Vive le tour

First, before we get to any real blogging around here, I want to thank all of you for your love.  Sorry I'm not back to emailing everyone back promptly, I will be getting on that ASAP.  You all are so special to me, and to think that I had been missing out on this wonderful community for so long... it makes me so very glad that I decided to make the leap and start blogging.  You guys are amazing.

I'm still in a funk, to be completely honest.  I think it's my period.  It came over a week early, and has been a hundred times worse than normal.  Poor Ammon has had to bear the brunt of it.  In fact, he had to take me for TCBY last night because this girl needed sugar badly.  No pictures, because I was too busy feeding the crazed hormones what they were screaming at the top of their lungs for.  Marshmallow sauce and hot fudge make everything better (at least for a bit).

To be quite honest, life around here has been pretty run of the mill.  I've been watching a lot of Tour de France coverage, which is pretty much the best part of July for me.  Forget my birthday, forget the 4th of July... men in spandex with padding on their rear end traveling at high speeds on tires that are 0.25 inches thick, powered by their own strength.

Why needs Magic Mike???????

In fact, the majority of my major celebrity crushes have been on professional cyclists.  This started at a young age, when pictures of cyclists were put on stickers, and sold with packages of handlebar tape.  When I found this out, you'd better believe my parents had to start making more frequent trips to the bike shop.  My 2 favorite cyclists from 2-ish to 6-ish were:

Greg LeMond.  I actually met him when I was 20.  It was a top 10 best day of my life.  No joke.  I was racing at the time, and he autographed a copy of his book, and a poster for me.

Andy Hampsten.  Greg's teammate.  These two defined American cycling at a time when bikes were just for kids on a paper route.  Before them, the tour wasn't a big thing for America.  Long before Lance, these two were building a presence for the US in a sport dominated by Europeans.

A few years later, the pack got shuffled up.  People retired, and some new faces entered the scene.  There are a lot of greats that I could name.  But there is one man who has stayed at the top of my "I would leave the love of my life for this man" list since the early 2000's.  I actually cried when I found out he'd gone and gotten married.  It's this guy:

Big George Hincapie.  Also making an appearance on the list of great moments in my life is the day my dad came home from a bike ride to tell me about how George had ridden with my dad for 10 minutes.  I about died.  I wished I could be like Alex from "The Secret World of Alex Mack", so that I could melt into a puddle when he told me.

If you remember Alex Mack, put your hands in the air, wave them around like you just don't care.

Alright guys, that's how much of a Nickelodeon and Cycling crazed girl I am.  Go watch the tour.  The men are sexy, and you wouldn't believe how muscular their legs are.  Plus, the crashes are spectacular, and Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwen are the two best sport commentators I have ever heard.

Happy Saturday!