Outdoor Adventure Day

A few weeks ago, while The Hubs was shopping for his birthday fishing pole, I found a flyer and snapped a picture of it on a whim.  I'm totally thrilled that I did.  The flyer was for an outdoor adventure  day at Unicoi State Park for this weekend that included free fly fishing casting lessons, fly tying, wildlife shows, skeet shooting, air soft gun shooting, archery, trout fishing, hay rides, and raffles.  Did I mention it was ALL FREE!!! My kind of price!  This is an annual event, so mark your calendars for next year.  

The Hubs receiving a fly casting lesson

The weather was perfect!  And beautiful!  Can't you tell?

My first fly casting attempts

I didn't do too shabby considering I had never touched a fly rod before.  I was only a little spazz-tic.

Pooter chilling and watching the lessons

I had a few offers from some strangers to take Matthan home with them (I didn't take any of them up on this, case you were worried).  Mr. Paul was one of them.  He just scooped Matthan out of my arms and had him smiling in seconds.  He looked like a pro.  Then I found out he has 13 grandchildren.  Yeah...I'd say that's a pro.  

Mr. Paul and Matthan

For my kid who doesn't like grass, he sure adapted quickly.  While Daddy was learning to tie flies, Matthan crawled all over the ground, even played with some dirt.  I'm so proud.  I found a bunch of key chains on a table and gave him one and he was oh-so-entertained.  He continued to crawl all around with the key chain in his hand.  I have a bazillion pictures from his adventures and it was so hard to narrow them down.

Love that face!

They stocked the stream with trout that morning, but despite that, The Hubs didn't catch anything.  He had fun trying though.  He's getting pretty good...at casting...he's still working on catching.

Daddy fishing for trout and testing out the flies we made

I pushed Matthan around until he fell asleep, and so he napped while Daddy fished.  I wanted to crawl in there and cuddle and nap with him.

Pooter took a nap while Daddy fished

After the raffle, where we didn't win anything, we head over so I could shoot some arrows.  Don't I look intimidating?

Unloaded, case you were worried.

So, I found out that I am double jointed in my elbow.  The instructor told me this after I snapped my arm a couple times with the bow.  Can I just tell you, that HURTS LIKE THE DICKENS!!!  I still have bruises.  Anyway, my double jointed-ness put my arm at risk for getting whacked, so the instructor helped me adjust to avoid this.  Bless him.  (Click on the picture below to see my mad skillz).

Check out my sweet archery skills

We traipsed up the hill to shoot some skeet and I was all prepared for Matthan to freak out, but he didn't!  I shot first.  Yep, that's right, yours truly shot a shotgun.  The instructor laughed at me because of the noise I made the first time the gun went off.  It was something like Grrhhoommppff!  I thought I hit 2 out of seven but The Hubs says I hit more than that.  Whatever!  I hit some!  That was more that I expected.

The Hubs shooting some skeet

The Hubs did really well.  That's because he had so much cuteness cheering him on :)

Smiles even when guns are going off around him