"My Crazy Kids"

Nikolai and his big catch on Lake of the Woods Winter Fishing By Allan Olson For the first time all season and possibly the first time in two years, I was finally able to get in some hard water fishing and the result was poor – but still fun. Thanks to my wife’s sister we were able to spend the day on Saturday on Lake of the Woods jigging our lines in hopes of something big and fine. Instead, we ended up with only wet, tangled lines and three small fish for our efforts. We started packing and loading the vehicle on Friday evening and since I prefer to travel mostly by light rather than night – we hit the road shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Saturday morning our destination – eight miles north of any land and about 11 miles on the ice roads total. We were making good time on the mostly deserted stretch of highway until we hit the big town of Waskish – where the roads were slick with ice and the wind was threatening to push us off the road even in 4WD if I kept my speeds up – so...

Birthday Fun Weekend By Allan Olson This weekend was about celebrating Nikolai’s birthday the big #13. The plans for the weekend were set for Saturday and Sunday with bowling and a shooting contest both planned. On Saturday morning I made the garbage run, picked up my niece and grabbed a few last minute supplies at the store along with a brief stop for some very delicious java. In all the ‘quick’ trip took about two hours and by the time I returned home my brother and sister-in-law had arrived with their three kids to leave for the weekend. I visited with them for a bit before they left, helped my wife a little bit and then left again for work. When I finally returned home a few hours later – I found the kids and my wife playing poker. I found some food and decided to read. The game was eventually abandoned and soon it was my turn to be the party host. We headed back into town for the rest of the evenings birthday fun. We met another nephew who was late due to a basketball ga...

A Weekend with Company By Allan Olson As usual, the weekend went by in a blur and a lot of fun was had with my cousin and family.   We had been trying to get together with my cousin and his family for a few weeks and this weekend it finally worked out and they made the trek to our house in the woods and came for a weekend visit. Abigail decided to roll, instead of walk downhill. On Friday after school, we as mean parents forced the children to clean up the mess they had made during the week to get ready for company –finally calling it quits sometime after 8 p.m. My cousin and family made their arrival close to 10 p.m. and the kids were ready to play and the adults were ready to sit back, visit and sip on an adult beverage and play a game. The game on the evening was one my cousin brought with – Cards Against Humanity. While I can understand how some might feel about the game given some of the choices and combinations of cards to match, however, it is exactly that a game...

Walking in the Snow Lake Bemidji Bog Walk in the winter. By Allan Olson Oh what fun it is to – enjoy the great outdoors in a warm January thaw, unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should’ve. A couple weeks ago when Marcus got his last cast I had this idea about a geocaching event, one that would require finding the right Olson kid with the correct log book – his cast. Since it was January I planned for an indoor event at the mall. Marcus would be wandering about the mall while those who signed up to attend the event would be searching for him. To help with this I enlisted the help of my niece who was supposed to walk around the mall with him. Of course – being a college student she had difficulty following instructions on this task, although the reality of it was, she never took the time to eat prior to us picking her up from the dorm and went straight to the pretzel place for some food and sat down in the middle of the mall. Since Marcus is too young to wander ab...