Hillbilly Day!

Mt. Whitney is a place my parents used to take us yearly when we were kids. This last weekend we decided to hop in the car with my mom and dad to take the kids to this cool place. We made a day trip out of it. I hadn't been there since I had my kids and was excited to see it through their eyes.

My dad has recently taken up an obsession with guns. Real ones!! He has bought three guns in the last year, one of them being a 22 rifle for Bryce. I was not sure how I felt about guns. They scare the crap out of me, even more so now that I have kids. You realize the danger or possibility of an accident and it frightens me. My dad reassured me that if I wasn't comfortable, Bryce didn't have to shoot. My dad was reciting gun safety with Bryce since he bought his first one. Then when I would get my panties in a bunch over the guns, Bryce would recite these gun safety rules my dad was teaching him.

It was all pretty effective. I decided that since there was no way of taking all the guns off the earth, knowledge and empowerment was the best way to avoid an accident. I figured that if I banned guns, the curiosity would still be there. I would rather him know what to do if he found a gun at sombody's house, than be curious enough to play with it. When you ask him what to do if he finds a gun, he proudly says, "Go find a grown-up!" Hopefully we take the curiosity away by letting him shoot in an adult controlled environment.

So this trip up to mountain-ville/ hick ville was to be the trip that Bryce got to shoot his 22 for the first time. He was beaming with excitement and joy! The things that makes a boy happy! I was nervous....but he did great. His got 9 out of 10 shot on the target. I was pretty impressed. He was also very protective of Leah and made sure he recited all the gun safety rules to her. It was cute!

I think Bobby also got the gun bug and couldn't stop shooting. He now wants to get a gun. GREAT!! I took a couple shots on the 22 and one on my Dad;s 45, but it really didn't do much for me. I will just cheer from the side lines.

We also got to take the kids fishing at the little pond up there. Bryce has been fishing several times and has never caught anything. I don't even know why he wants to still fish! Growing up at this water hole, I knew that we would probably not catch anything because my brothers tried for years and maybe pulled out a couple tiny fish. He was excited though, so we didn't want to discourage him. Well, it must have been Bryce's lucky day! He pulled in two fishes. Within 5 minutes of dropping our lines, my dad caught one that he let Bryce reel in. Bryce was excited but knew that he wasn't the one to catch that fish. He wanted to catch one all by himself. Bobby says, "Oh, we must have gotten lucky."

Next thing you know, Bryce says, "I got a fish!!!"

Bobby says, "He must just have caught the bottom."

Then he looks and realizes he really did have a fish. Bryce pulls in this huge fish. The excitement was awesome!! He caught his first fish all by himself. We were all buzzing.

After the photo shoot was done he tells his dad in a panicky voice, "OK Dad, put him back now, he's still breathing and I don't want to kill him!" That's my boy. Too sweet. Bobby asked if he was sure we didn't want to eat him, but Bryce was like, "Put him back now Dad."

We roasted marshmallows, sat by a campfire, got to shoot, fish, play in the stream, visit fossil falls, eat some camping food, and look at the amazing stars!! We squeezed all this into one day! Needless to say the kids slept well on the way home. It is days like this that I feel so extremely grateful and content with family life. Bryce said it was his favorite day of his life! The next day we were all feeling lazy and Bryce asked if we knew why he was so calm? We said, "No why?" He said because he got to shoot his gun and go fishing, his two favorite things. We'll have to do this more often!