Weekly Wrap Up - Lindsey Turns 15

The weekend was a little rough on Olivia.  On Saturday, the big draft horse at the farm had a major melt down.  While not the tallest horse there, he is by far the heaviest, close to 2,000 pounds.  There was no rhyme or reason for his freaking out. They were just walking to the barn like any other day when he suddenly began to spin in circles, buck and kick, with 150 pounds of  teenage girl holding the lead rope.  I've never seen fear in her face like I did during those crazy few minutes that felt like a life time.  She did an amazing job of holding on, keeping her footing, staying out from under his huge feet and keeping her head about her until she finally got him calmed and under control.   Her shoulders and upper back were very stiff and sore as the evening went on.

Sunday afternoon one of the thoroughbreds spooked as they started out of the gate towards the barn.  Between the angle that the horse lunged and the incline they were on at the gate, Olivia hyper-extended her right elbow and landed hard on her right hip as she spun around.  She ended up with a couple of gashes on her leg from the gravel, and strained some muscles in her back.  By the end of the evening on Sunday she was walking like a cowboy from an old west movie.  On a positive note, she learned to drive the big tractor.

Monday morning I dropped Olivia off at the farm at 5:30am.  It was already pouring rain again when I dropped her off, which continued throughout the day with more localized flooding. She did her normal work and then helped with riding until the farrier arrived around 9:30am.  She spent the rest of the day holding the horses for the farrier and picking his brain about things they were doing.   I picked her up around 3pm.    Lindsey slept until almost 8am, which is really late for her.  She worked on all of her school work and was done shortly after lunch time.  I dropped her off at 3:15 for a babysitting job.

Tuesday we were back at the farm at 5:30am.   At 9am, I picked Olivia up and took her to farm #2 to do the morning feeding for those folks while they traveled out of town for doctor appointments.  We made a loop back around to return her to the horse farm, and then it was home to work on house work and school work with Lindsey.  Lindsey's got a pretty good routine going with her school work, and it requires little on my part other than to discuss what she's doing and grade papers.  Olivia got off work sometime around 2ish.

For now, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Lindsey is going to be coaching a middle school recreation league volleyball team.  It's the same league she played in (and I coached) during her middle school volleyball career.   She'll be heading from volleyball straight to jiu-jitsu on those two nights.  Olivia is still doing jiu-jitsu as well.

Wednesday was a little more low key.  Olivia worked at the farm from 5:30-9:30am, then back from noon until 2pm.   Lindsey knocked out her school work while I washed curtains and windows, and hen we both worked on doing some deep cleaning.

Thursday was very hectic (for me).  Olivia had her 5:30-9:30am work and her 12-2pm shift.  In between dropping her off/picking her up, I picked up groceries and ran other errands.  Lindsey's day was pretty standard as far as academics.  This was her "Friday" for the week, so that was a plus. At 2:30 I met my gal-pal Yvette for quick frozen coffee and some chit chat.  The evening was a quick dinner followed by volleyball and jiu-jitsu.

Friday Lindsey turned 15!  Tom took a vacation day, Olivia still had to work, and Lindsey had a babysitting gig in the morning.  We celebrated with cupcakes in the morning, and will go out for Indian food for lunch after everyone returns from morning jobs, a little shopping in the afternoon followed by pizza for dinner, and that'll be a wrap.  The official birthday party will be tomorrow, so I'll share photos next week of that.

Have a great weekend!!