An Epic Nerf Battle!

On Saturday March 12th, we got the awesome opportunity to participate in one amazing event!

Jared Guynes is a resident of North Texas who saw the damage done in December 2015 to the Garland and Rowlett neighborhoods by a particularly bad tornado and decided to help out where he could. He had been trying to get together enough people for a couple years to break a world record and then he thought, why not do this record thing and help my friends and family with their problem at the same time. So he worked tirelessly for months, pulled in all the right people, and organized the World's Largest Nerf Gun Battle.

Hosted at the Dallas Cowboy's AT&T Stadium in Arlington, the event was attended by over two thousand people. Let me give you the numbers right quick:

Verified Participants in the Battle: 2,289

Verified Guns Used in the Battle: 4,394

Guns Donated to local Children's Shelter: 112

Donations to Tornado Relief Funds: *Yet to be completely counted*

This was a huge event in so many ways! 

My friends and I saw the event and thought, this is awesome, we want our kids to have a chance to break a world record. We did not expect this. Not only did we break a record that is going to be really hard to beat again, we made an impact. Thousands of dollars are going to go to helping people rebuild their lives. Over a hundred guns went to kids that probably don't have much to their name. We made some awesome new friends. And it has inspired us to get together our own group for a Nerf Club so that we can continue meeting up and having battles. Plus, I went to an even with way too many people, got down on the turf amidst these strangers, and so did not have a single panic attack as my son continually got lost in the crowd, so there's my personal win!

A huge shout out to Jared for doing this. For the people getting the donations. For the families that got to experience it. For everything!

Here are my pictures of the event. Although I am sad to say my phone died early on and I didn't get as much as I wanted. But here is the Facebook Page of the group if you want to check out other's pictures of the event. 

I will also be posting a separate post when we get Jareth his Guinness World Record certificate. So check back for that!

 Pre-Game Carb Loading at CiCi's!

A Little Target Practice!

People Getting Ready for the Battle in the Parking Lot.

AT&T Stadium!

 Loki Made An Appearance! 

Getting Geared Up!

 A YouTube-r There for the Event. This is Kolton.

Obstacle Set-up on the Field!

T-Rex showed up!

 So. Many. People!

Making Our Way Down To The Field.

Waiting for the start of the Main Battle.

This was part of the group picture that you can't see us in.

The Guinness World Record Official!

After the Main Battle. So many bullets!

Kid's Only Battle.

There were more battles. The Rival Only. The Elite (Or traditional guns) Only. The Jolt (Single shooters) Only. Someone from our group participated in each one, and actually I think Jenn was in all of them! 

At 10 we started to pack up our guns and get out of there. And it wasn't until the next day that I saw the announcement. We broke the current record! We will get our official certificate soon, one with Jareth's name on it so he can hang it on the wall to show off. We did this! And it was one of the greatest things we have done. Now I just have to find something similar for Livia to participate since we elected to have her stay with Gamaw for the night. If you hear of another record to be broken, let us know!

Why I Am Letting My 7 yr old On Facebook

My son says some pretty crazy things. A lot of my own Facebook posts are his quotes, our conversations, or descriptions of his latest ideas and adventures. Many times I have been told to make a group for everyone to read and share their own stories of my son's antics. But I am a writer with two blogs and my own Facebook page, keeping up with yet another page was not going to make the project fun for me. Then I realized, my son is seven years old! Perfectly capable of writing his own updates and sharing his favorite YouTube videos with family he doesn't see often enough. So why couldn't he have his own Facebook page to update as he wanted and see what those family members posted in return. Facebook has serious privacy settings for a reason, although no one uses them these days, and they make it pretty hard for outsiders to see a person's content (yes I have tried to stalk people and run into those said walls). And right now my son is used to my constant monitoring, hovering over his shoulder as he plays Wild Krats games on my laptop. Until he is much older he won't know the privacy of his own computer, and right now he doesn't contest that rule. So why wait until he is thirteen, stubborn, wanting to post what is cool, avoiding his parents, and most likely to get into trouble. No. Instead I will give him an account that only I know the password to. Warn him that everyone in the family can see whatever he says. And get him used to behaving appropriately on the internet which so many young people abuse these days.

And why is this concept such a bad thing? What happened to expecting more from our children and teaching them responsibility and consequence? My son will one day be a contributing member of society, I think now is an excellent time to begin instilling in him the morals and values to make him someone I will be proud of.

So I am stepping out of society's comfort zone to try to help the next generation. If I am wrong, expect a letter of apology on here in ten years. But then I don't see others apologizing for some of the teens I see these days. Parenting is a trial and error experiment with much higher stakes than some would like to admit. I am hoping to change the world through my kids. Just wish me luck.