Today, I’d like to officially introduce us and our team. I have spent a lot of time talking about what we do, but not much about who we are! Let me start by saying Aldrich Equine Adventures is a complete family team. The youngest to the oldest are involved in taking care of the horses, and riding, and have gone along to auctions, etc. Sometimes even our extended family gets in on the fun. Our adventures have gone from our back yard, clear down to Florida delivering Lucky Lola. 🙂 We are SO excited and happy to be doing what we do. For a lot of people, 2020 has been a hard year. For us at Aldrich Equine, it has been a year full of Adventures!
The first two members of the team are Nathaniel and myself, Allison Aldrich. Nathaniel and I have been married for fourteen years this September. We fell in love and got married at 18 and 17 years old…For those of you wondering, I’m the older one. God brought us together with a purpose, a calling to pastor a work in Monmouth. Nathaniel is the founding pastor of Greater Life Pentecostal Church in Monmouth, IL, and I am the worship leader. I play the piano and sing during services. Our church is not the typical every day church you would walk into. We live in a very cultural diverse community, despite it’s small size. Because of this, we have services in English and French, or English and Spanish, or sometimes all three as needed. We do multilingual music every service. When we started out, Nathaniel opened the church as bilingual even though neither of us spoke Spanish. I thought he was slightly crazy, but here we are today! God has immensely blessed our work. Nathaniel and I have had lots of fun adventures from flipping houses, to working with project horses. God really has blessed me with a fantastic husband.
Nathaniel and I have seven kids. We’ve heard lots of big family jokes, etc…and no we aren’t going for 19 and counting. We are complete with seven. There are five boys and two girls. Two are adopted and five are biological. The oldest of which is our daughter Destini. Destini was adopted from foster care. We got her as a placement when she was seven years old and we adopted her at 10 years old after three long years in foster care. Destini is now fifteen years old and is an amazing rider! She has some very admiral dedication working toward her life goals, and spends several hours a day riding between her own horse, and working with project or rescue horses. Destini prefers to ride English and is working toward a goal of show jumping. She has the potential to do big things. If you ever drive by our place while we are out and about you sure to see Destini riding. In her spare time, Destini does a lot of research to better herself, and to increase her knowledge about horse care, shows, jumping etc. Destini helps around the barn and helps feed everyone, and is always along for the ride for the auction at Kalona. She hops on the horses at Kalona bareback to see if they are broke and helps make a good comprehensive list of horses that would be good potential for a match for someone should we bring them home.
The next oldest buddy on the team is Hezekiah. Hezekiah is nine years old, and Spark is his best friend. Spark was a kill pen rescue in September 2019 when we got started. Hezekiah is a huge help around the farm. He always makes sure to help feed and water, helps take the grain buckets out to everyone. He gives pony rides to kiddos and helps maintain grandma’s garden. Hezekiah really loves animals, and when he loves an animal it is wholeheartedly. At the last sale, we let Hezekiah pick out a pony to rescue. He picked out a sweetheart named Donut. And let me tell you, Donut is a fantastic little pony. He has moved on to his new home, but while he was with us, Hezekiah went daily to let him out for his turn out time, which consisted of spending the afternoon in the yard with the kids getting brushed down, pony rides, playing with him, and getting desensitized to kiddos so he would be ready for his next home. Hezekiah now has a job as a designated small pony picker. 🙂 He goes along for every auction, even if his brothers decide not to go. He wants to make a difference in the life of another pony that could be someone’s best bud like their pony, Spark.
Elijah is the next oldest. He is seven years old and full of energy. Elijah was born a climber. At 9 months old he was walking and climbing up slides and stairs. Before he was a year old he tried to scale the staircase on the outside of the spindles. The kid is a ninja. He climbs door jams, he hangs upside down backward, he flips around on things, and climbs trees. He is always pushing his limits. Elijah has ridden several bucking ponies. If he thinks they might buck, he wants a try on them. And he is good at staying on! 🙂 Elijah is always looking for an adventure and LOVES trail rides! He also loves helping do what we call Pony Boot Camp. When we bring home ponies, the kids put training time on them and desensitize them. Elijah is always excited to help with the ponies!
Malachi is the next oldest in the lineup. He is six years old and he is the friendliest kid on the planet. Malachi came to us as a temporary foster placement at 3 years old. He was wild, pretty much feral, not potty trained, and nonverbal except for baby talk. Malachi had burned through a handful of foster homes within 3 months and initially I had turned down taking him because we really wanted to just adopt a girl and be done having children, but after a week of this little spunky firecracker staying with us, we were ALL attached to him and I called the caseworker and we decided he would stay. We adopted Malachi at 5 years old. He is a long way from the wild Tarzan boy he once was, but he is still a ball of energy. He LOVES dirt…He LOVES mud…He LOVES making friends…and He LOVES his donkey Señor Carrots. More importantly, he LOVES his family, and we sure love him. Malachi will ride anything and brag about having his cowboy status. He has been bucked off a pony or two. And He gets back on and enjoys every minute of it. Malachi brags about being a “horse whisperer”. Malachi’s best friend is a mini donkey we brought home named Señor Carrots. If we ever can’t find him, he is either up to no good experimenting with dirt and a tool or two, or sitting on Señor Carrot’s back. 🙂
Isaac just turned 6 years old. Isaac and Malachi are six months apart, so for six months we have twins on our hands. Isaac was born wanting to be bigger. From the time he was born he was enjoying tummy time and quickly doing baby planks and scooting himself across the church pews before he could roll over. Isaac is the fastest of all the kids and prides himself on being able to keep up with the big kids. Isaac loves riding Bedda and eventually wants to start jumping. Isaac helps ride the ponies and safe horses. He enjoys making obstacles courses for the horses to go through and walking them through them. He has walked Bedda over cross rails, and weaved throughout cones and poles and been walking the barrel pattern. Recently Isaac has been brave enough to trot on his own on Bedda. Bedda is such a good horse, she knows to take good care of her kiddos.
Jonathan is 4 years old. JJ was born with a few congenital heart defects, and initially his prognosis was not very good at all. God has worked in miraculous ways for JJ. Because of his heart defects (an XL ASD and a VSD and one side of his heart is a little weaker than the other),he gets short of breath sooner than the other kids and typically runs sats in the 80s. Jonathan does not let CHD hold him back. He runs and climbs, and does everything the normal kiddo would do. JJ LOVES riding Spark and begs to ride her all the time. If I would ask him to do anything for me, he would do it. He likes brushing and grooming the horses, and feeding them alfalfa cubes. He is always sneaking into the barn to give the stalled horses treats. JJ’s heart is not able to be repaired, so he will deal with his congenital heart defects his entire life, but he hasn’t let it slow him down yet. 🙂
And last but not least… Is little Danielle. She is two years old and FULL of sass! Danielle is also a heart warrior. She was born with one side of her heart undersized, an XL VSD (about the same size as JJ’s ASD) and a decent sized ASD, which turned out to be multiple holes in the atrial septal wall. Danielle underwent a surgery for a PA band when she was a tiny peanut, and then had to go back for an emergency surgery after a complication from surgery 5 weeks later, and the PA band surgery was repeated to tighten the band. She recently started showing signs that she was outgrowing the band, having lower sats, and her fingers and toes getting cyanotic when she cried, etc. Danielle had open heart surgery to fully repair her heart at CHOI in Peoria IL two months ago. Her team has been amazing taking care of her, and now her sats are 100% and she is pink all the time, and doing well. She recently had her post op echo done, and everything is functioning as it should. Danielle LOVES ponies, and unicorns! She is all about riding ponies and riding along with Mommy. She got to go on a trail ride with us a few weeks back and she was enjoying the whole trip. Danielle is an all out farm girl. She likes to run barefoot, and loves to swing, and can often be caught digging in the dirt with Malachi. She is a sweet little farm girl Princess.
Over all, we have a fantastic bunch of kiddos. Horses have greatly impacted their lives as well as ours. Horses, ponies, donkeys, rescues, they all touch our hearts, and we are so glad to be a part of touching theirs. The nuzzle of a horse, or the joy of riding, makes such a huge difference in a child’s day. For Malachi and Destini, it is a wonderful escape from trauma they have experienced in their lives. For the adhd child, they come out of their shell and are able to focus on something they love. Horses are therapeutic for anyone. We enjoy all of our adventures as a family and hope you enjoy following along with them on Facebook!
