A Weekend with Kids


A weekend with kids
By Allan Olson
Alivia with a geocache we found Sat. 
It’s my annual weekend/weekday with the kids and it seems like it came upon me with no warning.  My wife left the house I think just prior to Midnight on Friday night – I use the words “I think” because I wasn’t waiting up – it had been a long week, a long day and I was tired. She was waiting up for her ride to the North country so she could go on her annual fishing trip with her mom and sister. The normal plan – with two good working vehicles, would be her driving up there and back – however, insurance as usual is dragging their feet a
nd I still have no idea if my vehicle will be fixed or not. So – with only one running vehicle and my schedule complex – it was arranged for her to get transportation to and from rather than me being the taxi. The thought was tempting – as an alternate route – one out of my way would have me finding some geocaches, but instead she left for and arrived at her destination in the middle of the night.
On Saturday – after a little work and a little play, I ditched Abigail at her best friend’s house for a birthday party. It was her first overnight stay and I would lie if I said I wasn’t a little apprehensive. However, I was confident that she was going to have a good time at her friends and not likely want to come home in the middle of the night – but just in case, I left my phone on ring all night – in case she needed her daddy. She didn’t and I was right – she did have a lot of fun.
That evening, I spent working on solving a geocaching puzzle – one that has been out for a week, but I was having trouble figuring it out. Finally I found what I needed to get started – but I still couldn’t figure it out. I sent it to another geocaching friend who was also trying to solve it and she – once she had what I uncovered, was able to figure it out in about 30 minutes. That only made me more frustrated – so with a couple of hints from her I still was in the “dark.” I finally called my smart son – Nikolai, who learned how to decode the braille writing and together – but mostly him, figured out how to solve the puzzle. After two hours of just me working on it – he was able to help me solve it in about 30-40 minutes –teamwork.
The plans were to get the cache on Sunday – but due to communication breakdown between the other geocacher and I – it didn’t happen. So we are going to attempt it this weekend.  So I spent most of Sunday morning catching up on my recorded shows and reading. At one point, I even was so bored I turned on the football game and found myself watching it for a few minutes. I quickly realized the error of my ways and turned the channel to some other meaningless show. For Sunday afternoon, I spent about three hours getting my niece back to college after a month off for the holidays. We picked up Abigail – headed to Bemidji and we were all laden with items to drag back into her high rise campus apartment on the lake! Helping in the move were my niece, the girls and myself. It would’ve been easier with the boys helping, but Nikolai was laid up with a sore ankle from school on Friday and Marcus still has a broken thumb!
After we finally got back home – I fed the kids and made sure they were ready for bed and the next day of school, before finally retiring myself for the evening.
I think my plans for this weekend, will be not venturing too far from home – I will be out and about Saturday, but Sunday – I hope to be able to make use of the day of rest!
Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.



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