"My Crazy Kids"

Itasca, Geocaching and Bee Stings By Allan Olson Oh boy, what a weekend, chock full of adventure and fun. If you haven’t already guessed, it wasn’t exactly a stay-at-home weekend; it was ultimately a fun and relaxing weekend. My wife and I had talked off and on all week about going to see the Headwaters of the might Mississippi, but we never really made a decision until Saturday morning. We had breakfast, and decided to get packed for the day. The weather promised to be hot again, and we decided to pack the swimming gear and lunch in the cooler for the road. We packed towels, swimsuits, changes of clothes for six and enough food for four growing children and two parents. We loaded the van, cooler, towels and drinking water. I checked to make sure Bob had fresh water and a full dish, and we hit the highway. On our arrival, the kids were excited. “I remember this place!” “Let’s pretend this is our first time, and we’ve never been here,” one of them said. The others squash...

A weekend at home – NOT By Allan Olson We made it until about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning of our stay-at-home weekend, and the rest of the weekend remained busy from morning until night. I knew it was a false hope that we would actually stay at home for at least the majority of the weekend, and I knew by midweek that I wasn’t going to be staying at home for at least Saturday, and then I found there was something for Sunday, too. Like I mentioned, we left home by 9 a.m. on Saturday, with our heading westward. A friend had recently bought a home and moved onto some property about 60 miles to the west. There was also an ulterior motive for visiting our friend (besides seeing her and her soon-to-be-husband’s new home). Several years ago, when we were younger and had only one child, we bought a raffle for a pony at the local fair – on the condition that this friend would help ultimately take care of it, as we knew nothing of raising equine. As fate would have it, we didn’t win th...

The Storm and the Farm By Allan Olson Oh, what a week! We were just firing up the charcoal grill on Monday evening when the rains started to fall. No big deal. I moved over to the garage and fired up the small camping propane grill to cook the evening meal. We devoured supper as the rains continued. We watched as the rain poured harder and the winds picked up speed. We moved to the basement; it was cooler anyway, and after awhile the lights started to flicker. My wife and I knew what was likely to happen – we were going to lose power. And then it happened. For a brief moment we hoped that it would only be temporary, but that hope quickly faded. I decided to go find the Skip Bo cards and a candle, and we played a game by candlelight. With the power out, I decided to have some fun. “Ben, will you start a load of laundry?” I asked my teenage nephew. “Um, sure where’s the laundry room?” he replied. I told him that it was by the girls’ room, and he started in that direction....

A Gathering of Family By Allan Olson Another whirlwind weekend! Last weekend we traveled to a little town between Roseau and Warroad and hosted a family reunion – it was a blast. Of course, it wasn’t all roses getting there. The reunion was set for Friday through Sunday, and we wanted to be there a day early to get things “organized” and ready for the big weekend. After all, it was my idea to hold this crazy event in the first place. The first setback came on Wednesday early morning when Marcus came upstairs and told us he wasn’t feeling well. That morning, after I left for work, he really proved to those at home that he wasn’t feeling well, and continued to do so most of the day. Great! We have a big family reunion planned, and we have a sick child. And of course, usually if one gets sick, eventually so does the rest of the family. This was not a good start to a long weekend. Our plan was to push to to get ready so we could take off Thursday morning, but ...

Another Weekend of Fun Summer By Allan Olson. There is something about this summer that’s making the days fly by extremely fast. I think it all comes down to one thing: we’re having too much fun! Speaking of flying, that is something I got to do last weekend for the first time in at least 10 years. I didn’t travel anywhere out of town, just took an aerial tour of the area between Bemidji and Cass Lake. The plane was just a simple 1960s two-seater, not meant for anything fancy other than a pleasure cruise or a personal/business travel for the pilot and a passenger. Of course I wasn’t the only one who took to the sky on Saturday morning. I mentioned the possibility to Nikolai to see if he was interested in going up in a plane. He was thrilled at the opportunity to take to the wild blue yonder. Since my niece is back, she was also thrilled at the possibility of taking a flight. We arrived at our destination and learned that our plans might have to be postponed to t...