Weekend Wrap Up

Is tiredness a sign of a good weekend?  I think so!  I mean I'm sitting here at 8:15pm feeling absolutely exhausted from the weekend.

What did I get up to?  Well ... SCOUT FAMILY CAMP!!!

It started Friday night.  I did have Friday off work (I only work part-time) but for some reason I didn't get as much done as I should have, so after picking the girls up from school we rushed around like headless chooks doing everything you need to do after school and before camping - with the added activity of reloading 200 9mm rounds as I needed to shoot on Saturday and had used up all my ammo on Thursday at the range!

The campsite was at Guilderton which is a lovely spot and great for the kids.  I took the girls in my car and hubby took all the stuff in his car.  It is about a 2hr drive north of our place - well going the way my GPS took me anyway (1.5hrs if you ignore the GPS).

We got up there just before 8pm and hubby arrived about 1/2hr later.  Through a 'misunderstanding' we ended up not having any dinner :(  (I had packed some emergency rations, so the girls had a small can of tuna each for dinner and some nacho chips).  Anyway, we got the tent up and sat down to chat to the other leaders / parents who had come.  Shooting buddy had also driven down from his place (4hrs north) to spend the weekend with us too.

Eventually the kids went to bed and we had a drink or three.  We were waiting for one other family who were due to come that evening.  Most people eventually toddled off to bed, but we decided to wait up until they arrived.  I think they got in about midnight (mmm, not 100% sure of this).

After they had put up their tent, we had a drink with them and a chat and then all hit the sack.

The plans for Saturday were pretty flexible but one of the leaders had said that he would be up early to look after the kids so the other adults could have a sleep-in AND the person who was bringing the bread was due to arrive early for brekky.

WELL ... plans being plans ... Mr "I'll get up early" was the second last person out of bed :) and Mr "I'll bring the bread in time for brekky" got there about mid-day :) ... No one starved though (they had cereals and I had packed cereals for the girls and us anyway).  The most important thing for me on the Sat morning was coffee and water anyway (maybe I had a bit too much to drink the night before).

One of the other fathers had brought a canoe, well a couple of families had, but this guy volunteered to take Miss 8 with his kids out canoeing.  Miss 10 was hanging around with a variety of people and seemed happy to do this.  So they soon disappeared.

Because Shooting Buddy and I needed to shoot this weekend (to keep our handgun licences) we headed back down to Perth to the shooting range about about 11am.  We got back in time to stop at a restaurant for lunch (lasagna yummy) and then headed up to the range - neither of us were particularly feeling like shooting.

However there were a couple of friends there who we enjoy shooting with and one of the guys who I had met on the Thursday afternoon when I took my work colleague up to the range.  So we put our names down as a squad.  Unfortunately a couple of other people joined our squad - unfortunate because I like smallish squads and we ended up with about 10 people :(

BUT the four stages were fun and there were no major incidents.  I still didn't really feel like shooting so I just took it easy and didn't bother too much about anything. My main aim was to complete the shoot with out getting DQed - which I did actually achieve :)

After we had finished the stages I had planned to shoot the fly targets. I had 10 copies of the target with me.  Shooting buddy & I were planning to shoot it with both our 9mms and my .22.  However, as I mentioned it to the squad while we were shooting the match a few others took up my invitation to try it.

So we set up a target and the first person had a go, then the 2nd, 3rd, I had a go next with the 9mm and none of us was getting anywhere particularly fast but we were having fun.  Shooting Buddy had a go next and he actually was doing okay, but we didn't realise he had hit a fly early on.  One of the guys in our squad had a friend come up and check out the range, so he had a go too.  While we were shooting there was a group training on another range - by this time the training had finished and one of the trainees came over to see what we were doing so we gave him a shot too.

He's only been shooting for two weeks and he was having "issues".  So Shooting Buddy (ex-trainer) and me ended up giving him (& the visitor) a few tips ... and then of course, they had to try out every different gun that anyone had to hand.  Then some of the other guys wanted to try my gun - and let me try theirs and then I pulled out my .22 so that had to go round the group too.

So basically by the time I got to try the .22 on the fly targets it was getting towards twilight and it was pretty hard to focus on the target.  So I think I'll go up the range again on Friday to give it another go.

By the end of the shooting I was actually feeling better.  So we popped home, put the guns away, refilled the water and headed back up to Guilderton - thankfully Shooting buddy was driving as I was very very tired.

We got back about 7:30pm - I think it took the girls about 1/2hr to realise we were actually back as they were still off having fun.  Apparently they had had a great day - swimming & canoeing.

Hubby had saved us a few pieces of meat so he cooked those up for us and we sat down and chatted to the group.  A couple of other people had arrived and I think we were up to about midnight drinking & talking and having a really nice time.

It is lovely to be able to sit and chat to people like this - don't do it enough.

During the chatting it was mentioned by a couple of people that they would like to come up to the range again (a few of them had come up last year when we did a shoot with the scouts) and there were a couple of people who missed out on that.  So we've chosen a date in April for a shoot.

Sunday morning saw us up again about 6:30.  Brekky and packing up and driving back home finished off a really, really nice weekend.