"My Crazy Kids"

Celebrating with Family By Allan Olson On the road again, that seems to always be my motto – often by my own choosing since I have a hard time sitting still, but the first road trip of the weekend was a trek north to my parents for Christmas. My wife and I discussed a time to leave on Christmas Day and decided between 6 and 6:30 a.m. – I informed her I was leaving my alarm Abigail and me getting ready to ride. set for 6 a.m. since that’s what it’s at all the time. Of course the alarm wasn’t needed as we woke up shortly after 5:30 a.m. We started packing things up and getting the vehicle ready along with the children and finally made it on the road about 6:50 a.m. – a little later than planned but we still had several hours before we were expected. We arrived in Baudette about 8:30 a.m. and went to visit with her mom before heading a little further west to my folks – who already had a house full of guests. It took a few trips into the house before we had the vehicle unloade...

My niece Angela and I. The first Christmas Celebration By Allan Olson It was another day on the road for this crew on Saturday as we left the house at 12 p.m. sharp heading for our first of two Christmas Parties. In the morning, I enjoyed about 90 minutes more of sleep than usual and then about the same of television time before I starting rousing the crew to start the process of getting ready. The process – includes being ignored at least the first two times and me forgetting to remind them for at least 30 minute intervals before I realized that I informed one or more of the kids to start getting ready – including, getting in the shower. Since my children were not so quick to respond – I decided that I might as well get my shower in first –just in case one of them uses all the water. Earlier that morning Marcus had already departed with my niece to go watch his cousin play hockey somewhere, but we still had four kids as another nephew had come to stay the night before so m...

A day on the road By Allan Olson This weekend found us on the road – extremely earlier, it was so early that the birds weren’t even out of their nests yet – proving once again that they are much smarter than us. Since Nikolai had his first and only competition of the year for the Lego League Robotics Program in Duluth on Saturday we decided to head east and watch the competition first hand – to see what he had been working on all school year. So we made the commitment to be there to support him and the rest of the team, doing so meant that we would be literally gone all day. He had to meet the bus at 5 a.m. – so since we are over 20 miles from town and six of us at to get out the door I had my alarm set for 3:45 a.m. – that’s worse than deer season. Our goal was to get out the door and on the road by 4:20, we made at 4:25, still in time to make it to the bus. After dropping him off with his team, we headed east ourselves – we arrived in Duluth at 7:30 a.m. and went right to a r...

Weekend Bustle By Allan Olson Just like most weekends this last one was no exception, full of hustle and bustle, many things to do and not enough time to do it all – t hankfully the weekend was gorgeous enough to also spend some time outdoors. Saturday morning kicked off with Nikolai needing to be at the school for Lego League in preparation for the main event this Saturday in Duluth. So I took the time to find some geocaches on the trail between tower hill and Walker. I was prepared for the weather and even donned my orange hunting jacket just in case someone was out muzzle loading or bird hunting, I put on my heavy winter boots as it was quite evident there was snow on the trail and I didn’t want wet feet, I also had my hat, gloves and of course my phone. Confident I was fully prepared I set course 1.39 miles of trail and 12 geocaches as my target. I foolishly thought I could possibly even get more done before I needed to be back in town for the Santa Event. So as prepar...

A Thankful Weekend and 18,000 steps By Allan Olson Food, oh glorio us food, that pretty much was Thanksgiving day, the only thing missing was my fault – mostly due to lack of time, I didn’t get my caramel rolls made and I didn’t get it done during the weekend – fail. The day was as predicted laid back and quiet – with most of us enjoying the Thanksgiving meal in our pajamas. The morning was spent cooking and the afternoon, cleaning up and napping, the evening we enjoyed some pie and played games – a nice small party of nine. On Friday morning my wife and were woke up by Alivia who informed us the flu bug had struck – starting with her – oh joy. Since my wife had to work I was stuck with the sicko – so my full afternoon of road trip geocaching was postponed – however I had plans to be in Menahga by 6 p.m. to meet another geocacher to tackle the two night caches in town. So we had a full block of time in the afternoon to do something with and I decided to spend my time wisely ...

A Thanksgiving Week By Allan Olson Thanksgiving week, a day and ultimately a weekend full of food, oh glorious food, so much food we are in a food coma all week, munching on pies, leftover turkey and ham and so much more that goes with a large festive meal. For probably the last 10 years or maybe more, we have spent Thanksgiving at or near home, usually hosting a meal of some sort for us or a few more – sometimes many more. This year’s event promises to be a much smaller crowd of people and perhaps not as much food, but I’m pretty certain there will be plenty for leftovers. Our guest list will include our family, my niece and my mother in-law as of publication time and according to my niece and wife it will be a pajama party Thanksgiving. This sounded like a great idea to me as stretchy pants won’t be near as constricting as a pair of jeans after several helpings of pan bread, pumpkin pie, ham, turkey, mashed potatoes and likely a variety of other good food that will be placed ...

Weekend Party By Allan Olson This weekend was busy as always with a family of six to entertain, which is exactly what happened this weekend was entertaining. Saturday was the big day to celebrate Alivia’s 8 th birthday she invited everyone in her class – whoops, thankfully not all showed up but those who did including a former classmate who moved about 80 miles faway had a great time. The kids and adults who attended the party all had the opportunity to make some “mad hatter” party hats as some party favor. My wife did 98.9% of all the work in preparing for this party she mad the hats, found all the pieces of scraps in her collection and purchased a few other items to make the hats festive.   The remaining 1.1 % was comprised of a variety people pitching into to make this party a fun time for all. The kids had a great time making them and playing with each other for over two hours. The casualty of the days festivity –was the loss of Marcus’ retainer – he apparently to...

Hunting Tradition Continues By Allan Olson The first weekend of opening whitetail hunting season went by in a blur – especially when you start the day before 5 a.m. and often retire before 9 p.m. This weekend we enjoyed the warmest weather in probably over a decade and certainly the warmest I’ve experienced in several years. For the second time I was able to share my hunting season with my oldest Nikolai who has shown that the love of the sport and tradition is passing on to the next generation. Last year he was the first of his generation to harvest a deer and this season, he was the first of all the hunters to harvest a deer. On opening morning – we had no luck, but that afternoon we were back in the lucky stand and during the noon hour he took a shot at a young deer, unfortunately it proved to be a miss as we could find no evidence of any injury to the deer. We took a quick break for some grub and returned to the stand for the evening post – ready for action. The minutes t...

NightScreams By Allan Olson This weekend was only about half as busy as normal as I only left home twice over the weekend both on Saturday rather than running on both Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately I never headed out on a geocaching run over the weekend and while I suggested it once, I knew the work that needed to be done at home was going to trump it – that and just a little bit of the desire to stay home – knowing what the rest of the month will bring. On Saturday evening we did something very unusual for us on a Halloween night – we went out. I haven’t celebrated Halloween or went trick or treating in over 25 years when I was younger we went to church and had fun with games and friends but since adulthood and longer – we haven’t done much of anything. So this year, I decided that we would try the Haunted House – NightScreams at the Big Winnie Store in Bena. I contacted a friend about this place and she assured me that it was indeed a fun time. I discussed it with my wi...

Another weekend outdoors Alivia focused intently on getting the screw into the board by herself, proving that she really didn’t need dad’s help with the deer stand repair. By Allan Olson Just when a person thinks they have their plans for the week figured out, something else comes up and your plans change. This last weekend I had plans to stay near home and do some geocaching and other work that needed to be done around the house – instead we found out that our nieces confirmation was on Sunday – and not Nov. 1 like we were originally informed. After some discussion with my wife we decided that we would go up for the day and then back home, then I found out my brothers hunting plans for the weekend had changed also and he was going to be at my folks working on deer stands, so once again we changed plans and decided to scrap my other Saturday plans and head north in the morning. So that’s what we did, we hit the road on Saturday morning about 30 minutes late...

Here’s me at the gravestones of my great-great grandparents and my great grandmother in Wisconsin on Saturday, October 17. Ancestry and Geocaching By Allan Olson A month or two back my wife suggested a perfect vacation for the two of us – indulging in thing we both enjoy – for her it ancestry research and for me – geocaching, a win-win scenario for both of us. The only hitch was who could watch the kids – then we had the great brain storm idea of having our niece watch them since we help supply this college student with food staples she will help us with what we needed. Everything fell into place – rather nicely for a change, no kids got sick or any other unforeseen incident that would’ve prevented us from heading on our trip, the weekend we picked was intentional, MEA – no school for kids. So our niece wouldn’t need to deal with getting them to school and back home again – also another bonus was her class schedule was light so all was good. We left home Thursd...

My thanks to a photographer friend who has many years more experience than I and was able to capture several different images for us. I’ve learned over the last few years that it’s definitely much harder to capture images of your own family. – Photo Courtesy of Image Photography. Enjoying the Warm Fall Weather By Allan Olson The weather outside was not frightful – in fact it was rather delightful this past weekend, Saturday had perfect temperatures in the low 70’s and I pushed up those windows early in the morning and hit the kill mode on the furnace. While I had hoped to spend the day geocaching the plans were vetoed and we stayed close to home – after I had already made a run into Cass Lake and back. That afternoon I decided to make a run to dump garbage and Nikolai and I went on a ride on the backroads I had the windows down and enjoyed the breeze as we traveled slowly on the forest road listening to an audio book. If I had bothered to get a hun ting license I...

A Saturday Outdoors By Allan Olson Alivia enjoyed putting some screws in the board on the deer stand stairs. Ultimately she was able to do it twice because later my brother decided that he wanted the stairs on the other side of the stand. Add caption It was a great Saturday to be enjoying the outdoors in northern Minnesota with the late afternoon temperatures touching the early 60’s making it nice and comfortable under the autumn sun. Friday evening we left to go north – the plan for the next day was to work on deer stands, the weather looked about perfect so we knew it was past time to get it done. We arrived at my parents’ home about 9 p.m. and spent the next hour or so visiting before hitting the sack for an early start the next morning. On Saturday we started the morning after breakfast with loading some more supplies for the new deer stand that needed to be built and herded kids outside away from the electronics. Some of us set off on ATV’s and som...

 Marcus roasting a brat on Saturday, Sept. 27. Enjoying Fall By Allan Olson Everyone who lives in this great state of Minnesota knows the weather is as fickle as a little child and one moment/day it could be great and the next miserable. This weekend was about as perfect as it gets in terms of weather and we took advantage of it – sadly it wasn’t geocaching but fun nonetheless. Saturday morning found us leaving the house really –our destination Dakota Motor Co in Farmington. For a few weeks now I have been looking at vehicles and found several I liked en-route to the cities – but more importantly – ones that I liked and won’t hurt the pocket book as much as others. I’ve known it was time to be done with the van for a few months now but I kept putting it off, but finally I decided to make the plunge once again into vehicle payments. For years I had always said, I would buy another minivan in a hurry as this one has been great to me, but realization about where I live and...