A glimpse into our crazy life

When you’re watching the Tour or other races on TV and see a crash, it makes one cringe and wince. But seeing it for the first time in person was actually really difficult, especially since we just had to stand by and not be able to help those poor riders who had just had a face-to-face encounter with the asphalt (I could tell Frank wanted to go into athletic trainer mode and fix everyone up!). At the end of one of the races this weekend, there was a horrific crash right at the finish line, which I found a video of on YouTube. Can you believe people will crash like this and then get up and finish the race? Or race the very next day? They are true athletes….and just a bit crazy.

After watching professional cycling on TV for the past several years, we finally had a chance to see it live last weekend. We met up with the Caseys in downtown Evanston to watch several criterium races. The course was only 9/10 of a mile, which meant for the men’s pro race of 100k they had to make 70 laps! It made for fast racing, tricky corners, and a great experience. But first, we got to see Elizabeth make her cycling debut in the kids’ races; she’s quite the bike rider and anytime she crashes, she just gets up and gets back on her bike (Lance would be so proud!).

Have you been watching the Tour this year? There’s no clear favorite this year so it’s been exciting to watch the yellow jersey change hands so much. The two brand new US teams-Team Columbia and Team Garmin-Chipotle- are doing fantastic and, most importantly, racing clean. They’re part of this new wave of teams that are ensuring their racers aren’t doping by implementing their own drug tests, in addition to the ones administered by the cycling governing body. Hopefully, these measures will be adopted by all the cycling teams and we won’t have to endure the drama like last year’s tour.

So start watching the tour! Even if you’re not a sports fan, you can at least enjoy the beautiful French scenery.

Chicago, in its quirkiness, does its big Independence Day fireworks show on the night of the 3rd. So, we got together with our bible study group and headed out to “The Point” to grill and view the fireworks from the south side. Notice anything odd about these pics? We had to wear jeans and sweatshirts because it was ridiculously windy and chilly by the water- it was freezing! It was odd to have to pile on layers in July but we still had a good time. Hope you had a great holiday weekend!