Official archers?

We recently bought Graham and Charlie a used bow to share.  So does that make them official archers??!  The coach where the boys take lessons was actually the one who was able to hook us up with a gently-used one.  Graham and Charlie was so excited last Thursday to try it out!

So it's the red one that Graham is using in this photo above.  It's so big! The bow is probably almost a foot taller than Charlie.  Ha ha!

Although, Charlie is already improving with this new bow:

Nice grouping!  That's worth 29 points!  He was so happy and proud of himself:

Sure beats having to chase squirrels around on the golf course.  Ha ha!

So we all went to play some golf on Saturday.  Graham and Charlie struggled a little bit again but we figured out why Charlie was topping the ball so much.  And Graham made a legit Par on the 8th hole.  Woohoo...!!!

We also went to the archery store to pick up some more gear.  So as if spending money on the new (used) bow and arrows wasn't enough, we had to pick up a new bag, a new tube for the arrows, a new quiver (the thing that holds your arrows which you can hook onto your pants), a bow stringer (so you can release the string on your bow when you are not using it)... and what else, some target sheets too:

We were going to pick up more arrows but it was like $50 for half a dozen.  Perhaps we will just wait on that.  Instead of a backpack, we opted for a tri-fold bag.  A bit tricky to fit the "riser" (the bow handle) into the mesh part, but we'll make it fit:

On Sunday, we decided to go out to the archery range to try out all our new gear.  Bobby thought I was joking when I said that I'll bring the golf push-carts out so it can hold up our umbrellas:

Well,... it's the perfect setup!  And Bobby's the one lounging in the shade.  Ha!

Look at all those haybales.  Each one is basically a spot for people to shoot at.  We picked the one all the way to the right:

And we finally realized why there was a paved path on this very end.  It is reserved for the handicapped.  We now know this because there was a couple that was handicapped and they were rolling their walkers and gear up this path to use this haybale.  

But prior to that... I'm sending Bobby off his chair to help Charlie pull the arrows out. 

My hands were getting a nice burn after pulling some arrows.  Ouch! And Graham was obviously reminding us why we should have picked up the arrow-puller too while we were in the archery store yesterday. Smarty pants!

The golf cart was also the perfect bow stand.  Something else we need to buy but in the meantime, this works!

After a very brief safety class and lesson, Bobby is going to try his first shot at archery:

Not too shabby, he actually hit the target from about 50 feet.  I, on the other hand sent my first arrow over the top of the haybale and lost the arrow.  Ha ha!  I'm actually surprised at how well the boys are pulling this bow - it did require quite some strength!  And by the end of the day, I had personally lost 2 of the boys' arrows.  The family shooting next to us did find a few extra and gave them to us.  Sweet!

Watermelon break!

Nap time!  Graham is always the opportunist :-)

Charlie in the meantime is still busy shooting arrows while Daddy goes out and gets take-out/dinner:

Once we had to move over to the next haybale, I stuck a remnant of an old balloon onto the haybale as a target.  Charlie almost got it!

Thankfully it was much easier to pull out of this haybale.  I could rest my hand and legs :-)

Graham is just still messing about.  He is such a character:

So close!!!  Charlie is so determined.  Love it!

Okay, my last few shots of the day.  Woohoo..!

Daddy is back with take-out.  Dinner at the park and no dishes to wash.  Win-win for Mommy :-)

I never thought we'd ever be spending an entire Sunday afternoon shooting arrows at an archery range.  Almost like never thinking we would have spend 3.5 years in the Middle East.  And never did I EVER think I'd be helping my son dry his now longer hair in a little hair-wrap!

Graham actually didn't want me to take this photo but in the end, he did give in.  He's so cute :-D

We'll see what will happen with this archery thing once school reopens at the end of the month.  We obviously can't take lessons at 7:30pm so hopefully the coach will be able to reschedule us at a more decent time and hopefully still honor the group rate?  Our other friends have decided to stop due to the increasing number of Covid (Delta variant) cases, while we have decided to keep going.  I'm hoping that maybe someday they will be able to participate in some tournaments.  How fun will that be!!