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.