"My Crazy Kids"

Explore Minnesota This was the first geocache that we found after we abandoned the trail on Sunday afternoon. We had a lot of fun driving around unfamiliar country and finding some geocaches. By Allan Olson It was a long weekend – and a fun weekend. It involved work and play, a good combination of both, probably because if I had too much fun, I wouldn’t want to go to work anymore and then I wouldn’t have any funds for fun. What a conundrum. After school on Friday we set forth delivering some of those awesome summer guides to the area resorts. We started right around Cass Lake and then gradually made our way toward home, hitting many resorts along the way. Earlier that day I received several notifications about new geocaches in our area, and determined that most of them would be best done as a series. So at about 6:30 p.m. I called it quits on the summer guide distribution – I wanted to get those geocaches! We started off on that series of caches and made the ...

A fun and productive weekend Alivia made the find of this geocache on the north shore of Cass Lake. Big sister Abigail was clearly enjoying the fresh air and cold water on her bare feet on Saturday. She had her boots with, but chose to get them wet, and decided that being barefoot was more fun. By Allan Olson It was a very busy, fun and productive weekend. I actually got to sleep in on Saturday – I think I stayed in bed until almost 8 a.m. – amazing! The productivity started when my brother started working on my old water heater – as I’ve stated before, a handyman I am not. We have had smelly hot water for the last couple of months, and while some suggested just pulling the anode rod, we decided that this water heater is at least 16 years old, and it needed to go down the road before it quit altogether. Once my brother got started on that project, I just went and found all the tools that I had (of course, he was smart and brought several with him, since he kn...

A weekend for mom! Alivia wouldn’t get any closer to this friendly(?) snapping turtle that we discovered on Saturday. By Allan Olson As everyone knows, last weekend was one of the most important holidays of the year in Minnesota – the opening of the walleye fishing season! Oh, yeah, it was also Mother’s Day on Sunday. Knowing that, I didn’t plan any major geocaching outings because I figured I might get in trouble. So I started the weekend off on Saturday morning by sleeping in. I made it until nearly 8 a.m. – it helped that I didn’t go to bed until nearly midnight Friday. A large portion of the day was spent cleaning; with my schedule last week and my wife’s the week before, the house was in need of some TLC, so that’s what we gave it. The work list included dishes, laundry, sweeping, mopping, reorganizing and more. That evening we fired up the grill and I cooked the family a meal of brats, burgers and hot dogs – and then mom went back to work mopping and...

A fun and busy weekend It was a fun but long day to reach our milestone of 700 geocaches found, but in the end what mattered was that we spent time together outside, doing something we all enjoy. And this time, I even brought my tripod and camera out to the woods for the occasion. Our next big milestone is #1,000, and our goal is to find it by December 31, 2014! By Allan Olson It’s been a busy week of running for the Olsons, and this week doesn’t look any different – but we did have a lot of fun. The excitement started early on Wednesday morning when a prickly friend visited our neighborhood. Since he decided he didn’t want to stay in the trees, I decided that he wasn’t a friend anymore, especially after my dog spotted him. I went to get my rifle while the kids corralled the dog before the two could get together for a meet and greet. They got our pet in the house while, unfortunately, the porcupine got the business end of my rifle. All that fun (the scent of...