Happy Halloween!

My husband carved this pumpkin for me for Halloween.
Isn't it great?!

The designs on the other sides of the pumpkins are reflecting off the wall.

The Bass

Deer Tracks

The Duck

The Antlers

Happy Halloween Everybody!

A Girl's Birthday In The Outdoors

     Last weekend was my birthday camping trip. We had a lot of fun and I think it was one of my favorite birthdays ever. The girls and I posed for a picture after we set up camp.

 

 

      My husband let me open a gift a couple days early so that I could the gift during the trip. My girls helped me open my gift.

 

      Look what I got!! I will admit I'm spoiled. That red shiny tube was supposed to change the color of the campfire...it didn't really work.

 

      During our trip we had a visitor come through camp. He didn't stay long but it was nice of him to come visit.

 

      There was another girl celebrating her birthday last weekend. My little Sasha turned 10 so we celebrated with some Pup Sundaes (for the dogs, we didn't want any lactose free beef flavored ice cream).

 

      You can kind of see the ice cream on the top of her nose. She was having a great birthday, too.

Big (and younger) sister Kaos also enjoyed the Pup Sundae.

     On my birthday I opened my last gift but couldn't try it out until I got home. Part of it was those bands you put on your rolling pin so you roll dough out to an even thickness - I didn't get a picture of those for some reason. The other part were these!

 

      I can't wait to get to try them! My hands are going to stay nice and warm when we're riding in the cold weather. I wish they made them for feet, too.

Happy 6 Month Anniversary To Girls In The Outdoors!

      October 23rd is our 6 month blog-aversary! I can't believe it's been 6 months already!

     April 23, 2012 I posted my first post called Welcome To My Blog! and crossed my fingers someone would read it. I also started the Girls In The Outdoors Facebook page and hoped to get a like from someone I didn't know. I wanted to start a blog for women to learn and share their experiences in the outdoors. I had no idea that so many people would read my blog and learn from some of my advice! The excitement and support keeps me coming up with new ideas for posts every week.

     I want to thank all of my readers for your support, your comments, Facebook likes and Twitter follows.  To thank everybody, we are holding a competition. It will be a random drawing contest! I want to know what would be your dream trip. Is there a place you would LOVE to fish, hunt, camp, hike or visit? Is there a fish you dream about catching, an animal you dream about hunting, a gun you dream about shooting or a trail you dream about driving, riding or hiking?
      My dream fish to catch would be a peacock bass. I like fishing for bass, but I think a peacock bass would be the coolest fish to catch ever! It could be the artist in me loving all the colors and unique striping making me want to catch one and take multiple photos of. I would LOVE to fish for a peacock bass.

Okay, you know my dream, what's your's? Post in the comments what your dream would be and be sure to leave your name with your answer so I know who to write on the little slips of paper for the drawing. If you don't see your comment right away or if you leave a question and I don't answer right away, don't worry because we will also be celebrating my birthday this weekend!

    

New Targets & A New Shooter

     This weekend we took my brother, sister-in-law and niece shooting and to try out a couple new targets. The first target to try out was the battleship target. We picked these up at our last trip to Bass Pro and they are a lot of fun. I shot against my brother first. I beat him and also had the high score for the day. The amazing part is, my sights were REALLY off. I was aiming one square down and one-and-a-half squares to the right to hit the edge of circle.

 

Battleship Game Target

 

      My sister-in-law tried out my husband's 1911 .45 ACP pistol for the first time. I hate shooting the bigger pistols, but she was having fun with it.

Go Kelly!

      We always clean up our brass and shells after shooting and have a couple of those grabbers for picking up a lot. Cleaning up brass and shells because my niece's favorite part of shooting (at the beginning).

Clean Up Time

      My niece also liked helping change out targets. She helped her dad hang up new fly paper and another battleship game and she also helped arrange cans, the softball and went on the hunt for clay pigeons that survived.

Target Changing

      This is one of my favorite pictures from the day. My sister-in-law is on my .22 rifle and my brother is on my husband's .22 rifle playing the battleship game. My brother beat his wife, but not by very much.

Go Kelly!!

      My niece was going through our range bag and found my red shooting glasses that I forgot I had. She pointed out that they matched my red ear muffs, my red shirt I was wearing, my red gun, my red, my red ATV, my red sunglasses I used to wear and a few other red things I own that she remembered. One of these days I need to explain to her that just because it's red, doesn't mean it belongs to Aunt Hilary.

Red Shooting Glasses

      My niece asked when it was going to be her turn to shoot. She is 3 so at first we were thinking she better wait another year and then she used that cute face of us and Uncle Kris pulled out some Calibri .22 ammo. If you don't know about that ammo, there's no kick at all and hardly any noise. It worked great for her first time shooting.

Uncle Kris Helping Her Shoot For The First Time

     After her first 5 shots, we had to check out if she hit any flies. She didn't want to pose for pictures with her first target, she wanted to shoot some more!

 

Checking Out How She Did

      The next 5 shots Uncle Kris tried to aim and she worked on pulling the trigger by herself. She was having a lot of fun.

Pulling The Trigger By Herself

      She was trying to see if she hit any flies and it looked like she didn't. Later that night my brother sent me a text saying they found a fly with a hole in it! She was a very happy little girl after they found that hole.

Checking For Holes In Flies

 After her second turn at shooting she decided it was OK to pose for some pictures.



Girls In The Outdoors

Pointing At Some Of Her Shots

      It's hard to see in this next picture (which is why it's so big), but she is throwing pigeons. Those hand throwers for pigeons drive me crazy because I can't get them to work right. Kelly was also having trouble with them so we got the sling shot thrower out. If you don't have a sling shot thrower for pigeons, you need to get one! They work a lot better, you have more control and it's a lot of fun!

     My niece decided that since she was such a good shooter, she was going to try "reloading" shotgun shells.

"Reloading"

      My niece decided 4 hours of shooting was enough and since we were getting hungry and tired, we decided it was finale time. When we bought the battleship targets, we also found Star Targets. We bought the smallest one just to try it out and it was AWESOME! Star Targets are reactive targets like the ones they shoot on Top Shot (shooting competition show on History Channel) only without the big flames. There was a BOOM and a bunch of smoke and then a bunch of laughing.

Imagine a big boom mixed in with that smoke.

     The can is what the target was sitting on and to the right of the hand you can kind of see a piece of plastic which was what was left of the bottom of the container/target.

     It was a great day! New targets and seeing my niece shoot for the first time made the day even better.

Look What I Made!

I made some jewelry! These are all 3 sets.

 

 

 I have to give my husband credit for the idea. These were a gift a couple years ago that he made for me.

This is the first set I made. This set will not be sold or given away because they were my first set and Cuz It's Red.

 This is my next set:

 

 And this was my last set I did last night:

 



What do you think? I love making these so expect to see more. I have a couple different ones I'll be trying soon. There is a fly design that isn't cooperating but hopefully it will stop fighting me soon.

What To Do When It's Too Cold To Go Outdoors

      This weekend we wanted to go do some pike fishing and do some work on outside projects but Saturday's weather didn't cooperate for either. Since we couldn't be in the outdoors, we did the next best thing!

     First we headed north and we drove through some fog (FYI: when I say "we drove," I actually mean my husband drove and I took pictures):

 

 

Then we drove through some snow:

 

 

 We saw some fall colors:

 And then we went here:

 

 And then we made it to Outdoor World!:

 

 Then it was time to head back south:

Of course we found rain at Monument Hill:

 

 The rain went away after Monument Hill:

 

 And then we went here:

 

 And then we drove home in the dark:

     We weren't the only ones that decided to visit sporting goods stores on Saturday since the weather was cold, rainy, snowy and foggy because all of the stores were went to were busy. I am pretty sure we were the only people that went to Gander Mountain, Bass Pro Shop and Sportsman's Warehouse all in the same day. We also went to Bed Bath & Beyond (forgot to take a picture of that one and on this day it counted as a sporting goods store because we bought some stuff for the motorhome. It was a fun day, but I wish we had been fishing like we had originally wanted to do.