"My Crazy Kids"

Fun in the Summer Sun The kids at the top of the fire tower on the Beltrami County Fairgrounds! By Allan Olson Part of my goal as a parent is to try and limit the amount of screen time for my kids this summer. That means I have to make an extra effort to find activities for them (in addition to geocaching, of course). Some weekends are easier than others; this past weekend I had no problem keeping them busy.  On Friday afternoon my wife headed to the cities with her mom to pick up her niece, so I had control of the four kids. We started our afternoon by taking in the naturalist program at Norway Beach. My kids were the only ones there, but we had great fun playing Bat Tag anyway. Our next stop was to take advantage of the free Friday admission at the Beltrami County Historical Society. We visited the exhibits, including the traveling natural disasters exhibit displayed; it featured the Wadena Tornado, the Halloween Blizzard of 1991 and several other disas...

Father’s Day road trip The kids and I on Father's Day at Como Zoo! By Allan Olson As usual, another weekend flew right by, gone in a flash. Of course, if you keep busy, it goes by twice as fast. This weekend was extra special for me since it was Father’s Day, and I spent it with my kids – on the road. I ended up making my first trip to the Twin Cities metro area in several years. It seems my niece needed a ride to the Girls State convention, and we agreed to take her. She wanted to do some geocaching on the way, and of course I wasn’t going to say no to that, but the weather didn’t cooperate. It rained the entire time,  but we did manage to grab one cache in between the downpours – barely. We left home at 5 a.m. and I ended up sitting either in the back or in the front passenger seat nearly the entire trip down, because my niece wanted to drive. I took the opportunity to finish my book. Prior to the trip, I had suggested the idea of taking the kids to “Como...

Summer camping Good times were had camping and geocaching at Buffalo River State Park and the nearby towns. It was a fun and tiring three days, and I can’t wait to do it again. Last summer I took my wife and family on a camping trip to South Dakota. We stayed in a small cabin and I didn’t think I would ever go back to a tent again – well I was wrong. On Tuesday I learned of a geocaching event in Detroit Lakes on Saturday. So I proposed several ideas to my wife on things to do for the weekend – including staying home and going to DL. Thankfully, she chose camping and going to DL – what a weekend. We packed our van Thursday night late with all the old and new camping gear and took off. I almost felt like backing out and making it a day trip instead, feeling like this was too rushed. I don’t normally do spontaneous trips like this. This was our first solo camping trip, as normally we camp with others. Friday morning I had the alarm set for 5 a.m. (so much for sleeping in) and we ...

Graduation Day  My little girl, ready to walk into school for the last time as a kindergarten student on Monday morning. By Allan Olson Well, the weekend wasn’t near as eventful as the previous one, which is good and bad, meaning I didn’t go on any more exploring trips around Cass County, and I didn’t get any exercise (Good, right?). But I did manage to hit a couple rummage sales on Saturday and found some geocaching containers and trade items. I was hoping to find a few clothing items for the kids, but that was not to be, although they did get a few cheap items. I found a great deal on a baseball bat for Marcus, and the timing was perfect, since he was looking at a brand new bat in a store earlier, and it was really expen$ive. The family stayed home on Friday night while I headed to the graduation commencement exercise for Cass Lake-Bena. After the ceremony, I got my cake (and ate it, too!) I called my wife and suggested we meet at Shortstop for some ice...