Watching an Archery Champion Compete

When I came back from Texas, it happened to correspond when my sister-in-law was going to be in Las Vegas to watch Brady Ellison and his wife Toja compete in the Vegas Shoot Indoor Archery Competition. Brady is my husband's second cousin (or something like that). Brady's gone to the Olympics in Beijing, London, and Rio de Janeiro, bringing home two team silver medals and an individual bronze medal.

I arrived at 8 pm, just in time for the championship shoot-off between Brady and another competitor. They were shooting recurve bows, which are more difficult than the more common compound bows. We had great VIP seating right on the floor. Thanks to my sister-in-law Chris for meeting me at the entrance and showing me the way! It's quite exciting watching the event when you're emotionally invested and really want one of the competitors to win.

Brady ended up placing second for the Indoor World Series finals.

The next morning was a different archery shooting competition, the Las Vegas Shoot, at the same venue. They started with lots of archers out on the floor. I was impressed by how many there were. People had come from around the world, and I think 50 countries were represented.

After the round, the cousins gathered with Toja and Brady at their booth. I couldn't resist buying a couple cool t-shirts for the kids (Desert Boy wore his for a straight week before finally putting it in the laundry). You can find more on the Official Brady Ellison website. I had to head home, but there was still lots more shooting all day long. It's cool knowing world-class athletes, and maybe that will help inspire the kids to practice their archery more. :) And hopefully we can have another cousins' rendezvous this year with even more cousins.

A Little Archery Practice

 With the warmer weather, it's certainly easier to get outside more often. Desert Boy wanted to go out and practice with his bow and arrows that he got for Christmas. He had made his own target.

Ready...

 ...aim...

 ...fire! He did quite well and challenged me to a little competition. I stood farther away and was challenged! I need to practice more.

 Desert Boy really wants to be able to shoot the birds. We have a lot of non-native European starlings and Eurasian collared doves around our house, so if he does shoot them, that would be a good thing. And the collared doves are big enough to eat! I don't think we'll be cooking up anything real soon.

 He's determined to be good, though. He needs to spend some time with his Uncle Matt!

 Desert Girl wanted to try. We quickly she figured out she wasn't quite big enough, but she was a good helper retrieving arrows.

 What good kids! (When they aren't fighting :)

The next challenge was to climb a tree. I told Desert Boy I didn't think it was such a good idea, especially in cowboy boots, but he decided to go for it anyway. I was anticipating some tree rash, wails,  and bandaids.

He made it up fairly high, but bark really isn't the best climbing material.

 So he made a wise decision and jumped off.

The third outside activity took place while I went into the house for a few minutes. Desert Boy found a rope, tied his sister's hands together, threw the other end of the rope over a branch, and then started pulling on it in an attempt to get her up into the tree. I was glued to the window and didn't have my camera handy, so unfortunately didn't get any photos of this experiential learning. Again, I was waiting for loud cries, but in less than a minute it became apparent to Desert Boy that he just wasn't going to be able to pull his sister up in the tree (he only weighs about 5 more pounds than she does). She was quick to get the rope off her wrists and go off to do something by herself. I think they both learned a lot from that little experiment. I will be sure not to teach Desert Boy how to use pulleys and mechanical advantage--we do have enough equipment around here that he could get his sister into the tree by himself!

Hurray for outside time!