kevin got home last night and we were very happy to see him, and he brought me a CIVIL WAR DRESS from his mom, which she’d had made at some point for some living history thing.  he had stopped to see his parents after his shooting competition.  she also included the petticoat she’d worn under her wedding dress.

THIS WOULD NEVER FIT ME IN ONE MILLION YEARS, i thought when he handed it to me.  kevin’s mom is quite thin, and i’ve seen photos of her when she was married and she was thin then, too.  BUT THE DRESS FIT.  EVEN THE PETTICOAT.  so why do most women have this distorted image of their bodies?  i look at myself and think BOY I’M TUBBY.  but logically i must not be so tubby.

it was so nice of her, but now i have almost no excuse to not hang around the different civil war activities cause i have a dress, except my excuse that it’s usually REALLY REALLY HOT when they do the stuff outside in the summer.

boy, people must have smelled bad back then.

anyway, the CIVIL WAR SHOOTING COMPETITION…it was at sandy ford, a sportsmans club in streator, which is north of here, not so far from sterling, where kevin’s parents live.  i just looked at the sandy ford website, because on friday night kevin sent me this photo:

a cute photo of cute, happy squirrels, huh?  you’ll never guess where it was taken…INSIDE THE MEN’S BATHROOM STALL AT THE SANDY FORD GUN CLUB.

i have never, ever seen a painting of anything inside any bathroom anywhere in my life.  and if there was going to be a painting inside a bathroom stall, you’d think it’d be inside a WOMEN’S stall, right?  i thought it quite funny that they have this disney-like painting inside that stall.  but there’s no photo of it on the sandy ford website, but it does say that the club is GREEN, hosted by 100% wind power.  so that’s cool.  green AND a cute painting.

kevin did very well in the shooting, and carried home a big pile of medals in his cap, mostly first place.  because he got first place in so many individual competitions, he got to be on the A team in one of the team competitions.  he’s doing better and better and will soon be the NUMBER ONE CHAMPEEN SHOOTER.

he says he had a great time, because he’s a crazy happy cheerful guy.  if i’d been there, i don’t think i’d have been quite so cheerful…the weather wasn’t so terrible friday night, and on saturday it started out ok, but then it started to sprinkle…and then it started to pour…and then the temperature dropped, AND THEN IT SNOWED.  “some guys couldn’t see their sights cause of all the snow and you couldn’t see the target,” he said, cheerfully, with a big grin.

we should all strive to be more cheerful like kevin, but in the meantime I DON’T WANT TO EVEN BE OUT IN A SNOWSTORM, much less trying to do some shooting competition.  he said it got so cold that it was hard to feel the bullets to put them in the gun.  good lord.

also, gerrick had a “cookoff.”  no, that’s not the right word.  no, kevin just said that IS the funny word for what happened…after you shoot, and then pour more powder down the barrel for another round, there could still be a spark down in the barrel, which would make the powder ignite.  i guess this rarely happens, but it happened to gerrick.  luckily he didn’t get hurt because he was, of course, following IMPORTANT SAFETY PROCEDURES, and didn’t have his face over the barrel.  kevin says they’re going to call him the chef now.

at least they were staying in the popup which kevin says was toasty UNTIL THE PROPANE RAN OUT.  one guy came in on saturday afternoon to get warm and HE WAS BLUE from the cold.

i believe i have pointed out to him that although a popup was much better than a tent, a hotel room would have been REALLY warm.

but god knows that wouldn’t be authentic…but come on, i’m pretty sure they didn’t have popup campers back in the civil war times!

that is all for now.

ok then,

mrs. monday morning hughes.