our WT 4th of July :)

yes, that is my sister in a bikini with a shotgun and i will get to that in just a minute.

gabe and i went with my parents and sister up to some family friends house for some good old fashioned fun. shawn and dana have been friends with my parents for quite some time and they even hopped on a plane to come and celebrate when gabe and i got married in cabo. anyway, they recently built a beautiful home on 20 acres up in lincoln and since then, the parties are at their house! we aren't even there for 20 minutes and the boys start getting out their toys. first, it was the bows. and no, not the kind that go in your hair. as most of you know, my dad has been hunting with a bow and arrow for my entire life and i am sure before that. he goes elk hunting with his buddies in idaho every september and would go more if my mom would let him, i'm sure. so shawn and his son cole have taken up the sport also. so they all get out their bows and head out into the field where they have a target set up. of course, my husband is close on their heels. not because he knows anything about the sport, but he just want to play too! so, they play for a little while until the rest of the party starts showing up with their shotguns in tow. that's right, i said shotguns.
let the skeet shooting commence!
by this time, i was so hot that i was in the pool and there wasn't much that you could do to get me out. i did have a good view of the action, mostly to make sure that gabe didn't blow off his finger or anything else that would require a trip to the emergency room. about 30 minutes into the guys shooting, and missing quite a bit i might add, alexi decides that she wants to try. now my brother and i grew up around guns and hunting and trap shooting. we both learned at a young age how to shoot, but alexi hasn't had that exposure. so, she goes down and gets her lesson from my dad who hands her a 410 and starts teaching her the safety of the gun first. he then proceeds to start throwing clay pigeons in the air for her to shoot. she misses the first few, but then starts getting the hang of it and moves onto the machine that actually throws them out. typically, the shooter says 'pull' when they are ready to shoot. not my sister, who says a girly 'okay' and then proceeds to blast them out of the air. she misses the first few, but after that, the girl could not miss! it was amazing! and then she ran out of shells. so, my dad asks her if she wants to try a 12 gauge. sure she says as she picks up the gun that is almost bigger than her! a 12 gauge has a lot more power than what she was shooting which means a lot more kick, but that didn't stop her. she proceeded to make grown men look like rookies...it was great!
we stayed up there and watched the fireworks over the valley. there were about 5 shows that we could see at once. it was beautiful. a great way to spend the 4th. a little known fact, gabe and i actually met on the 4th, 12 years ago!