October 20-23, 2016 Organized by Tammy

Blue Heron Lodge

Note from Tammy

Hello One and All,

It’s almost time for another exciting rendition of the Olson Family Vacation.  I know many of you are feeling a bit antsy, wondering when is Tammy going to send out an email with all of the details for this fabulous weekend.  Well folks, that time has finally arrived.  It’s time to get planning!

We have the cabin from Thursday, October 20th at 4pm until Sunday, October 23rd at 11am.  The Thingelstad group will plan to be at the cabin by 4pm in case anyone else would like to be at the cabin by 4pm.  The rest of you are welcome to arrive whenever the mood strikes (including sometime on Friday). Dinner on Thursday night will be each family’s business to take care of however they would like.  

We have 5 meals to cook (Friday, Saturday and Sunday breakfast and Friday and Saturday dinner) and 5 families to cook them; it’s a match made in heaven.  My thought is that Corinne and Denny could take either Friday or Saturday dinner and we Thingelstad folk would take the other dinner and then the rest of you could each take a breakfast.  Lunches will be provided by your family, for your family.  There is a fire pit, so we’ll bring some s’more fixins’ as well.  I’ve asked Corinne and Denny if they would be so kind as to bring their famous Kit Kat Bars so that we might all gorge ourselves on their deliciousness and fight to the death for the last one.  Feel free to bring any other food or drink items as you see fit.  

Corinne and Denny have been preparing for months to bring a human version of Hungry Hippos to the OFV.  This will be the debut year and I couldn’t be more excited.  If you guys need help gathering supplies or the like, please let me know and I’d be happy to join in the preparation with you!  Angie is always preparing some type of craft, so I was hoping she could either have a crafter-noon for the kids or the adults or the women or some combination of people.  Jamie set up a photo booth type thing the last time we were in charge of the OFV and I was hoping he’d be up for doing such a thing this time around.  Mom and Dad play a lot of games, so I thought they could be in charge of bringing games and organizing some game play or maybe a tournament of some sort.  That leaves H&M…any ideas?  Maybe you could make cookies with the kids?  I’m just spit-balling here for the whole group…We don’t all have to bring a thing to do, just thought it was fun when we did it before.  If you aren’t interested or want to do something different or more than one thing, cool.  

If we wish to visit the Soudan Mine again this year, it’s about an hour drive from the cabin.  There isn’t much else around the cabin other than wilderness and lakes.   There are a couple of small towns that we could go to, but I’m not sure they would provide much entertainment.  I’m thinking we’re mainly going to be at the cabin as it seems to afford the most opportunity for fun : ).   

The cabin has 7 bedrooms, so we will have 2 extra.  The cabin also has a sauna and hot tub, so if you are interested in those things bring your bathing suit.  The downstairs entertainment area has air hockey, foosball, pool table and darts.  Outside there is a full size tennis court and basketball court.  There are rackets, balls, and other supplies at the cabin to use in the court area. The cabin is $338.20 per couple for the weekend.  Please bring your check with you, thanks!  Here is the address…Blue Heron Lodge, 3317 Wilderness Way Road, Cook, MN 55723.  If you have any other questions, ideas or changes for the weekend, let us all know!

Here’s to another great year of family togetherness,

TKT

PS:  If you wouldn’t mind letting me know which meal you will bring and if you will bring an activity and what that activity would be, that would help me to feel more organized.  Hidey-Ho!

location: 47.960350,-92.571447

See Olson Family Vacation collection.