A Friend-Filled Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was not only filled with lots of time with family, but also lots of time with friends. We’ve had many last get-togethers with friends since we have less than a week left here in Michigan.

 

Friday afternoon we went over to the home of a dear friend from church. Mr. M is a big outdoorsman and does lots of deer hunting this time of year. A couple of years ago he had us over to his house to make summer sausage with a deer he shot. He talked with Mom on Sunday because he knew how badly Josiah wanted to shoot a gun. He offered to have us over and let us do some target practice on his property (which is surrounded by woods.) We readily agreed! Only it wasn’t just Josiah. The rest of us were just going to “watch” but we ended up shooting as well. J

 

*For those of you who may have a weak stomach, you might want to close your eyes and scroll past this next picture. I’ve tried to pick the least gory one, but a dead deer is a dead deer. J*

 

An hour before we arrived at Mr. M’s house, he shot a 200+ pound, 8 point buck that was walking through his yard! He had gutted the deer and drained most of the blood before we got there. But the guys helped hang it up. He was definitely a beauty!

Once we had taken care of the deer, we got onto our shooting lesson. Mr. M gave us a safety lesson and told us a little bit about the guns we would be shooting. The first gun we shot was a .22 caliber Browning rifle. I think it was a straight bolt action rifle (you put the magazine in the bottom and then slide the mechanism forward which pushes the bullet into the chamber.)

Josiah got to take the first shot. He did a great job! We were shooting at the white papers on the red target towards the left of the picture. We all had the opportunity to shoot five rounds.

Ben got a bulls-eye on one of his shots!!

Then we girls took a turn. It was a lot of fun! I had worried that the rifle would kick back a lot, but it really didn’t at all. I was able to hit the target with all five bullets, and Rubia came within ½ a centimeter of a bulls-eye.

Photo Credit: Mark.

We’d been outside for about an hour and were quite cold (the temperature was about 33°F.) Mrs. M made delicious hot chocolate for us which we really appreciated!

After we had warmed up, we went out to shoot the pistol. It was a revolver that held 9 rounds of .22 bullets. We shot at a can about 20 feet away from us. Rubia shocked us all with her pistol-shooting abilities! Watch out when this girl has a gun in her hands! The first 4 shots in a row nailed the can. After that, she was laughing too hard to make very good shots. J But she’s definitely a natural!

The pistol was a good deal louder than the rifle. I should have asked why that is because they were both .22’s. Any gun aficionados want to explain that to me?

Photo Credit: Roma.

Our can once we were all finished with it. J One funny shot I made caused the can to jump 3 to 4 feet in the air! I don’t know how I hit it, but it would have made a great video!

After our shooting adventure, we went home and got cleaned up because Uncle Paul and his family were coming over for dinner! We enjoyed pizza, breadsticks, popcorn, crackers with artichoke dip, veggies with dip, and fruit.

For dessert we ate ice cream cake!

We had such a good time visiting with them again. We are going to miss their family so much when we leave. L They have truly become family to us! In fact, they’ve been over to our house every weekend for the past month!

We had to get a big family picture before they left. I’m so glad they were willing to stay even though it was already 10:00 p.m. by the time we got around to taking the photo.

All the kids.

This picture is probably closer to our true personalities. J

On Saturday we had some more dear friends visit us, whom I’m sure you’ll recognize as they’ve been on the blog many times before. We had a delightful time visiting with them over meatball subs and triple chocolate cake with ice cream.

We kids had lots of fun visiting as well. During part of the evening we watched a few “Beverly Hillbillies” episodes since we all love them!

Another family picture. J

The kids picture.

I’m so grateful for our weekend filled with friends! We are blessed beyond measure by so many kindred spirits!