Andy's day to shine

For the past few years, I've had one prayer for my son, "Lord, please let him find something where he can shine."

The final results aren't posted yet, but Saturday was Andy's day to shine.

He competed with 4 other 4-H friends at the State Trap Shoot competition in Newton. Andy broke 93 out of 100 rock. He missed 7 rock. That's phenomonal!

We got there around 10, got our team signed in, got our shells from the officials and waited until 12, when it was our kid's turn to shoot. 50 rock from the 16 yard line, 50 from the 20 yard line. That's a lot of rock without any kind of break.

B, our token girl only broke a total of 12 rock for the day, wwwwaaaaayyyy worse than she's ever done. Our hearts broke for her. She was so upset with herself, felt she let the team down, but she didn't. We were all proud of her for trying, for sticking it out, and just flat out being there. She had a few tears when all was over, which is to be expected. She did her best shooting on station 1, when she and Andy had both rotated over. They'd visit and she'd relax, but when the next person rotated around, she'd tense up. The person following B was another girl, from another county who was an excellent shot, but she wasn't shooting well either and was rather angry. She bothered B, and she bothered J, our 17 year old shooter, who didn't like having a super-competitive-girl who shot better than he did next to him. But, it was a great learning experience. And, after the match was over, Andy took time out of being proud of himself to make time for B and comfort her. They are such good friends, and it made me proud to see Andy take time to make his friend feel better.

AFter the kids finished shooting, we had to hang out 3 more hours, until all teams were done, to see if Andy was in the shoot-off. He missed it by one rock. There were some super shooters at this match. And there were also some kids with really expensive guns. But we didn't care. It was Andy's day to shine, and shine he did.

My heart just wanted to bust.