"My Crazy Kids"

Abigail with her great grandfather, on the eve before Christmas Eve. By Allan Olson We spent the Christmas holiday weekend away from home – nothing unusual for us, since our family is all up in the North country. Possibly a little unusual was celebrating two Christmases in the same weekend, as often we celebrate one family gathering early and the other on Christmas – but such was not the case this time. We hit the road late Friday afternoon for our first Christmas celebration, and arrived up North at about dark, still in plenty of time to visit before dining on the delicious food. We stayed and visited and the adults exchanged gifts of Christmas goodies while the kids exchanged gifts. The surprise of the night was when my niece arrived – who we were last told due to her near-child condition would not be able to attend. However, she got doctor’s permission and decided to head up for the family Christmas. We finally called it a night and headed over to my par...

—Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from my family to yours! By Allan Olson Early last week, Nikolai and I headed out in search of a Christmas tree. We were armed with a chainsaw I borrowed from my brother (that I couldn’t get started) and a handsaw. I had two locations in mind; the second one was an afterthought and I really was certain it would be a good location. It turned out that it wasn’t, and we ran out of time to continue our search due to darkness. That was Monday – the one and only day I had an opportunity all week to conduct such a search. On Saturday morning I called out to the kids to ask who wanted to go out searching for a tree again with me – the only one interested was Nikolai. I was clearly not happy with my other children. My wife decided that she was going to go along, and in addition, all the kids would go as well. After all, every other time for the past six years we have all gone out together to pick a tree.  So everyone put o...

#7688—The girls helped “Stuff A Squad” after school on Friday, December 8.   By Allan Olson Every week for the last forever, because I’ve lost count, I’ve been busy on the weekends. Last month it was hunting and holidays, this month the theme is kids and holidays. My wife wanted snow on the ground for family photos, so why didn’t we do it before all the snow melted and it was tad warmer? I have no idea. We got up bright and early for a Saturday (but far later than last Saturday) at about 7:30 a.m. Our intent was to take our family photos outside, in the back yard, before the harsh morning or noon sunlight could create issues with shadows – if we were fortunate enough to get some sunlight. So we got kids up, made them put on the nice new sweaters we bought for the occasion, loaded up the vehicle and made the long trek to the backyard. It might seem silly to start the vehicle to drive us all to the backyard, but I knew it would be cold and it was a given th...

Abigail and a book she received from Shriners. By Allan Olson Once again – we had another weekend – with one day spent – gone all day and the other, spent from the bed, to the chair, to the table, oh and a quick trip to the store. Saturday morning – the boys had to be in two different directions – Nikolai to St. Cloud for a robotics event, Marcus – to Northome for a Lego Robotics Event – that meant no sleeping in for Dad. So well before the roosters and the rest of the barnyard animals were awake, we were on the road to town. I told Nikolai, he was responsible to get himself up and his brother, I wasn’t getting up any sooner than I had to. When my alarm woke me out of my slumber at 4:30 a.m. – I looked out my door to the kitchen and saw the boys were at the table eating some food already – I was happy to see that I didn’t have to wake them. So I grabbed some toast, took the time to brew some tea, started the vehicle and we headed down the road. I dropped Nikolai off first,...