Air Rifle County Shoot

 This afternoon was our 4H air rifle county shoot.  The ten year old is really into the shooting sports.

 They had to shoot from three positions - prone, sitting, and kneeling.

 Between rounds, the two year old offered a little brotherly encouragement.

 And encouraged one of the ten year old's best friends too.

 The peanut gallery was pretty silent while the brother was shooting.  But then we had to wait for another round of shooters - over an hour longer - before awards were given out.  It was a nightmare trying to keep the little ones quiet.

(Over the last two nights I've figured out that the five year old reacts very badly to something in Caprisun juice bags.  Both nights he has gone from being sweet, quiet, and polite, to crazy, wild and out of control within minutes.  I think we're going to have to eliminate them.  Unfortunately, he loves them.)

This was all of the boys (and the one girl) that participated in the county shoot.  (One boy was missing from the picture.)

 These two were a riot.  They are friends from church and always look forward to playing together.

He likes her silky hair.  :)

This was toward the end when I took them into a back room in hopes of keeping them quiet (it didn't work for long).

I love her face in this one :)

When they finally announced the awards, our ten year old was Reserve Grand Champion!  Second place :)

He also scored his personal best on one set of targets - 88 out of 100 points!  In fact his scores were - prone 88 and 87 (they shoot two pages of targets from the prone position, sitting 68, and kneeling 71.  His total score was 314.

The impressive thing was that the 5 seniors that participated were only 10 points apart in their scores.  They ranged from 316-326 (but they have to shoot from the standing position, which is much harder, and the junior level doesn't have to do that).

 When we got home, the wind started blowing like crazy, bringing in another storm.  You can't tell well from the photos, but it was snowing completely sideways with very high winds.

It blew down the castle that the ten year old had set up, waiting for Dad to help with the screws (we never managed to get this put together when we moved in last fall.

Within just a couple of minutes, it was plastered with snow.

It's dark now, but my kitchen window (on the west side of the house) is completely blocked with snow, and we have a good two inches on the deck, despite the high wind.  Springtime in the Rockies :)