"My Crazy Kids"

Photo 1: Abigail with the joy of discovering a particular difficult geocache we had missed on a prior visit near Cohasset. Photo 2: Alivia and I on the bus on the way back from her third grade field trip.  By Allan Olson Life is a whirlwind – enjoy it while you can. That adage is something I’ve heard many times, and I try to live up to it as much as I can. Another one I’ve always heard is, “Your kids will grow up fast; enjoy them while you can.” To that, I say, “They aren’t kidding!” At the end of this school year, my oldest son will exit middle school. My response: “How is that possible?” It is, and in a few short years, I hope he will be college bound. To clarify, I’m not hoping for the years to fly by, but rather that he attends college and does well academically. This week, I spent time with family. The first four days of the week, and especially the first three week days, I crammed and jammed everything possible into work that I could think of, becau...

My nephew Lavian (left) and Marcus worked together to get into the locked ammo can at our second find of the day on Saturday, April 15, near Warroad. The two boys and I spent the majority of the day driving around finding geocaches. By Allan Olson If all my weekends were as fun and busy as this last one, I would be exhausted. This past weekend was quite possibly the most fun one I’ve had all year; it was very well rounded.  We left for the weekend, heading to my parents’ on Friday afternoon, just before 4 p.m. My plans for Saturday were confirmed – a full day of geocaching. And as much as Marcus annoyed me the day before, I was taking him with me. The girls were going with mom to see their great-grandpa, and Nik was staying with my parents to help Grandpa. He had plans on riding around on Grandpa’s side-by-side ATV, but it was at a neighbor’s shop, so we thought he was out of luck. On Friday night I agreed to pick up my nephew the next morning and tak...

 Nikolai ready to cross home plate. By Allan Olson It’s finally here – baseball season, my favorite of all sports and I spent Saturday watching the game in the great outdoors. This was not in my original plans for the weekend, actually my original plans were geocaching in International Falls, while my wife and girls were at a baby shower – but plans change. When the schedule originally came out for baseball and I noticed the tournament I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to make it, but in the same respect, I was excited I was going to be geocaching instead. However as seems to be the usual course of action in my life lately – plans changed. On Thursday morning, I found out Nikolai was being drafted for varsity baseball for the weekend due to lack of numbers on the varsity team. (Disclaimer – before anyone thinks this is about bragging my son’s skills up –it’s not. Actually, his skill level isn’t that great, but he shows up and participates to the best of his ability. As...

By Allan Olson If I put as many miles on my feet as I did my vehicles, I would be well-qualified to run any marathon. After I turned 16, I avoided biking and running as much as possible, and I still haven’t gotten an urge to take up either of those activities. Friday night was pretty laid back around our house. I played a dice game with the kids, but other than that, we all spent time doing our own thing. We did do some cleaning right when we got home, trying to get rid of the dirt that tracks in this time of year, and we put away the winter stuff, which means it will probably snow again. The evening also involved my wife taking the girls to a movie.  Saturday was a lot more of the same. I headed out in the morning for a meeting, then followed that up with a geocaching event in Bemidji before heading back home. I arrived just as my wife was leaving to a movie with the boys. I tried to get some pictures of the northern lights that night, but clouds rolled in...