A weekend wedding

- Abigail danced a little with her great-grandfather, who at nearly 98, still wanted to get out and enjoy the fun on the dance floor.

By Allan Olson

I’ll be flat out honest – spending a weekend around wedding-related activities is not my idea of a fun time. But now that it’s done, it wasn’t terrible; I survived and still found time for some fun things.

We hit the road at about 7 p.m. on Friday and headed for the north country, with a destination of International Falls. Our reason for going was, of course, the wedding. We checked into our hotel late that night, after dropping Nikolai off at my brother’s, and then I took the other three kids swimming.

We enjoyed a very ample breakfast at the hotel on Saturday morning and then I headed out geocaching by myself. It was wet and a little chilly, but I was determined to find some geocaches that have been on my radar for a long time. I set out in search of the first one and since I knew it was in need of replacement, I brought a new container along. My search didn’t take long; the coordinates were good and the location was pretty obvious. I swapped containers and put the old one in the trash before heading out in search of another. In all, I managed to find five geocaches in town that morning – including a multi that took a little time to figure out. I also had coffee with my older brother.

At the coffee shop, I was sitting parked in the lot, waiting for my brother when I heard the squeal of tires and then a crunch. Some young kid ruined an angler’s dreams of getting out on the water for the weekend (or probably the rest of the season) when he failed to stop for the light and rammed his car right into the guy’s boat motor, destroying the front of his vehicle. That is certainly not the way I would’ve wanted to start out my day, so I was glad I was sitting in the parking lot  watching and not at the lights.

I made it back to the hotel before 11, and a short time later the kids started getting ready for the big event. We left the hotel before 1 p.m., picked up Nikolai and headed to the church. The wedding itself was pretty standard affair, with no runaway bride or groom, nor any big scene like you see in most movies of that nature. Back at the hotel afterwards, our room became a staging area for other family members, and the kids and I played in the game room. I played three games of pool against two different people and won all of them (two by default) and quit while I was ahead.

I was sitting in my vehicle (a quiet place) reading when I decided to message my nieces to see if they wanted to join me for coffee. They readily accepted the invitation, so I met them by the door. One said, “I got shotgun!” and the other said “I’m driving!” leaving me at a loss for words. So I did what any gentleman would do – accepted defeat and climbed in the back seat.

There was a lot of waiting at the reception – and once things got rolling, instead of the “typical” banging on glasses to get the bride and groom to smooch – someone had to step up and sing a song with the word “love” in it. At my table, the kids were discussing different songs and they came up with one and were debating about who – if anyone – would go up and sing it, when all of a sudden Alivia headed up to the stage and grabbed the microphone to sing a song and say a few words to the bride and groom. I grabbed my camera and snapped some photos to document the moment for the future.

Eventually everyone was released to go get some food (which was great) and a couple of the kids went back more than once so they could fill up. It wasn’t long before the music started playing. Right away the girls wanted me to go dance, but I told them maybe later. Eventually I did go dance with my girls (if you can call what I do dancing), much to their amusement. We rocked out to a few songs before I called it good enough and moved on out of the area. Abigail also had the opportunity to dance with her nearly 98-year-old grandfather for a brief moment; however, he had already “boogied” to a couple of songs and was tired out.

The kids and I eventually made our way back to the pool room, where they enjoyed playing in the water for about an hour before the pool closed. I decided that I wasn’t going to swim this time, but put my swimming stuff on just in case. Once the kids were ready for bed, I put my non-pool clothes on again and headed back to the dance to join my wife. I told her I would stay as long as she wanted, but that turned out to be only a short time.  

After yet another hearty breakfast on Sunday morning, I took the kids down to the pool one more time for another hour. This time, I sat in the hot tub and played in the pool with the kids a bit. We left the hotel just before the 11 a.m. checkout time, and once again I went in search of a couple more geocaches. We left for home about 1 p.m., and after several stops we got home at 6 p.m. with the trip taking about three hours longer than normal due to some geocaching along the way.

This week is going to be crazy busy once again – and Saturday is our semi-annual geocaching ditch cleaning weekend. Sunday looks to be free at this point, so if the weather is right, maybe we can try a little fishing or hunting.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that will be 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.