Father's Day Weekend Recap!

Warning: Super Long and Probably Boring Post haha

This last weekend I traveled to the Fresno area for my brother's State Championship for the Scholastic Clay Target Program. But before that trip started, I did a lot of other stuff!

On Friday I went to Napa and had lunch at Firewood Cafe with my good friend Lindsey. It was such amazing food, and great to catch up! After lunch we walked around Copperfield's book store and saw some really cute little things that I wanted to buy, but knew I shouldn't (ex: funny magnets, a cute journal, and a sassy reusable shopping tote).

After Napa, I drove to Livermore, and waited for Clay to get off of work at 9. While waiting I decided I would go shopping for some last minute Father's Day gifts and came away with a 16ft above ground pool, with the idea that I could set it up all by myself so it would be a neat surprise when my dad got home on Sunday from Fresno. BAD IDEA. I spent 4 hours trying to set this thing up, and finally gave up. It was so heavy, the ground was too uneven, and I was exhausted. I was really disappointed because I thought it would be super cool to have it all ready to go, but instead I drug it into our red barn to await dad's arrival on Sunday.

Once Clay got home at 9, we hit the road. He drove for the first 45 minutes, and then we stopped for gas and I took the wheel. Although he has been driving for 2 years, he doesn't have as much freeway experience as I do and a) I could tell he was somewhat intimidated by it and b) he was really inconsistent with his speed. I drove for a couple of hours then we traded again because all of the oncoming headlights were making me sleepy haha. We finally rolled into camp around 1:15 am and went straight to bed!

Saturday morning we woke up early and ate breakfast because Clay had a team meeting at 8. Then we headed from the campground over to the Traps. There were 30 traps, and the Trap range was at least a mile long, it was crazy!

Clay waiting to shoot.

Dad taking pictures with Clay's new Cannon 50D (spoiled child)

Clay's Squad has 3 girls on it and 2 boys. Girl power!

Each Shooter Shoots 25 times/Trap, and 100 times/Round. So each person on Clay's squad shot 25 times, then they moved to the next trap, and did this 4 times.

Here is Clay after his first 100 Shots, he got his personal best of 98!

After the first round, we went back to the motorhome to eat lunch. And while we were there my mom started making the Chilli for the Team Potluck Dinner that night, and she used the LARGEST can of beans I have ever seen in my life.Then we went out again for the second round of 100. That time Clay got a a 96, which sadly dropped him out of the race for best individual varsity score because the top three kids had a total score of 200, 199, and 198, and Clay finished with a 194, and I think was in 4th or 5th place.

Here is a picture of the Trap Range, it was huge! And there were a TON of people there.

Clay and Dad checking out the score board.

Another family from Clay's team was camped next to us, and they brought their pet birds!! It was so weird, who brings their pet birds camping? And what was even weirder was the fact that these people would take the birds out of the cages and kiss the birds, and let the birds pick food out from their teeth, it was disgusting!

After dinner there was an awards ceremony and a raffle. A guy named John from the USA Olympic Trap Team was there to help hand out the awards and talk to the kids which was neat. Clay won a box of shells, which is about $65.00 so he was excited about that.

And During Clay's first 100 shots he shot 75 straight, so he got a sweet patch!

Here is a picture of the river next to the campground

Home Sweet Home for the weekend!

Then on Sunday we got up and went to the Father's Day breakfast being put on by the Kingsburg Gun Club, and then hit the road! I drove the whole way home so we would get home faster and in one piece haha. We also gave a ride to two of Clay's teammates, and let me tell you, being in the car for 3 hours with 3 teenage boys full of energy was so funny. They were singing and dancing to music ranging from sad country to the thizzle dance, which made the ride go by a lot faster.

Once we got home and unloaded the motorhome we had lunch and gave my dad his Father's Day gifts. After he opened up his wrappable gifts we walked him out to the red barn to reveal the big gift that I so hugely failed at setting up alone. He loved it and we instantly got to work leveling the ground and setting it up!

We picked a spot and my dad got his baby sized tractor to level the ground. Then we raked out the rocks, and he put a layer of sand and then a layer of squishy bark down.

Dad on his baby tractor (don't worry he has big boy tractors too haha)
Then we laid out the pool and started filling it up! Which was taking FOREVER!

All in all I am SO GLAD I stopped trying to put it up myself, it was def. a few person job despite what the stupid box says.

After it was all set up and filing up with water my dad and I went swimming, which was more sitting/wading rather than swimming because there was only about 8 inches of water haha. Then we had a yummy steak dinner and looked at some baby albums and then I headed back to Rohnert Park.

It was a long and busy weekend with a lot of driving, but it was fun spending time with my family and watching Clay shoot!

-Katie

p.s. if you haven't entered my 100th post giveaway make sure you do by Friday! :)