"I'm majoring in Mechanical Engineering and getting a minor in Robin Hood."

I'll be honest. Over the past month, I have not been keeping up with my fitness regimen. This is due to a number of factors including laziness, injury, Halloween-themed events throughout the month, and a lot of time spent crafting. I made a Daisy Duck Halloween costume for myself and a Jane Jetson one for my friend. They're pretty awesome. Read all about it, here!

But in between stabbing myself with pins, watching horror movies, and carving pumpkins, I did manage to pick up a new hobby, archery!

I used to be so jealous of my friend, Caitlin, who took archery lessons while we were in high school. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. A couple years later, when I was perusing the catalog of available physical education classes I could take to satisfy my kinesiology credits in college, I saw that archery was an option and got super excited. When I told my sister about it, she relayed to me a tale of a former classmate of hers. He had arranged it so that all of his electives were Robin Hood themed (Archery, Fencing, Medieval History, English Folklore, etc.). Whenever someone asked him what he was studying, he would say, "I'm majoring in Mechanical Engineering and getting a minor in Robin Hood."

Anyway, that must have been the best semester of my life, at least from a P.E. standpoint (badminton, speed-walking, and self-defense had nothing on archery). I think one of my favorite parts of that class was that my friend Daniel was taking it at the same time. Because he was left-handed and I was right-handed, sometimes we would shoot back-to-back and pretend we were in a movie. Hannah and I had even planned out what the movie poster would look like - Daniel and I would be shooting arrows from a canoe that was being driven by a crazed looking Chase (who was in a canoeing class at the time), while Josh, the villain, hang-glided in wearing steam punk goggles. In the background, we'd see Hannah drying glasses behind the bar at her saloon. Without realizing it until now, I think we were going for a Wild Wild West feel (also, this reminds me that Hannah and I haven't talked to Daniel, Chase, or Josh in forever... we should get on that).

After that semester ended, I had no idea how to keep up with archery, and I kind of forgot about it intermittently. Every year or so, I would go to one of those sporting goods stores and check out their bows, arrows, targets, and hay bales, but I'm pretty sure my parents would be upset if I started bringing large eye-sores to their house, and apartment complexes usually frown on  openly wielding weapons. Weird, right?

Enter Groupon.

When I least suspected it, there was a Groupon available for archery lessons and range shooting. Hannah and I redeemed the offer only a couple weeks after it expired, which sadly, was earlier than usual!

 

Not too shabby for my first day!

 

She didn't change clothes halfway through the outing,
these two pictures were taken on different days.

We had such a blast that we both ended up getting one-year memberships that include equipment! I've already been back a few times. It's very close to my parent's house, which is across town from my apartment, so sometimes I'll go shoot until my fingers hurt then spend the afternoon with my family.

Have you ever done archery? Has Groupon come through for you like that? What kinds of movie posters or album covers did you and your friends pretend to be a part of?