Busy Times

Busy Times
By Allan Olson
So why is it when you have company, or if you’re out of town, the time flies by extremely fast, but when you have nothing to do and the house is quiet, time drags by like pushing a car down the highway inch by inch?
Well, I don’t have an answer for it, but last weekend flew by – all three days of it. My brother and sister-in-law and their family arrived at our house on Friday night, ready for a weekend of fun. We spent most of that evening visiting and hit the sack early.
The kids were up early on Saturday, and as much as we wanted to ignore them, soon their demands to be fed forced us to comply.
That afternoon we headed to the tubing hill, a group of two adults and seven kids ages 5-13. At first I tried keeping the younger ones close with an older cousin, but that plan didn’t work for long. Abigail and Marcus had just been tubing with their classmates on Thursday and had no intention of waiting around for anyone, and Alivia was just as determined. There were large groups of people going down the hill on the first couple of rounds; I waited at the bottom to take pictures of the group.
After that I joined the fun, and one time I saw Alivia heading down by herself – she wanted nobody with her. I’ll admit, as a parent, I was a little apprehensive, but in the end I lost track of her more times than I could count. I found myself thinking, “I haven’t seen Alivia in a while...” and look around, and every time she was either climbing up the hill, going down the hill, waiting in line at the top or just finishing a run and turning to go back up. During the whole two hours of tubing she didn’t quit for even five minutes, and probably made more solo runs than any of the rest of the group, who were often going down in pairs or larger combos.
On one of my trips up the hill, I rolled off the tube near the top like we’re supposed to and I heard a loud pop – no, it wasn’t the tube, it was my knee. I’ll admit I used a few choice words, clenching my teeth through the initial pain and limped the remaining few feet to the top of the hill and got in line to go back down with Abigail as the pain subsided slightly. After I reached the bottom I took a time out – I wasn’t going back up.
I could only watch the fun so long, though, and the time we had left was quickly ticking by, so I decided to give it another try. I got back to the top of the hill, rolled off the tube again, and felt my knee starting to go again, and so moved it just enough so it wouldn’t – whew! that was close, I thought. Back at the bottom of the hill, I decided that this time I was definitely done – except I wasn’t. I took another break and decided that this time I was going to walk up. The walking went better until I got near the top, where I could feel the strain on my knee again, thanks to at the angle of the slope, but I made it. I went down the hill one more time, then figured I’d better not press my luck or they might be hauling me off the hill on a stretcher the next time.
That evening some of us played Clue. I figured out the weapon, room and person, but my niece had the next turn and won the game.
On Sunday, we did some more planning for our summer trip (we extended our vacation by a day), but we still haven’t figured out when we’re going to take it. We know it will be lots of fun, and we will all be really tired when it’s done.
Our company left early Sunday afternoon and we still had another full day with no school. We were certain Monday was going to be a long day, but in the end time flew by quickly. The kids were tired and ready for bed that evening, and thankfully nobody was crabby. I think maybe we were all too tired to be crabby.
Our plans are yet to be finalized for the coming weekend, but you can bet that with four children in the mix it very likely won’t be dull!Hopefully the big snow storms being forecast will miss us so we won’t be digging out all weekend. Look at the bright side – March is nearly here, and the cold temperatures will soon be gone.
Thanks for reading, and remember to watch out for school buses on the roads; they are carrying a precious cargo – our children. Also please exercise caution when venturing out on the lakes. Thanks for reading, and have a great and safe weekend. For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com


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