"My Crazy Kids"

Merry Christmas Abigail celebrating the last day of school, until Jan. By Allan Olson Even though I haven’t really felt like I was all full of Christmas cheer this year, when we woke up on Christmas Eve morning, I was ready to celebrate with my family. My wife and I woke up by 5:30 a.m. We just sat and waited for the kids to get up to open their gifts. Marcus was the first one awake – by over an hour – and he watched television with us, waiting for his siblings. Finally I sent him to wake the others up so we could get our Christmas done at home before heading north. When everyone was finally up, I decided to delay things a little by sending them all to shower, since they had made me wait all morning. I figured they could wait a little longer. They finally got to open their gifts and enjoyed them briefly. Then we made them eat something, and we were on the road before 10. Right on schedule.  I thought we would spend the afternoon on the snowmobiles, but my ...

A weekend of running Photo: Abigail finally got make her almond bark covered pretzels last weekend. I sampled plenty to make sure she was doing them right, so I can say with confidence that she did a great job! By Allan Olson This past weekend sure wasn’t very restful – most of it was spent on the go, either in the house doing baking and cleaning, or on the road heading to one town or the other, or a road trip north for our first Christmas celebration of the season. The craziness started with my wife heading out of town to visit a friend in the metro area on Thursday. Then there was the 2016 Big Bear on Friday, along with general Christmas baking preparation for the holidays. I headed into Bemidji and picked my niece up from work on Thursday evening, and stopped at the store to do some Christmas shopping. That’s not my forte, but there were some things I was in charge of getting. Of course, instead of getting what I was supposed to get for the girls, I got wha...

Traveling and baking It happened a week later than originally planned, but we have selected our Christmas tree, and it is now in the house and decorated. We even had the help of two extra kids in selecting the perfect tree this year. By Allan Olson It is a common theme for us during the month of December – we spend most weekends on the run and/or baking in preparation for a couple weekends of feasting and snacking on goodies. Things got chaotic on Tuesday when our oldest daughter, Abigail, went in for a tonsilectomy. It’s not a fun procedure, but she handled it really well. A week later, however, she is still struggling to eat “real food” and feeling a little rough from time to time. Hopefully, she will be better by Sunday and able to enjoy some seasonal food at our first Christmas celebration. Bright and early on Saturday morning (even before bright and early), my wife and I and the boys were up and on the road. The boys hopped on the bus and we followed r...

Weekend Road Trip A tired young man (Nikolai) and his dog slept during the long car ride from up north to home on Sunday, Dec. 4. – Photo by Allan Olson. By Allan Olson I think “weekend road trip” is going to be a common theme for the rest of the month – there isn’t a weekend that I won’t be traveling from now until New Year’s. This past weekend was a quick blast of fun and exhaustion all rolled into one.  We left home at about noon on Saturday and returned at around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday. Our first destination was the big town of Baudette, where we stopped and picked up my mother-in-law, then headed out east of town to visit her dad (my wife’s grandpa) for a couple hours. Since he has opted to remain in Minnesota, we have had the opportunity to see him more this year than most – his normal home in Colorado is just a little too far away for casual visits.  This was an unusually quiet visit. Visits to Grandpa’s in the past have typically been centered...