does your mum ever "weed" your garden when, say, you're taking a nap or out riding your bike? ours does. and by "weeding" does she pull plants that are certainly not weeds like, say, arugula, spinach or globe thistle? ours does.

dad and i had to make a tough decision last night and ban mum from the garden. we made a sign to make it official.

the team is on a roll here!

jamo wins the turtle race...

defended my cherry pie eating title from last year. not once or twice but in 3 straight contests against 4/5 year olds.

el cartero delivers!!

just had one of the top 5 weekends of the year:

friday night out at empire beach for a bonfire to see our friends jon and sarah off to california. good eats, great friends, beautiful sunset.



saturday was the official start of THE national cherry festival. went down to the secret beach to watch the airshow after lunch then back down after dusk to see the fourth of july fireworks. it was our first time seeing real fireworks. aaaaawesome!



sunday. another trip down to the beach for round 2 of the airshow over the bay. just as exciting as the day before. then we drove up to the babich-patch for a going-away party for my auntie who's going on a rotary echange to johannesburg. never, ever mis a party at my aunties. ever. granny sarah's spread was beyond impressive. plus i got to play with their chickens, dogs and mr. rabbit. so fun.

BikeFest-09-rr-66
Originally uploaded by xmatic

on saturday mum helped her teammate susan win the michigan state champ roadrace. here she is attacking on the first climb (you can see the pack in the distance) setting susan up for what would be a 30+mile solo win. mum likes her hills, what a great race. congrats garbs!!

here is the story that lead the sports section this morning in our favorite newspaper.

BikeFest-09-crit-163
Originally uploaded by xmatic

here's another shot of mum racing the cat 1-2-3 crit up in marquette this past friday. she finished a close 2nd, no repeat win like last year but she rode great and is turning into a phenomenal bike racer. atta girl mum!

happy birthday, daddy. dad turns a 1/3 of a century today. he's at work right now so we're making him a great birthday dinner: sweet potato pizza and tofu chocolate pie... yum yum.
we've had record highs here in tc so we've been heading to the every night. summer is finally here.
tomorrow we're heading up to marquette for superior bike fest. a weekend filled with bike racing for mum and dad. dad has apparently recovered from the lumberjack and is ready to race again. he's an animal. hopefully he can celebrate his birthday weekend with a win.

how did you spend your father's day weekend? my dad celebrated with a 100 mile mountain bike race. it's called the lumberjack 100. dad did great! he finished 8:22:03 which was good enough for top 20 out of 175 who started. jamo, mum and i were there for most of the 8:22:03 cheering him on with a little help from our friend the DVD player. dad says that he'll never do that again. we'll see.
uncle taylor also spent father's day weekend suffering. he finished his first marathon in 4:12:22. way to go uncle scumby!
hope all the dads had a great day.

the schmidt's went camping this past weekend. it wasn't the rustic, hike to your site, kind of camping. is was more like hear your neighbors snoring type camping but it was still a good time. i got to run free with the rest of the camp kids collecting tent worms while jamo got to run around without shoes all weekend (since dad forgot his.) we camped at orchard beach state park in manistee right on lake michigan. mum road down there on her bike while us boys set up camp saturday morning. then dad left us stranded without food while he went riding on the "big M", the mountain bike course he'll be racing this weekend.
jamo and i slept great. i got to sleep in my own tent while jamo hogged mum and dad's tent. we even got to make s'mores. while we were eating them i said "this is one of those moments that i can't believe is really happening." we had a blast and i can't wait to go camping again.

happy birthday to mum! she's now a master and can start riding like an old lady. all us boys were very good today and made less mess than usual. jamo and i helped grandma make a cake while dad and mum did the tuesday night ride. mum said a few of the guys must not have gotten the memo about riding at birthday pace, especially dad. it was the hardest ride of the year so far but she said it was a great way to spend her birthday.

great week here in tc. our favorite of the year actually with the smartcommute festivities all over the downtown/warehouse/commons districts. check out dad's blurb on TART's website(third from the top). free breakfasts, tons of bikes taking over the town and a fun geocaching game, it's a blast. with mum at the hospital 4days/week we all rode down together to each breakfast every morning. i found all 5 geocaches and then went down to the weekending party at a microbrewery friday where we scored some sweet prizes.

the weekend before, mum and dad went down to west branch to race. both got 4th in their categories. mum happy with her result, dad not so much. here's a shot of mum attacking on the big hill and forcing a break which stayed away till the finish.