Oh, Shoot!

With the older two boys away for the day in Reading, I asked Mom if she'd be willing to watch Ryan so Shawn & I could go on a date. She said yes, so after we got home from the gym and got ready, we dropped Ryan off and headed to West York to take advantage of another Living Social deal I had purchased (after checking with Shawn to make sure it sounded like fun to him). We bought a package for two for the shooting range that included the handgun rental, ammunition, two targets and a couple hours of time. Neither one of us are very familiar with guns, so I thought it may teach us something (like safety!).

Of course, the best part is always to spend time together. And I'm trying to find more dates that aren't just eating all the time. We like to spend quality time out together.

The lady at the shooting range asked us a few questions and then suggested that we start with this "easy" revolver. She gave us tips on not holding our fingers on the trigger until we ready to shoot, not waving the gun around as we're talking, always assuming the gun is loaded and checking, keeping our thumbs out of the way, not turning the safety off until we're ready to fire, etc. I thought the tips were good. She gave us two types of ear plugs to help us, ones that go in the ears and ones that were on our heads. She said the noise is one of the hardest parts to get use to in shooting. Luckily, we were the only ones in the shooting range at the time we went.

Shawn loaded the gun at first, but eventually I loaded and unloaded it as well after watching him a few more times. He picks things up so easily! It takes me a few more minutes to get how things work, and I wanted to be extra cautious since this was a weapon.

Shawn has really good aim, especially considering that he wasn't wearing his glasses.

We were having fun! The time flew by! As did the bullets at our target! We would take turns doing a round. FUN!

I thought that it takes a "special" kind of person to want to run a business like this (in other words, they are NUTS!). This place was in the middle of the ghetto in the city and people are coming there with their own loaded guns or loading guns that they rent from the shooting range. They also sell guns here. Needless to say, this is not the type of job I would want to have! The woman seemed a bit...country bumpkin trailer trash? Extremely nice, but a little 'off.' She said that if she ever feels uncomfortable, she's allowed to shoot somebody within a 25 ft radius of her, and she showed us how to put the target at different places for different guns and situations if we wanted to practice. I don't doubt she could and would shoot someone! But, she has a tough job...

She offered to extend our time for free and give us any gun we wanted to shoot thereafter, we just had to pay for the ammunition. That would have been a great deal! We were having a blast! But, we had to get back for baby Ryan and to be home in time for our other kids. So, we declined her gracious offer. I would definitely buy another package like this again for something different to do on a date day. Shawn said it was fun. I told him that I appreciate when he comes to the theater with me so I don't mind trying something new for him. This is more his cup of tea than mine, but we both enjoyed our date that day.

Here was our target:

We went and had lunch, picked up Ryan, and got home just in time for the other two boys being dropped off. Joshua showed me that Jordon shared a Mario and two little Ninjas with him, and he thought that was THE coolest thing ever. They had a blast! We had a great time on our date and were happy to see our three little loves again.