"My Crazy Kids"

Hats off to CLBES By Allan Olson It’s been an exciting, interesting and even challenging year, with two more school aged children in our family, as the twins finally started school at Cass Lake-Bena Elementary. Exciting: It’s been exciting watching Abigail and Marcus come home day after day talking about what they did, who they played with and what they learned. Abigail measured her success each day by one simple parameter. Upon being asked how her school day went, she would reply: “I got only one take-a-break today,” with a beaming grin. Or occasionally she would say, “I got no take-a-breaks today.” I guess we have to measure her success by the fact that she never had more than two take-a-breaks (if she did, it never came up). Then we have Marcus. If there is a line to cross, he won’t even contemplate crossing it – except at home. For the moment, anyway, he’s a stickler for the rules at school, and we hope he sticks with that. More often than not he would say, “...

A Fishy Weekend By Allan Olson We were living the high life last weekend. With fishing on the brain, we committed to the hard task of catching fish. It all started on Friday afternoon. We hit the big water (Lake of the Woods) out of Morris Point at about 3 p.m. – that was an adventure. Along for the trip were my wife and I, our four kids, and my parents. Marcus had been talking about going fishing all day, and that got me excited, since normally he’s the one who doesn’t like to fish. The girls and Nikolai were ready to hit the lake, too. Of course, they wanted to explore the island and go swimming as well – neither of which were an option. The captain of the boat, Alivia, helped navigate us to our destination (with grandpa close beside her, controlling the speed and helping her keep it in the right direction). The afternoon on the boat consisted of trying to get the kids to stay in one spot and leave their line in the water – a challenge for any kid. If I would have count...

A fun and productive weekend By Allan Olson They say all work and no play makes for a long day. This past weekend was full of work and play. Friday was a great evening for baseball, and even though the home team lost, it was still a lot of fun to watch. The work started on Saturday morning. It was time to do some “deep” cleaning in the house, so we did. All the kids had chores to help with, and for the most part, they did. Abigail apparently woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and so was sent back there. It turned out that she really did need to go back, as she fell fast asleep with little complaining about how unfair it was that she was back in bed. About an hour later, she woke up in a much better mood (although she was still largely unproductive in her cleaning effort). After lunch, with the house looking in better shape, it was time to head outside to start on our “hay” field. Since my wife started working on the lawn Friday night, I needed to get it f...

A Boring Weekend By Allan Olson Last weekend was mostly boring and uneventful, aside from getting all the kids over that pesky little flu bug that hit everyone in our family in the course of less than a week. The kids, of course, were all anxious to hit the great outdoors again, once they felt better. Their bikes, once put away, are back to being scattered around the yard. We spent the majority of the weekend at home. My brother arrived for the weekend on Friday night to help plan for a family reunion. While I worked on Saturday, some of them decided to try their hand at geocaching – something we’ve only done once. If we can get all the kids interested in this, we will hopefully be spending some free days hunting for the area treasure boxes on summer weekends. This coming weekend, many people will celebrate Mother’s Day. Of course, some will celebrate it from a boat, as it just happens to coincide with one of the most popular weekends of the year in Minnesota...

Ride like the wind! By Allan Olson Well, it’s finally happened! Another milestone has been reached in this home – our last child, Alivia, has learned to ride a bike without the aid of the training wheels. Since she left town with her mom to spend the week at Grandma’s, she had the privilege of being spoiled by Grandma, aunty and three cousins. She enjoyed her time away from home by playing with other toys, going to a Christian music concert one evening that week and bringing home some treasures from the event including autographs of all the members of the group. That was the second thing she showed me on my arrival with the other kids Friday night. The first thing she had to show, though, was her newly-acquired skill of riding the bike with virtually no assistance. In a matter of three short days, and with a little help from three special cousins (Makaylah, Angela and Mike) she was soon riding like the wind. The first of three helped her balance the bike while she got settl...