Faith turned 12 a couple weeks ago. Because I'm so on top of things (sarcasticgigglesnort) I'm posting about it two weeks later!
We discovered last year that she developed this love of archery. Since we live in an awesome small community where they don't outlaw ridiculous things like that, they were taught about it in P.E. at school and she said she showed some promise. We thought nothing of it, just maybe that was cool. We took a small family trip one weekend and stopped at a Cabelas and spoke with one of their archery specialists there. He took her into this room, fitted her with the same bow they used in school, and let her fly...and she did....dead center every time. After we picked our jaws up off the floor, and the specialist guy informed us she did have some talent, we knew what her birthday present would be.
We did a super fun Hunger Games themed party (and by super fun, I mean we did squirt guns and pools filled with blue and green colored water and water balloon wars and paint filled balloon massacres, not like actual gladiator style slaying of children for the benefit of a corrupt government...just in case anyone wanted to get all "judgey" on me) She turned 12 on the 12th of 2012, so it was her Golden and we did it up RIGHT! Any chance for a "themed" photo shoot is awesome for me, so I worked up this little ditty of an invite, and we were on our way!
We celebrated with 12 girls and boys the Friday before her birthday, and then celebrated with our families on her ACTUAL birthday and it was an amazing, fun and completely exhausting weekend. I would do it all over again for her. She is such a good kid. She works really hard to rise above all that stupid preteen middle school girl CRAP that seems to just want to jump allover kids these days. Seriously......as I was told by someone once, dealing with middle school girls is like living on the dark side of the moon. They're mean and manipulative and catty and I honestly want to punch most of them in the face if it were socially acceptable to do so. I can honestly say that the group we had here (and there were 10 girls in that group!) were all fun and carefree and just genuinely seemed to have had a good time. No fighting, no whispering, no backstabbing, no leaving anyone out....just good clean (well....not clean clean since everyone left soaking wet and covered in paint) FUN. We need to do that more, just show our kids that we CAN have a good time with them and their friends.
She ended Sunday night (the night she got her actual big, nice bow) by showing all the family how good she is at shooting. She did really well til her arm got tired, and I think she shocked a few. She hit dead center right from the start and my father-in-law chuckled and said "lets see if she can do that two times in a row"....she showed him, and he said "Well! Guess she can!" She refuses to every kill an animal and says she'll never hunt with it, and that's totally fine. I'll continue to buy her foam targets for her to practice with:)
I have to now end this post since Verizon has shut me down like 8 times from the last two paragraphs. A lot has changed since the last post, mainly I got an "actual real live job" and am taking a bit of a break from the photography. Maybe forever, maybe not. It's just nice to have someone else responsible for my paycheck for a while.
