Reunion!

Sadly, no braised animal feet this weekend.  Instead we had a rare and fun event doing what my family does best... Dressing up in period costumes and shooting old-fashioned firearms.

Not joking.  Well, not entirely.

My dad has been a long-time member of the National North-South Skirmish Association (N-SSA), which is an organization where teams compete at target shooting using black powder firearms made (or reproduced to certain specs) from the civil war era.  Members dress up in civil war uniforms and are grouped into teams or regiments, and they compete as a group as well as in individual contests.  You can read more about the organization at the wiki.  It is very much a family event and a really good time. 

Growing up, my dad was a part of a Midwestern regiment, and we spent many a weekend going to Regionals or Nationals (ie competitions).  The members would bring their families, so it was guaranteed to be a blast for everyone.  Me, Matt and Ben would hang with the other kids, and I made many a childhood friend who also found it perfectly normal to come across their dad at home in full civil war regalia. These competitions are not just an afternoon activity but last the weekend, and camping was a huge part of it.  We had an RV we would pile into and set up at a camp with all the other RVs, tents, campers, etc in a designated meadow/area.  There would always be a campfire with the team's family gathered in a circle with their lawn chairs.  Adults would sip away at their adult beverages (of varying adultness), while the kids happily jammed burnt marshmallow from the fire to their faces as quickly as possible.  Then the kids would run around the dark fields, burning off our marshmallow-fueled sugar rushes, until we'd collapse in our respective beds.  Our camper had bunk beds with windows, and I'd fall asleep with mine cracked open, the peaceful noises drifting in of crickets chirping, a fire crackling, and parents laughing.  Good stuff.

Fast forward twenty years, and my dad is still driving out to these competitions, only now my brothers are old enough to join him and compete.  A big difference is that he retired to Virginia and joined another team with my brothers.  Ben, being in the army, doesn't get to make it to many competitions, but he was able to compete this weekend.  It's also rare we have the whole family unit in one spot (uniforms OR in civvy clothes), so we all met up and had our little reunion out in Winchester, VA.

Ben with his family:

Here are most of us gathered around the fire along with the other members of the regiment competing in the weekend's events:

My parents keep a small trailer at the organization's campground.  Matt's trailer is on the left, their's is the one with the awning, and the orange tent is mine and T's.  This is a really good shot of the campsite at dawn:

The shooting began the next morning as the teams competed in team events.  Not everyone enjoyed this part of the weekend:

Ben visiting between rounds.  Addy is an adorable toddler:

Ben and Matt getting ready between competitions.  You can make out my dad to the right of Matt in the background:

The team did really well and cleared their target quickly in this event.  They are the target with the orange lettering at the bottom left post:

Here is a video of me teaching my nieces how to make loud noises using blades of grass.  

Here is a video compilation of the team events we watched that morning, which included paper plate targets, ceramic tiles, and clay pigeons you can read about here.  Their team won several individual medals as well as came in 5th overall out of over 30 teams!  The best shot in the video is at the end where you see the 100 yard competition that the team did really well on.  You can actually see the last tile getting hit by someone:

This weekend was eerily similar to those I experienced as a child.  We still had a fire.  We still had adult beverages.  We still had marshmallows. Only now, we children are the adults, and Ben's daughters were the ones eating marshmallows and falling asleep to our chatter.  I'm glad we got to capture these moments, and I can only hope Skyler and Addy's memories will be as good as mine.