The Set Up
This entire weekend was full of two things
1.Archery
2.Work!!
We started bright and early Friday morning. Trees had to be loaded from the pile in the field.. the trees we picked up in December.. the 300 of them remember. Stuff had to be gathered from the storage shed, items from the indoor range. Once all the trucks were loaded down and full we headed to Tremonton to the fairgrounds. We were way ahead of schedule this year. We had a lot of help for set up and it was SO nice. When we got there the front end loader was just getting started at moving the dirt piles around. We started with a completely flat bare arena.
We sat in the bleachers and watched for a minute. Chico was freezing even in his sweater. I had to run back to Willard and get Kennedy from school.
They finished moving all the dirt and it was time to unload all the plywood (which covers the walls so arrows dont go into them) drill holes in the bottom of the trees and screw in tree stands, assemble all the animals, drive rebar into the ground to hold them, assemble the markers, drive those into the ground, make sure all the targets are visable and you can see the numbers too from the shooting stands, bring in the stand for the carp, pile in all the dirt where it needs to go and about 12 other tasks that seem to need to be done. We worked from 8am to 5pm getting everything all set up.
We also had to assemble and set up the blind. This is the first blind we have ever done in our shoots before.
The view from outside the blind
These two were great helpers!
They had to go around and pick up all the garbage that was on the ground
And last but not least the boys brought the bags in so they could get the warm up range set up
The finished project!
The Saturday Shoot
Saturday morning started early! Registration was at 8. Shooting line started at 9. We had SO MANY PEOPLE. So many showed up to start we ended up having a several hour wait by mid morning for shooters. We have never ever ever had a wait like that before. We had a ton of people show up to start, plus we had large groups of people that kept coming in steadily. It was crazy!
It stayed steady pretty much all day long. We finally signed up just because we knew it was going to be a while before we could go shoot. Our group had over a 2 hour wait, which was ok because we were working until it was time to shoot.
Todd and Chris
Miss K shot her first event ever
Taylor came along to help and hang out. He didnt bring his bow cause it wasnt sighted in (excuses excuses) he ended up being our bow holder
Jana shot for a little bit but decided it was too crowded and she was done so she went back out to registration.
Me
Kennedy couldnt wait to shoot the fish. That was the one big thing she really wanted to hit
Shooting through the blid. If you look hard at the right of his bow you can see two black dots. Those are boars which was the target.
In shoots like this if you shoot two days one is competition and one is fun. You have to pick which one. We weren't sure if we would have time to shoot Sunday if it was as packed as it was on Saturday so we shot our competition rounds on Saturday.
I shot a 462
Chris shot a 512
Todd 506
and in other news Kennedy pulled out her 4th tooth while she was there woo woo! Her bottom teeth are crowding in and it was time to get the next one out! You can see where the one was already pushing it out of the way
and OTHER BIGGER NEWS... during the shoot someone got engaged! Not just someone.. but members of our club :) Marc Swain and his girlfriend Lisa Marie. Marc was out running the line. He had Lisa Marie come over and help him with a target. She was picking it up and he knelt down to help her. When she turned around he was down on one knee in front of EVERYONE and had a ring in his hand. My pictures are really crappy but you get the idea!
She said yes!
Congrats to you guys and your families!
The Sunday Shoot
Sunday was so much better as far as wait and people. It stayed steady most the day but there wasnt more than a 20 minute wait. We helped for a while and when it slowed down some we took our turn out to shoot again. Taylor was there again too and Dad brought one of his bows for him to shoot. It took a second to get him all set up and adjusted in. He had never shot this bow before, or this pin set up, plus was using a completely different style release than he had ever shot. He was up for the challenge though and wanted to play!
Todd and Taylor
Mom running the line
Most of us shot way better the second day which of course was our fun shoot and the scores didnt count at all
Chris shot a 530 (which is super good)
Todd shot the exact same again 506
Taylor did very well and shot 468
I improved a ton over my first day and shot a 500.
In the end Chris placed 8th in his flight
Todd placed 1st in his flight
I placed 4th in my flight
Your flight is broken down into your age, the style you shoot and the score brackets. So we all are in different flights and groups. Mom took 1st in hers and so did Dad also.
The tear down
The shoot went until 3pm on Sunday. As soon as the last shooter is done we start tearing everything down. We start with all the animals. Then throw the trees in to the center so theyre easier to pickup. Take out all the plywood, pull the shooting steaks and rebar etc. The targets are made of a very dense foam and are pretty heavy! Lilly and Averie wanted the bear.
We load all the trees into a dump trailer and take them to a spot near by at the fairgrounds to dump them. Then the fairgrounds burn them from there. So we can just make several trips with the dump trailer instead of having to haul them all back to Willard.
From there we go back and unload everything off the trailers and put back into the storage sheds. We had 3 very long days full of work! Thank you so so very much to everyone who worked so hard and helped so much! Its a lot to do and take care of and with so many people helping it made it go smoother and faster all around! The shoot was a great success (even with the long waits) we had over 350 shooters!!
