"My Crazy Kids"

A Parade Weekend By Allan Olson Oh – the madness of waiting in line with four kids for a parade, the ants in their pants were quite evident as they wrestled around in front of the Elementary school building where our designated spot was located. While waiting for the Cass Lake Chamber of Commerce annual Rib Fest parade to begin on Saturday July 27, their mom dumped the candy in the buckets and also arranged stuff so it would be easy to refill the paper bags and the candy buckets throughout the parade. The boys were in charge of throwing newspapers while the girls were tossing candy and Nikolai and Abigail decided that they wanted to walk in the parade and do their duties while Marcus and Alivia rode in the back of the truck with mom who was assisting them in refilling and perhaps tossed a few papers as well.  Once the parade was underway it was hard to determine if it went really fast or really slow – we were “lucky 13” in the lineup. The first block was a li...

A Cooler Weekend By Allan Olson So perhaps my minor complaint about the extreme heat was heard as the temperature sure did dial down a few degrees this weekend, it still felt warm but it was much nicer to be outside in or baking then in the 90 degree weather we have had. The weekend was by most accounts not very exciting, Saturday morning was spent being largely inactive, and in fact it was so inactive I’m not sure I did anything in the morning. The afternoon was spent at the baseball game, where I along with four kids (three of mine and a nephew again) spent some time watching the Cass Lake Reds trounce the Bemidji Blue Ox team while mom and Abigail were shopping for food for the week and our upcoming vacation. We finally got home just before 6 p.m., unloaded the van and then relaxed. That morning I had decided that with the temperatures around 20 degrees cooler it would be great timing to make some caramel rolls that I haven’t made since before Christmas. I...

Reaching a goal By Allan Olson I don’t want to be one of those people who complain about the weather all the time, but this heat – ick! That’s all I’m going to say on that. Saturday was warm, so we started the morning off by getting even warmer, doing some cleaning. I got us caught up on dishes while the wife worked on floors and other fun chores. The kids were assigned to cleaning duties as well. CLEAN YOUR BEDROOMS – QUICKLY! That was their instruction, and they were only given a 30 minute window to complete the task. Surprisingly, they managed to finish it in the allotted time, or less. They were also assigned tasks such as cleaning the landing and the living room in the basement and upstairs. While those jobs weren’t completed perfectly, they did a pretty good job, and it was getting warm in the house – so we all took a break. Items on our agenda included getting groceries and a possible trip to the local state park. We made it town to get a few grocery...

A Family Fourth of July By Allan Olson A blur . . . or a whirlwind  . . . would be the two best words to define the past weekend. Oh, and of course . . . fun! The weekend, or should I say the Fourth of July holiday, was all of those and more. We headed north to my wife’s family farm for a long weekend of fun and festivities, arriving late Wednesday evening. As soon as we arrived, I left – and no, it wasn’t because all the relatives scared me off. My niece simply wanted someone to ride with her on a run to her house; on the way, she informed me that we had to go to town, too. She had neglected to inform me of that at the outset because she figured I wouldn’t go along, and she was right. Thursday, the big July Fourth holiday, was another day jam-packed with fun. Nikolai and I got up early, conned my niece out of her vehicle and headed to my parents’ place to go fishing with my brother, his boys and my dad (on his birthday). We hit the lake at about 9 a.m. and...

Daddy - daughter day By Allan Olson A question many people ponder, especially adults as we grow older, is: “Why do the weekends always fly by so fast?” Perhaps the answer is because most weekends are packed with fun (or work), so it just seems that the time is flying by. On Friday evening, I volunteered to go help my brother at his store, since he was back to his “second home.” I helped him with stocking some shelves. I have concluded that I don’t understand the world of those who sit in offices developing ideas for tool numbers and how they are arranged. What is their logic? I was looking for a home for a certain tool, and the number sequence was going up, up and up, and then the sequence skips a whole bunch of numbers, leading a normal person to go look somewhere else for their tools. In the end, I was able to fill some shelves with tools in the nearly three hours I spent there. Thankfully, it was after store hours, so I didn’t have to help customers with questions I would...