Archery with the Watts Family
We Become an Archery Family Today
Today we became an archery family.
I first learned to shoot with a Pearson fiberglass stick bow at Sierra Vista in 1981( George, Maximillian). I bought my first bow (a Bear TD) while at Northwestern in 1989 with Mavis and Frank. In 1996 I went to Arrow Mfg. to get some arrows to show a friend how to shoot. I bought a second hand Yamaha EX to begin shooting competitively even going to Vegas and Indoor Nationals in my first year. In 1997 the family at Arrow Mfg (Shirley, Philip), in their generosity, they let me become a shooter for them without seeing if I could even shoot after I went to their shop every day to look at an emerald Radian riser. At Vegas the next year I made some lifelong friends Brooke), after shooting competitvely for a while I gave up competitive shooting after starting work.
I would collect bows and shoot with friends, family, and colleagues, Bernard, Agnes, Sean, Jon,Octavio, Amjed, and others) and I would buy Erin‘s bow before ever meeting her knowing that we would be an archery family one day. We would shoot with friends and family getting them and their families involved (David, Candace, Librada, Buck, Nancy, Alberta, Michael, Ono, Amy, Levi, Julie, and many others).
Then we had kids, and had to wait until Elia was 5 before we could go. Curie got her bow when she was 5, so did Elia when she turned 5. Today was the first day we went to the range at Ft. Belvoir to shoot. We were afraid the kids wouldn’t like it, we shouldn’t have worried, they LOVED it. That second picture on the bottom of our bows is as much a family picture as the one next to it. I tagged so many people and missed so many more because I realize that archery is a pretty big part of my life)
Anyone want to go shooting?
Archery Equipment
From Facebook to the Cotton’s: My kids started shooting today! While going through my archery gear, I came across this. Shirley and Phil, do you remember when I used to come see the emerald Radian every day? I shot a red Hoyt Avalon, then a black Avalon Plus as an Arrow Mfg. Shooter thanks to your generosity and kindness. I am forever grateful for the friendship your family offered me. I bought Erin Sky Medalist, long before I met her.
I’ll tell you something crazy: I became somewhat of a collector since those times in hopes of getting friends to shoot recurve with me. Of the top olympic bows of the day (’96/’97), I have, for Hoyt, the Avalon+, a Radian, a Gold Medalist/TD4 or four, a tnumber of Sky Medalists/Hoyt TD3s, and for Yamaha, an EX, a YTD II, a YSTL II, and an Eolla. I never got a Sky Conquest, though I did get a PSE Centra that I ended up giving to a friend. In total, I have in our garage, 27 risers, 31 sets of limbs, a Japanese yumi, and a number of older bows still at my parent’s house that were not take downs. Before Arrow Mfg., I only owned one Bear TD.
Thank you, your family (and Ron and your parents, may they rest in peace) again for your friendship and generosity.
And so it begins…
“…tiger parents? No… I think he’s training his kids to be Batman…”
Tiger Dad
We were in California on a business trip for Erin recently and had the chance to visit Albert’s family. While staying with Bernard and Agnes, we were telling them how Curie has taken to the bow and arrow and that Albert has had a bow for her since before she was born (Albert had one for Erin before he ever met her too). This caused them to tell us a funny story about one of their friend’s impressions of Albert when they were kids. Bear in mind that Albert and this friend haven’t seen each other in 20 years so it is even more funny (Bernard and Agnes thought the friend wouldn’t mind if we posted this).
Background: so Albert was a meaner and more annoying big brother in high school than he remembers, exemplified by the time that Albert apparently made Bernard and his friends climb the community tennis court fence to get out (to be fair, they often did not have the key and would climb the fence as a matter of course, but according to Bernard, Albert had the key that day and forced them to climb the fence instead of letting them out).
Anyway, so Bernard and Agnes were talking to this friend (who was one of the friends who had to climb out of the tennis court)about parenting. This friend also has two daughters. They were talking about tiger moms and somehow Albert came up in conversation. The friend claimed that Albert would be a “tiger dad,” When Bernard and Agnes said “really?” He replied, “oh no, Albert is definitely a tiger dad, only he is training his kids to be be Batman.
When you don’t think you make a difference in the world, it turns out you do. And all of us are driven by our ups and downs and our personal insecurities whether it is what compels us to be mean as older brothers when we are young or just getting through the day to day, but even when we do, we are making an impression, and apparently Albert left a big one. Oh and so you know, hearing this story made Albert’s day.
We’ve finally updated our page
So I have been procrastinating changing our page. Today I got around to doing it. Instead of being mainly about our wedding, we now have an archery link. Many of you know we take a lot of pictures and we have been using that instead of blogging. We now call it our Photo blog and you can get to it from the Our Pictures link on the lower right hand side. We’ll be adding more content soon.
