A Warm Weekend

The wind-up... and the pitch. It’s all about learning the

basics at Farris Park during summer baseball. This is

what America’s favorite pastime is all about, learning

the fundamentals of the game while having fun. Marcus

and Alivia were part of a group of kids that joined in the

evening’s activity on Sunday, June 26.

A Warm Weekend

By Allan Olson

Now this isn’t a complaint about the warm weather, because I’m not in a hurry for winter, but wow, it sure was hot on Friday and Saturday. The kids returned home on Thursday evening five full days of fun at their grandparents and attending vacation bible school at their church. When I informed my mom, that we would get them Thursday evening, she told me the kids had their hiding spots all picked out and they weren’t ready to go home. Of course, I had to burst their bubble and simply said, “I grew up there, I know all the hiding spots.”

On Friday afternoon, I brought them swimming at Norway Beach after they helped picked some weeds at the Cass Lake Welcome Garden, after swimming we returned to help a little longer before finally calling it a day and heading home to some much cooler temperatures. Upon further examination, all of us were just a little red from the time spent outdoors, I guess I need to keep some sunscreen in my vehicle for when I decide to make the kids spent the afternoon outdoors in the hot sun.

That evening, I put some hot dogs and brats on the grill, my wife made some ice cream jello and we all enjoyed a nice summer meal. We also had some s’mores makings, but I opted out of starting a fire and if the kids would’ve asked about my improvisation plan, I would’ve made them on the grill, but they didn’t so I didn’t.

Saturday was again a scorcher, with the heat index pushing over 100. Our house while cool downstairs, was sweltering hot upstairs. That morning I made a run into the big city and while in town I scoped out a couple of garage sales, scoring nothing. On the way home, I found another sale to stop at and found a book that held my interest and an old camera for my collection, but little else. At home, we set our children down and informed them, that we have decided on new household work system for earning funds or technology time. My wife and I discussed this idea, of basing either money or technology time, which is valued on the work they complete. After some discussion with the kids all of us came up with an agreeable value for each assigned task. At the moment, they get no credit for doing dishes. My thought was, they eat the food that was cooked then they can clean it up. Their reward for this is simply a full belly.

That evening, we took a drive to cool off in the vehicle, Nikolai opted to stay home and the rest of us, including the dog, went on about a two hour drive, leisurely cruising the backroads of Beltrami and Cass County. We ventured over to South Twin, I wanted to see what the lake would look like on a windy day, I found that the lake had some waves to it, but nothing that would cause me to not want to launch the boat. We let the kids get their feet wet and then loaded up again.  From there we ventured down the road, pulled into the Pimushe boat landing and again found that the wind had little effect on that lake. We continued on our drive this time venturing north east towards the Lake Winnie Campground. We found since our last visit that a fire had visited near the campground and destroyed some forest land, but thankfully the fire was contained before it had caused any damage to the campground. Since the kids were dressed for swimming, we let them out again and told them not to get very wet. Of course that didn’t work too well, but I didn’t really expect it too. After checking out the campground we ventured towards home and called it a day.

On Sunday, it was more cleaning time. Cleaning at our house is like a “Choose your own adventure book.” At least that’s the way I feel. Do we dare tackle this room, if so where does that lead us to next. I chose our room, while my wife worked on laundry. I worked on the collection of DVD’s and other assorted items that seemed to never get put away, took a break for some allergy meds and an hour later I felt really tired, and decided to lay on the blankets piled in a corner and took a short siesta. Abigail came in, saw I was sleeping and found a blanket to cover me with. That little nap didn’t last long and I was working on something else.

Sunday evening, it was finally time for Ferris Park baseball. The rain came right when we started practice, but it didn’t last long and we had no lightning flashing across the sky so we kept on playing. At home, we had a late supper and discussed some plans for the week, which includes the addition of two more guests in the house and some weekend plans. Some of the week includes some horse riding for the kids and at some time this weekend, a trip north to return our extra guests.

It promises to be another busy week and yet another week of little chances of getting the boat out. I’m pretty sure that soon all the pieces will fall together and we will finally be utilizing the boat, but the current outlook is dim.

Our geocaching plans look also about as slim, it seems like lately life is too busy to do much but work and shuffle kids around, but perhaps if time allows, we will hit one at the state park when we go north.

Enjoy your summer, and be sure to 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.