"My Crazy Kids"

Another Wintery Weekend Cut: Marcus wanted to learn how to make an omelet on Saturday, so we practiced on mom’s first, and then he helped make his own.   By Allan Olson Well, the joke’s on us! The first day of spring (March 20) finally arrived, and while we once had visions of green grass, chirping birds and warmer days – those were, in fact, fantasies, once again postponed by reality. Instead of warmer temperatures, we were greeted with another snow storm. This latest round of heavy, wet snow – a whopping 10 inches – is sure to delay our thaw even further. Our family had to deal with a power outage for most of Friday. My wife had no power during part of the morning and afternoon hours, and then that evening we lost power for another 3+ hours. Of course, that second power outage came when we had food in the oven – luckily, our pizza was almost cooked and the oven was hot enough to finish the job. The kids were annoyed with not having electricity, si...

Geocaching, Cleaning, Baking Cutline: Abigail decided that she needed some more exercise and fresh air after school on Monday and decided that she wanted to run/walk part of the way home. She still had energy left over after her little jaunt, and kept right on wiggling the rest of the night. By Allan Olson This weekend I escaped the house by myself, and then my wife escaped by herself; both were unusual opportunities. Normally I get out of the house, but it’s usually for work – a meeting, game, community event, or all of the above, sometimes even on the same evening. That is something that seems to have occurred quite a bit lately. On Saturday morning I kindly asked my wife to “whip” up a batch of homemade sweet roll dough so I could make some caramel rolls. By noon I had the rolls baked and my mess cleaned up. Then we discussed the possibility of me heading out to a geocaching party in Bemidji. The event consisted of a small group of geocachers getting tog...

A weekend road trip  The kids studied the menu and did some coloring at a restaurant in Duluth. They were hyped up after shopping all morning, and finally got a chance to sit down for a some food during our weekend road trip. By Allan Olson Even though free lodging is no longer available for us in the big city on the hill to the east (i.e., Duluth), we decided Friday night that we would head in that direction anyway. We left home Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at our first stop, Sam’s Club, shortly after they opened.  We had all agreed before leaving home that it was going to be a long day, and in order for us to survive the day, we were all going to need to have some patience. And so . . . the fighting began when we were only a few miles east of town on Highway 2. Since I was battling a cold, I was in no mood to listen to it, so I pulled over and informed everyone that either it stops now or we turn around and go home. Wisely, th...

Nikolai celebrated his 11th birthday on Saturday with a few cousins and his siblings, all who were eager to attack his birthday cake – an aircraft carrier. Birthday fun and the Olympics By Allan Olson We survived another long weekend with a house full of kids, and I mean long, since they were fortunate enough to get a four-day weekend after conferences on Wednesday evening, so we were able to enjoy their company twice as long as usual. We were prepared for company on Friday evening. My cousin and his family were stopping by on their way through to look at a new residence a little further northwest. (This means we will no longer have access to the free lodging we have become accustomed to in Duluth, but apparently that’s not a good enough reason for them to stay there.) They arrived late, but so did I after attending a basketball game. Once they arrived, the fun began. They brought beverages and a game – Rummy Royal. Even though it was 10 p.m. (my offici...

  The four kids were busy entertaining their grandparents Friday evening, and even convinced Grandpa to play with the Legos. From there, the kids expanded on their “masterpieces” over the rest of the weekend, and now the Legos have invaded the whole house – again!   Did I do that? By Allan Olson It’s a good thing it’s been cold out, or I would feel guilty about not getting ambitious and doing some projects outside. But, since I was bored, I decided to tackle a project that’s been bothering me inside the house. That was my first mistake. The previous owners of this house had coaxial (tv) cables running everywhere; they must have had satellite television in just about every room. When we moved in, we took the cables out of the kids’ bedrooms, but didn’t really get too carried away with a full removal, we just clipped a few to get them out of the way. Well, after a busy Sunday morning of cleaning the fridge, I was looking for something else to do. ...