Of Guns and Baseball

How's it goin', gangsters.

Now, as you may or may not recall, Yours Truly owns a couple firearms.  Nothing too crazy, I'm not some right-wing nut job thinking that the 'libtard gubbermint gon' take away muh freedums' or anything like that; I own guns and I'm responsible with them.  While not a hunter, I do enjoy taking them up to the Midland Sportsmans Club to shoot at targets, as it's a hell of a lot of fun.  I'm not a member myself - it costs like $80 a year to be a member, which is a little too steep for me to justify, as I only go up there once or twice a year.

My buddies Erik and Ryan, however, do have memberships. . . as they shoot and hunt very often, and collect guns like Yours Truly collects vinyl.

Anyway, Alayna has expressed interest in the past in trying to shoot guns (she's always leaned more towards the Dark Side, so that shouldn't be all that surprising.)  I've always been like, 'yeah, sure, we should do that some time,' and then we both forget about it.  Well, last night as our Inner Five Families were all hanging out over at Colliers' house, Erik and I were talking how Ella was going to start Hunter's Safety next month.  We then began talking about how cool it would be to take all of our kids shooting up at the Sportsmans Club, and promptly made some last-minute shooting plans - suckering Collier into the affair as well - for the very next morning.

So check it out, folks - a bunch of little kids, shooting a wide plethora of firearms.

. . . 'Cause Freedom.

Ryan and Erik both brought a few rifles up with them - lower caliber rifles that the kids could manage to shoot.  This here is one of Ryan's AR-15's, modified to fire a .22 bullet - one of the kids' favorite guns to shoot throughout the day (probably because it looks cool.)

Erik and I each brought up our 10/22 carbines for the girls to play around with (mine is nicer, but his has a better scope - I definitely need to buy a new one for mine.)

Alayna takes a crack at the AR-15. . .

Erik assists Abby on his 10/22

Ella's shooting my 10/22 here, with Abby watching downrange to see where it's hitting (we were trying to sight it in.)

These 10/22s are about the easiest thing for kids to shoot. . .

Some video for ya as well. . .

After shooting down at the rifle range for awhile, we decided to move down to the newly created .22 range, where a couple years ago they installed a bunch of carnival-ish moving targets for people to plink away at.  This was by far the kids' favorite spot in the Sportsman Club.

Alayna shoots away on her favorite gun (she was pissed we wouldn't let her save up to by her own.)

Erik also brought along a .22 caliber, single-action revolver for the girls to try - something small he carries to dispatch animals that are wounded up at his hunting property up in the U.P.

Being only .22 and everything, it barely kicks, and is super easy for the kids to fire on their own.

Needless to say, I've decided that I'm going to buy one.

Two hours into shooting, Abby - who had barely slept the night before - was ready to be done.

Erik also brought a couple other rifles for the girls to try out - these ones a higher caliber, meaning they'd be louder and kick more - but there girls were still able to shoot them without issue.

I don't remember the type of rifles these were, but I think he uses them for shooting coyotes and things like that.

Abby rallies enough energy to try her hand at some new guns. . .

Trying to site in one of the scopes.

After the kids had gotten their fill of shooting, we walked the girls over to the club lodge so they could check out the interior of the place.  I haven't been inside this place in a few years, and the girls got a kick out of it.

After we left the Sportsmans Club, Erik and I took all the girls out to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch (because eating out with your kids in a restaurant is awesome.)  Afterwards, we all went home to take care of house/yard crap, rest up, and otherwise kill some time before the evening's slotted activity:  Masonic Night at Dow Diamond.  As we walked into the stadium, the girls couldn't resist the temptation. . .

The Dynamic Duo

Alayna had zero interest in attending this event, which cost us $7 per kid (for simple lawn seats) and $25 per adults (per private box seats with the Freemasons. . . and which included $20 in credit for food and souvenirs, a pretty sweet deal.)  After we got in, we gave the girls our food credit (in the form of cards) and turned them loose.

One of the draws for this evening's game - besides getting a good deal with the Masons - was that the celebrity on hand for the evening was Christopher McDonald, who is best known for playing the main villain in the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy, Happy Gilmore.  Midland usually pays for minor celebrities like this to come out for special event nights, which they can then advertise to bring in more folks.

The weather was just about the best you could hope for this evening.

After grabbing a couple beers, us and the Johnsons did a lap around the diamond in order to check up on the girls and see how they were all set up.

Yours Truly, pretending to be into baseball.  We eventually showed up to our seats in the private viewing box, at least to check them out and know where they were, but we didn't end up staying long - there weren't a ton of other masons who showed up for the evening, so we decided to go walking around again.

Abby was a little hangry after filling up on junk food for awhile, but thankfully Ella is a very patient friend and knows how to deal with our trainwreck-of-a-daughter's mood swings.

Sunset over Dow Diamond as the game drags on. . .

We had thrown the baseball game invite out to all the other families, but only two of them ended up coming out - the Griffins and the Bos Family.  Of these two, only the Griffins were able to make it in, as the game quickly sold out and the Bos fam couldn't get in.  Erik and I managed to find Lonnie on the opposite end of the diamond.

Abby had been so grumpy when we left the house that she completely forgot to bring her phone with her for the evening, so we gave her Kris' phone so that we could get ahold of the girls throughout the evening if/when we needed to.  Afterwards, we came across pics like these in Kris' gallery.

The last couple innings of the game we all watched from our assigned seats in the private box (we just snuck our own kids in, no one was really paying attention anyway.)

The elderly people who were sitting to the right of me had been chomping on peanuts throughout the entirety of the game and had left early, only to leave behind this disgusting-ass mess for other people to clean up.  Oh well, it is what it is, I guess.  It's not like the world has to put up with their bullshit for very much longer anyway.  You know, 'cause they'll be dead soon and everything.

Attempted group pic of our row.

Kris, once again, wants a selfie.

We barely paid attention to the game.   I couldn't even tell you who we were playing.  Or what color our team's jerseys are.

Erik manages to grab a pic of everyone looking.

The Diamond sometimes ends games with a pretty decent fireworks display, which is pretty cool.  I'm not one to stick my nose up to free fireworks, folks. . .

- Brian