Boulder Big Draw Archery Tournament

What a fun, exhausting day it's been!  We spent most of the day out at a big ranch at an archery tournament.

All the targets are 3D, and there are a total of 40 of them.  Archers wind their way around the ranch to follow the course.

Bright and early, we're ready to start the big day.  I got great smile pictures of all three kids ...

...just not all in the same photo - ha.

 The ranch is huge and beautiful.

 This is the main house - or a small portion of it.

I love the sculpture they have at the top of a big hill.

For my cajun brother in law, here's the first target we encountered :)

Our ten year old was the only one in the family to compete, but I'd love to get a bow and play along :)

The five year old just wanted to hug all the animals :)

They sure have some interesting animals...

If you look past the turkey and water, you'll see the house on the hillside.  We started by the house, then went down the hill and worked our way around the pond toward the right side of the picture, then made a full circle back to the house.  The second half of the course is down to the right of the barn you can barely make out in the photo.

The five and two year old hiked along with us and stopped to play in the sandy dirt whenever their brother stopped to shoot.  They also packed around sticks and such.

At one place on the ranch we noticed a building with a swimming pool inside.  We heard later that this is a hot spring.

I loved seeing so many flowers of different varieties.  I didn't take pictures of them all, but still it was nice to see them.

I almost cut too much off this photo.  If you look on top of the fence on the left side you'll see a target - a raccoon - on the fence.  I was especially thankful that he hit this one.  We could have been searching quite awhile for that arrow.

After completing the loop by the river and around the pond, we took a little breather, changed a diaper, and then the ten year old and I went on to finish the course.  Dad decided to keep the little ones at the shed where they had a big cookout.  They were getting tired already.

This was an example of the tangled mess of willows and other shrubbery that was behind most of the targets.  We lost one arrow, which was a huge improvement over last year.  Sometimes it takes quite a bit of looking to find them back if you miss a target.

They had a huge feast - brisket, pulled pork, ribs, chicken, etc, plus sides and brownies for dessert.

There is always a big inflatable tent with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation logo on it, where kids can shoot BB guns at targets.

The five year old had a great time with this.  He is pretty sure he could shoot a bow too, but I think it will be awhile.  We have a lot of "handling weapons safely" training to do before then :)

It was cool and breezy all morning, but around noon we started getting a few small snow showers.

Thankfully they came in waves and didn't dump too much moisture at once.  The snow melted right away, and was really more like little snowball pellets most of the time.

 But still the boys took advantage of the free snowcone booth.  Since the little guys is allergic to everything, including corn syrup, we just got the ice for him and poured a little diet pepsi over the top.

The five year old had strawberry.

 After the main competition, the ten year old played up at the pop-up targets.  They move up and down, the the deer in the background follows a set of rails and moves as if it's running.

 The sky was pretty amazing today, and constantly changing.

 By the end we were pretty worn out, and ready for the awards and prize drawings.

The ten year old didn't win the shooting contest, but did get one of his tickets drawn for a set of a dozen new arrows.

Before we even made it out of the ranch driveway, the boys were pretty well sacked out.  We let them nap awhile, then headed up to a nice restaurant at a lake for dinner with my husband's parents to have an early Father's Day dinner.  Sounds like my husband may have to work tomorrow, so this was a chance for him to celebrate.