NJ's First Bow

When I was younger my dad and uncle took up archery as a more challenging way to hunt.  So in the off season, we started going to these Archery Shoots which are structured a lot like rounds of golf but with life-size 3D animal targets getting speared at 30-50 yards instead of a neat little ball rolling into a hole. (Don't get me wrong, Dad and I love golf too!) Within a few years I was old enough, or more importantly, strong enough, to pull a bow and was a little bored walking the course with nothing to do. So my dad bought me a bow and I started shooting with them.  At the time, there were so few girls in my age class, that I regularly won, if I was patient enough to shoot all the courses.  (Now I think there are plenty of young girls shooting, so it takes some skill to win.)  The best part of the Archery Shoots was always that we would camp at them.  I love camping- almost all my best kid memories are while we were camping in one spot or another. So when my husband and I moved back to Arizona a few years ago, I was anxious to start camping again! 

When our oldest son, NJ, was 9 months old, we took him camping for the first time and our little tent got snowed on.  We ended up sleeping in my mom and dad's camper and I laid awake all night with NJ in my sleeping bag, paranoid that I'd roll over on him in my sleep. It wasn't the most fun I'd had on a camping trip to say the least, so we bought a camper. Since then, we've really enjoyed our camper. It's a lot of work to get ready and it's still challenging to camp with the little ones, but I can give them a bath each night and turn out the heater if it gets too cold.

Last weekend, Memorial Day, we went camping again (to the same spot we got snowed on coincidentally) but this time it was Gunner's first trip. He's only 4 months old, but I think it was actually easier to camp with him than with a 9 month old- he didn't want down to crawl and could sleep just about anywhere.

One of the best parts of the trip is that my dad bought NJ his first bow.  It's a little compound bow with one suction-cup tipped arrow. I love how he immediately took the one-foot-forward stance (maybe he's been watching the men) and how he had no problem hitting the little antelope with the arrow (at like 2 yards, of course).  It's stuff like this that makes me feel right at home being a mother of boys. (Thank you, Dad!)