around. Check out our pictures, and feel free to join us for any of our fun-filled events!

Tea House Celebration in Honor of Mom’s

The weekend of Mother’s Day is always a special event. We at Juniper like to think that our Mothers appreciate the type of setting that you would traditionally find in a tea house. The style is a little bit eclectic, the food is delicate, yet simple.

So, this year, we, again, hosted our famous Mother’s Day Tea event to celebrate the ladies in our lives who have helped develop us into the wonderful people that we are today.  Doily Banners were hung to honor mom, and we all broke out our tablecloths and vintage hankies to decorate the tables in true traditional tea house style.

Our cooks prepared wonderful pastries and finger sandwiches that were quickly snatched up, and we enjoyed a variety of drinks (not just tea).

Please make sure to visit us for any of our wonderful upcoming events. We love to have people join with us for any of our festivities!

Alzheimer’s Foundation of America Excellence in Care Award

Juniper Village at Louisville recently went through the survey process to re-qualify for the Excellence in Care Award through the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. We are excited to announce that we were able to re-qualify for this prestigious award!

The Excellence in Care Award is an honor as there aren't that many communities nation-wide who have qualified and passed this rigorous test. There are a number of criteria that is involved in qualifying for this award. Staff involvement and interactions with residents in the community is a large piece, as is ongoing training of staff and available activities for residents living in our community.

Juniper Village at Louisville is committed to providing the best care possible for our residents. We have high standards and really believe in nurturing the spirit of life in each individual. We have historically had an excellent record with our state surveys and continue to strive for improvement in every area because to us it’s more than just a job, it’s our livelihood.

Please join us as we celebrate this tremendous honor on June 5th at 2PM...we don’t know how we’re going to celebrate, but we do know that we are going to celebrate big with the staff and residents of our community; we are exceptionally proud of their work and we love our residents!

Cheese It Up with the Cheesiest Cheese Balls In Town!

Somewhere in our understanding of what is important in our work here at Juniper Village at Louisville, we may have stretched the boundary of importance to include being cheesy and making sure that everyone has a good time.

Sometimes when we’re coming up with ideas for celebrating at our community, we specifically aim to achieve this goal. Fortunately, there are national days of celebration; such as, Cheese Ball Day that really enable us to do this type of an event rather easily (thank goodness that somebody, somewhere thought this should be a day to celebrate cheese balls, because we here at Juniper are on top of making this one of the most amazing days ever!)

So, with this in mind, we set out to have a cheesy day (which included cheesy attire…check out the picture of some of the leadership team members…kitty leggings, St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes a full month later, sequin skirts, tulle skirts…florescent colors…if that is not the epitome of cheesy, then we don’t want to know what is!) We also decided to tell cheesy jokes (not necessarily just about cheese…my personal favorite is: What did the Mama Tomato say to the baby tomatoes…catch up, catch up!) Then, we played a cheesy game with cheese balls (which is also a personal favorite). We had the staff sit with a shower cap on, which then had shaving cream placed on top of it while the residents threw cheese balls, with the aim of getting them in the shaving cream and sticking…needless to say, fun was had by everyone!

Please join us for any of our upcoming cheesy events, where we guarantee that fun will be had! Our next event is our Mother’s Day Tea on May 10 at 10:30 a.m.

Easter Brunch and Egg Hunting

We love being able to celebrate with our residents and families. This is a traditional celebration in which Brunch is the central focus (because Brunch is amazing, and it really should be added as a mandatory fourth meal to the day).

We decorated the tables with confetti, lumineries, and paper bunnies. Then our masterful chefs came up with a wonderful selection of food; such as, fruit, pastries, muffins, croissants, eggs, quiche, sausage, bacon, waffles, and more. It really was wonderful and there was plenty of food for everyone. After we sat and ate while enjoying each other’s company, we decided it was time to send the kids out into the courtyard on an Easter egg hunt.

The kiddos did an excellent job finding all the eggs and enjoying the treasures that they found. 

Thank you to everyone who made our event a success today!

Whimsical, Whacky, Seussical Clapping

This is the second year in a row that we have celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday. He would have turned 101 this year, and last year was the big centennial, with everyone jumping on the bandwagon to celebrate all things Dr. Seuss…this year, we might have been one of the few, but we still had a GREAT time celebrating this wonderful man and his cherished children’s stories.

Our play is really quite a bit of fun. We treat it more like it’s an award show, and in between getting awards, our characters put on little skits from each of their respective stories. We, of course, had the Cat in the Hat along with Thing 1 and Thing 2 who caused a raucous amount of fun. Horton and the Mayor of Who-ville were there and they taught us that people are people no matter how small. The Lorax, our favorite environmentalist, and the Grinch, who likes to pretend like he doesn’t care about anybody or anything, went around and met some of the audience. And, of course, the characters from Green Eggs and Ham taught us that sometimes we need to try something new.

It was fun as we celebrated the characters who have taught us and others so many morals to guide our life. If we’re lucky, next year we will be able to have some new characters added to the play such as Sneetches and maybe a scene from the Butter Battle Book (because in this writer’s opinion…it’s the best Dr. Seuss book, however, most people are completely unaware of it!) We hope you enjoy the photos from this event…also, let us know if you have a favorite Seuss book that you would like to see us re-enact!

Amazing Families and a Grateful Community

We want to take a few minutes to say thank you to our amazing families.  Here at Juniper Village at Louisville, we strive for excellence in all that we do. We truly want to set the bar for how a Memory Care Community should be run. For us, this isn’t just a job, it’s our livelihood, and because of that we say thank you to our friends and families who make it possible to do the work we love.

We have recently received a letter from a family expressing their gratitude for the love and care that their family member received here, and we thought it was worthwhile to share it with everyone else. Thank you for noticing the work that we do. Even if it goes unnoticed, we will continue to work diligently in caring for the residents who live here with us, because we are truly passionate about what we do!