Weekly Wrap Up - Hydroponics Field Trip

Monday was a pretty standard day for us academically.   Olivia finished up her Veterinary Science curriculum for the year.   We weren't able (yet) to get her an apprenticeship to accompany the class, since all the veterinarians in the area work only with public schooled/vo-tech students.  We're still looking around trying to find a veterinarian who is willing to think outside the box.    There were freak snow squalls during the day that caused near white out conditions for 20-30 minutes at a time, but there was no accumulation.   I finalized our curriculum picks and ordered our books for the upcoming year (my post will be coming soon....when I have products to photograph).  The girls had archery in the evening.

Tuesday we had a field trip planned with the local homeschool group.  Olivia ended up working all day at the farm, so Lindsey and I dropped her off and went without her.   We visited Bloomaker, which is a local company that uses hydroponics to annually produce over 17million flowers from bulbs. It's currently the only company in the U.S. that produces all their flowers hydroponically.   We were given a full tour of the facility and got to see bulbs in various stages of reproduction including the chiller room (where the bulbs are put to "sleep").

Wednesday Olivia worked all day at the farm again.  She got her school work done in the evening.  Lindsey finished up her school work around noon, so she and I went out for El Salvadorian food for lunch and then since it  was free ice cream cone day at Dairy Queen, we had dessert.   It was not on my food plan, but tasty none the less.  Church was in the evening.

Thursday we awoke to torrential rains.  By noon the rain turned over to crazy snow.  It actually got bad enough that several main mountain roads were closed due to accidents and about 75 people got stranded for several hours.   Crazy first day of spring.   The kids spent extra time doing extra lessons. The end of the year is in sight and they are pushing hard to be done in early April.

Friday morning I was up early to go grocery shopping.   The girls completed all their school work while I was gone.  We spent the afternoon baking huge amounts of cookies and making tons of little sandwiches for a funeral we're attending and helping with on Saturday.   The lady who passed away was my age, and passed away from her second bout with pancreatic cancer.   She was one of the first friends I made in this town, we met at the baseball field when her son and Olivia were on the same baseball team.  We attend the same church now, and her son is in the youth group with my girls.   She was a single mom who touched more people in this town by herself than most churches do in their communities.   Her passing has left a huge gap in the community, and we're expecting hundreds of people at her celebration of life service.    Please pray for her sons, Noah and Tyler.  Noah is a junior in high school, and Tyler is just barely 20.

Happy spring everyone!