"My Crazy Kids"

Memorial Weekend By Allan Olson This past weekend was a long one, jam-packed full of fun and memories. With the three-day weekend before us on Friday, we still hadn’t made any definite plans to pass the time, but looking back on Monday evening, the time rushed by in a blur. I came home from work on Friday evening and jumped on the mower for a couple of hours before heading back to town for commencement exercises at Cass Lake-Bena. With my “new” riding lawn mower, I made short work out of a large section of the yard before heading inside for something to eat and a change of clothes before going to town. On Saturday, we headed out to deliver copies of our Summer Fun guide to many area resorts. While some might think that would be boring, it was fun to go to all the different places, and the kids enjoyed doing some of the deliveries themselves. “I can do it, Dad, you don’t need to go with me,” they would say. “Okay,” I would just explain where to take the guidebooks...

Road trip weekend By Allan Olson It was a fun but abbreviated weekend last weekend as we enjoyed a road trip that was supposed to encompass two days of fun – but dad created a kink in those plans and not intentionally. Our plans for the weekend were to attend a confirmation for a nephew in International Falls, on Saturday morning we were lazing around as we only had planned to go up and back on Sunday. I however decided that we should geocache on the way up to I. Falls and go one day early. “If we do that we have to leave by noon,” my wife said. “I know,” I said as I had already planned it out in my head. We looked at an alternate route we could take to I. Falls from Blackduck. I checked out the miles online and the alternate route would only add about ten miles to the trip – not bad for a different drive. After scrambling to find clothes for the weekend, packing the cooler, the kids and everything  else in the van we headed on our journey. Our first stop was at a former E...

A Spring Weekend By Allan Olson Okay, I’ve probably complained enough about the weather lately, but it’s been just plain ridiculous this year, especially in the last two months. We are now halfway through the month of May and there is still ice on many of our area lakes (although a few of the smaller ones did give up their ice covers over the weekend). Our plans for last weekend were pretty mild, even though we did have company. On Friday evening my older brother and family arrived for that night and the next day – he had to work on Sunday. We celebrated their new purchase of another Sears store, making this the second of his career. Since this one is in Bemidji, I’m sure that we will be seeing more of them than normal, at least for the first few months. We stayed up until nearly midnight (that’s late for us!) visiting and having a good time. On Saturday morning, my brother needed to conduct some business in town, so I played with a toy he brought along for me to ...

Another Chilly Weekend By Allan Olson Brrr! I’m beginning to wonder if this is October football weather instead of May baseball weather. Last week I stood and watched the home team play their first baseball game of the season and it felt like I was in the deer stand, I was so cold! Thankfully, it’s finally starting to warm up after a chilly weekend. After school on Friday we headed up to the north country around Lake of the Woods, for a birthday party for my brother in-law at the family farm. Prior to the party, we picked up a geocache on the way to the farm. It took a little bit of walking in circles, but once we got headed in the right direction it was a quick find.  With a breeze coming off the river and the below-normal air temperature, it was definitely a “cool” party – but that didn’t stop the kids from running around and having fun. They decided to play tag after just running around the huge yard for nearly an hour – I got tired just watching them. ...

Fun in the sun – and the mud By Allan Olson What an insane weekend! Our activities could be summed up in one word – FUN! At the beginning of last week, we were planning another quiet weekend, with hopes of perhaps finding some geocaches, but instead it turned out to be a crazy weekend with a full house. Late in the week, my wife’s sister called and asked if they could crash our place for her daughter’s 16th birthday party and a weekend getaway. We discussed it briefly, considered the current state of cleanliness of the house and decided, why not? Personally, I enjoy having guests rather than being one. It was really warm on Friday afternoon; the snow was finally melting and water was running down the driveway. Nikolai had been giving it his best effort over the last couple of weeks to get the water to drain out of the yard, but when the big melt hit on Friday it was time for dad to step in and help out. Together, the two of us really got the water flowing, mostly following ...