TAGGART FAMILY REUNION

Woo Hoo....finally the reunion is here!!!! We had been looking forward to the reunion for months and months and months, which add up to about one year. Where did we go? This time around the Taggart Family Reunion was held in Waves, North Carolina. Let me clarify....."Taggart" Michael's mom's side of the family from Butler, PA....."Waves" a thin strip of islands far off the coast of NC that is so skinny I think it could literally be taken out by a wave, hence Waves. Okay that is my joke!

This reunion can be described as hanging out with family at the pool, hanging out with family at the beach, hanging out with family around the table....oh and watching the Tour de France with the family. Really could it get much better than that? Michael and I didn't drive the car once. We did take the bikes out a few times while "the family" watched Gilbert, and I got in a few runs. But that was really all we did. A very cool experience with my very cool new in-laws.


Gilbert got to meet his cousins, Avery and Zoey, Michael's sister's daughters. Gilbert is only nine months old and he had already meet his four cousins. Pretty good considering one set lives in Hawaii and the other set lives in South Carolina.

I had my 36th birthday while there and celebrated by heading out with some of the guys to do some "semi-deep sea" fishing. Funny thing, about a third of the Taggarts have their birthday in July, so there was a big celebration during the reunion.

So without a doubt the reunion was a success. Everyone got along, the weather was good, people relaxed, and only two people puked from drinking...I won't mention Michael here.

Can't we do this every year?

FOURTH OF JULY WEEKEND

For the 4th of July weekend we took a big leap and headed to a camp out mountain bike festival. Michael and I were both still recovering from a small stomach flu. But the biggest challenge was the "what if" factor of camping with a baby. I'm sure this comes as no surprise to all of you that know Gilbert, but he was a gem. Being that he thrives off of social situations, he did well. He even went to sleep at the right time, slept through the night and didn't get up too early.

The racing was pretty good. The first night was a night time trial. This means riding your mountain bike through the woods with a headlamp through more roots, logs, and narrow drop offs into a river. Luckily Michael did well and came back with only a few falls. The next morning there was the seven mile trail run on the same course. Yes, I that was my event. It was good, but I was a little dehydrated from the night before. :) Then there was the long course mountain bike day. Not such a good second day of racing for Michael. Two flat tires caused him to drop in the rankings. With only the hill climb and the short course race left the following day Michael decided to just have fun with it and even raced in costume for the short course. In Portland the costume idea would have been the norm, but here in PA he stuck out a bit and even stuck it to the field by leading out a few fast laps.

So all around the weekend was successful. Everyone had fun, and we even got to "chill out" in the river after each race. Ah, what a nice routine.