Category Archives: growing up

Rylee Get your Gun!

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For Rylee’s first birthday, we bought her a pink single shot .22 rifle. {While it may seem a little extreme that that was her 1st birthday gift, I assure you the only reason it happened was because the company I worked for at the time was owned by a gun manufacturer and I got a sca-reamin’ deal.} It’s been locked safely away ever since. Back in October, Rylee went on her first hunting trip, and since then, she’s talked about shooting her gun. We told her that maybe this summer she’d be big enough to shoot it and let me tell you, homegirl does not forget things like that, so we added it to the Big Sister Bucket List.

We had camping on the bucket list too, but our suburban is still not back from the shop, so unfortunately camping got knocked off the list. Instead, we decided to make a day out of it and headed out to our normal camping/fishing spot to do a little fishing, a little exploring and let Ry shoot her gun for the first time.

On the way out of town we swung into my dad’s to pick up the gun. Before I put it in the back of the Jeep I opened up Ry’s door to let her see it…this was the first time since her first birthday that she’d even laid eyes on it. She looked at the gun, looked at me, then back at the gun. She got a huge grin on her face and in an awe-inspired half-whisper, said “Wooow…it’s beautiful!”

We started out with some fishing. I’ve been going up to this area fishing since before I was Rylee’s age. Never in my lifetime have I had such a great day of fishing and caught such big fish! No joke. It was kind of surreal. Literally just about every other cast in the creek and we’d have a fish on! And while the term “big” is relative for this creek, I’ve never seen a fish bigger than 8″ or so come out of the water, but Ry’s very first cast she caught a beefy 11″ trout! Every fish we caught that morning was at least 9″ long.

Her first cast in…”Daddy, I got a fish!”

One excited (and proud!) Daddy! {And my new favorite photo of the two of them!!}

Casting with Mama…

Hey look…Another fish!

Once Ry’s attention span with the fishing ran out, I let Andy fish a while longer and Rylee and I went “exploring”. We played I Spy, picked up rocks and looked for butterflies. After a bit, we all headed back to the Jeep for some lunch. After lunch was over, it was time to shoot!

We started out by going over safety, none of this was new to Rylee considering we talk about gun safety a lot but she was a good sport and listened intently. {and for the record, no the “R” on her shooting ear muffs, do not stand for Rylee, just a nice coincidence.}

Safety first! Rylee got these youth sized glasses and ear protection for her birthday this year. {Also, like the belly in the reflection!?}

Daddy showing her how to hold the gun.

Getting ready…

Learning how to load in a bullet…

Taking aim!!

A few shots with mama…

Checking out the target…

After the first few shots, I started getting too hot, so I headed back to the shade to hydrate while Rylee and Andy kept shooting. She had a ton of fun and I think it’s safe to say we’ll have a little outdoors girl on our hands!

And just like that, another thing is marked off the bucket list!

My Own Little Brave

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Y’all have heard about the movie Brave, right? About the red headed archer? I just watched the trailer for the first time a few minutes ago. {Seriously, just watching the trailer I got that HELL YEA YOU GO GIRL! feeling.}

Last weekend among the umpteen other things we had on the agenda, we had to make time to take Rylee to shoot her first bow. And by we had to, I mean there was no ifs-ands-or buts about it. And for a very special reason.

I spent nearly 4 years working for one of the largest bow manufacturers in the world. Through my time there I met a lot of amazing people. One of which, being this guy down below, Ray Howell. He founded a 1-on-1 youth mentoring program based out of Minnesota called Kicking Bear. Over the years, Kicking Bear has grown by leaps and bounds and it is truly just an amazing program.

Anyway, even since I’ve left the bow company I’ve stayed in contact with Ray. When he was in town last summer, we had him over for dinner and at that point he said that he would love to teach Rylee how to shoot her first bow. Well I found out on Friday that he was going to be in town for only the weekend, and working an event at Cabela’s. So Saturday, between the k-9 police competition and my cousin’s graduation party we swung into Cabela’s to see Ray and Rylee got to shoot a bow for the very first time.

 The entire rest of the weekend, that was all Rylee could talk about.

Safe to say, I think she’s hooked.

In related news: I think we’re going to be knocking something off of our baby bucket list this weekend and taking Ry to see her very first movie in the theater!

It hit me recently…we’re old.

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Yes, I realize I’m not even 30 so the fact that I’m calling us old is sort of ridiculous, but it is true.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened. I mean, I’ve always been an “old soul”…opting for working or staying in as opposed to going out through college…things like that. But somewhere along the way, conversations have turned from traveling and nights out to washing machines and water filtration systems.

I had my very first “I feel old” feeling when I went to my first OB appointment for this pregnancy. I sat in the waiting room by myself. Checking work emails on my phone. Looking around the room I saw girls…they just seemed so…young. Girls without wedding rings. Girls with baby-daddy’s sitting next to them. Girls wearing sweatshirts sporting the name of their high school alma maters…assuming they were in fact out of high school. I took mental notes…holy shit, I’m the oldest one in this room right now. How is this even possible!? I’ve always been the youngest.

Then even more recently Andy & I were talking finances… Investments and 401Ks and IRAs and childcare costs and insurance deductibles.

You know, super fun adult type stuff.

He brought up the idea of selling his motorcycle.

I froze.

That just seems so…practical.

And permanent.

And practical.

I mean, it makes total sense…he hasn’t really ridden it in a couple of years. His back isn’t in the best of shape to be riding it anyway. It needs a new front tire. We live in Oregon, so really he only gets a few months of decent riding weather anyway. And, those months he would/should be able to ride it, he won’t be able to because he’ll have the girls. And while it does get great gas milage, the amount of money we’d have to put into it with the tire and what not wouldn’t be worth it for just a few weeks of saved gas from not driving the car.

But he loves it. And it’s not like we make payments on it. We bought it with cash just a couple of months after we got married.

But the extra money would sure be nice, especially considering we’ll have some pretty major medical bills coming up. And with the amazing deal we bought it for, we’ll almost make that up completely…even nearly 7 years later.

But I never got to ride on the back of it. And damn, does he look super hot in his riding get-up.

And I know him. Even if we could afford another one later down the road, he’d never buy one. So this would be it.

He asked me what I thought about the idea of him selling it. I told him it was his decision, because it’s his.

But what I was really thinking was… no! don’t sell it! we’re still so young! you need to have fun too!

But, it turns out we’re old. And practical.

Now, we’ve always been practical, but when did we get to be so old?

Circa 2007 - Pre Oldness

So…anyone wanna buy a motorcycle?

What a trip.

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So Friday was my brother (and sister’s) high school graduation.

I haven’t been back in that school since my own high school graduation.

{side note, I totally left high school bitter and jaded and now I wonder how many friendships were lost/how much time was wasted over the years because of simple insecurities.}

Anywho.

It was fun to look through the program and recognize staff members’ names that were still around. Some even spanned the years of my oldest sister all the way down to my brother. {see below}

Turns out, high school gym bleachers are not very 33-week pregnant butt friendly. Because wow. After sitting there for what seemed like eternity about an hour and a half, my hips? They were hurtin’. My butt cheeks? Were numb.

While it was cool to see my brother and sister walk across the stage to receive their diplomas, hands down the very best part of the night was seeing a severely handicapped student go across the stage in his wheelchair, receive his diploma and then receive a standing ovation from the rest of the graduating class.

{Almost makes me think there’s hope for kids these days.}

{And yes, I cried.}

Rylee was super-duper proud of her uncle. To the point of tears. No joke. When she saw him process in? She started crying and couldn’t stop smiling. It was the sweetest thing ever.

I love how much she loves him.

Whoa kid…slow down!

This is one of the many teachers that had all 4 of us siblings over the course of about 15 years. See what I mean? Total trip.

{And yes, apparently there’s a wolverine eating my ass.}

Lessons in Humility from my 4 year old…

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Oh the things toddlers say…

{I do still have a toddler, right? I’m not quite ready to switch to full-on KID status yet.}

Sometimes they make us shake our heads, other times they just make us laugh.

And then there’s other times, where what comes out of their mouths give you a healthy dose of humility and knock you down a couple of notches.

Lately, there’s been a lot of laughs, with a few bits of humility thrown in there for good measure.

Like, just this morning, Rylee and I were talking about something and I wasn’t getting what she was asking about and she wasn’t getting what I was trying to answer so there was a pause. A long pause. And she looked at me, put her hand up to her mouth and whispered “Awkwarrrd…”

*****

A few weeks ago our rental house was having Dish Network out to do some work. They pulled up to the house just as Ry & I were backing into our driveway. As I was getting her out of the car, they were working on turning around their van to get it all situated for whatever work they were doing. Well, as they were turning around, they were blocking our front gate and Rylee of course takes notice, then, in her not-particularly-quiet-toddler voice says, “Are you kidding me!? They’re parking in front of our gate!?!?”

{I quickly ushered the sweet little girl into the house and shut the door!}

*****

We eat dinner as a family nearly every single night. We talk about lots of different things. Some nights are blissful. Other nights are a struggle. But such is life with a toddler/kid, right!? Anyway, one night we were sitting there eating and Rylee very sweetly turns to Andy and says, “Daddy?” Andy answers “Yes Rylee?” To which she says “Daddy, I love you.”

{Cue the awww…how sweet}

Then she turns to me and in the same sweet tone says, “Mommy?” And I answer “Yes, Rylee?” To which she says “Will you cut my meat?”

O_o

*****

Last week while at my mom’s house for the day, Ry, my mom and my mom’s friend were outside enjoying the sun. My mom’s friend went to light up a cigarette.

Rylee looked at her and said, “Ummm, my mommy & daddy don’t want me smelling smoke. So you need to move please.”

My mom’s friend looked at Ry and said, “Oh, ok then” and went around to the other side of the house.

{When my mom relayed that story to me I about crapped my pants…both out of embarrassment and complete pride.}

*****

The other night we went out to dinner with some family that was visiting from out of town. We went to a favorite local Mexican restaurant. I always try something different there. This time, I ordered a burrito and it.was.massive. I managed to eat about 3/4 of the burrito before I slowed down, put my fork down and said “Ooph, I’m so full.” A few minutes later, I picked up my fork and started eating again…not because I was hungry, but because it was sitting in front of me. After a few more bites, I made another reference to being full. Rylee looks at me and says “If you’re full, then why are you still eating!?”

Touche, kid. Touche.

Happy Friday, folks!