"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 ...