Happy Birthday Sophie!

Yep...our little girl is now ONE YEAR OLD!

She has seemingly stopped growing, weighing in at 54lbs. She's smaller than either PG or Sweet Pea, but outweighs them both. She's built like a block of granite, and I guess that's what all bull-dogs are like. Thankfully she's on the smaller side of what she could have been (they told us 55 to 65lbs for an Old English Bull female). 54 is PLENTY big!

She's still a puppy though in all respects...she's got that nuclear power-supply going for her as she almost never gets tired...and then only for short periods of time (she will take a time-out from playing and lay flat out on the tile floor for a few minutes, then before you know it she's back in action antagonizing PG and/or Sweet Pea). In a way it's sad for her...she's a young pup and living in a dogie-geriactric home. PG and Sweet Pea are both near 14 now (PG we know for sure, and Sweet Pea could be older or younger, though we both believe it's likely older).

Jeannie made a doggie-cake over the weekend...using carrots, honey and peanut-butter. Of course, all the babies will share in the cake later this evening. Here she is with Jeannie and her cake (I took a bunch of shots, can't decide which one I like best, so here they ALL are):

I will tell you the hat was interesting...as well as getting her up there on the 

couch by herself for more than a moment.

And here's a few shots from this last weekend over at our park...we took all the babies for a walk and Sophie likes to play "fetch the tennis ball".  Too bad she's not very good at giving me the ball back to throw again...we're still working on that part. She runs pretty fast for a little block of granite!

Look at how GINORMOUS that tongue is! No WONDER that most of the time it's sticking out of her mouth...I don't think there's room for it all! (seriously).

And so....our little girl is growing up FAST! Can't believe we'll have had her a year in Dec! Gosh how time flies!

Tour of Utah

Well how about that....we have MORE racing on TV! I watched the first stage of the Larry H Miller Tour of Utah today....of course, the overall vibe and production of the telecast is a real letdown after le Tour. I guess the biggest thing I miss is the booth...Todd, Bobke, Christian, Jens, and of course P&P. THAT broadcasting lineup is hard to beat...but this is being shown by Fox so there's none of the above. But hey...it's RACING in August!

I think the biggest excitement of the day was seeing Taylor Phinney not only back on the bike (after FOURTEEN MONTHS of NO racing!)...but up there at the end taking 3rd on the stage! That has to be a HUGE moral booster for him, as he was unsure how he was going to be in race conditions. I'd LOVE to see him win a stage...he is SUCH a class act! And then there's the news about Tommy D! Positive for synthetic Testosterone! He claims it's bogus...we can only hope so...if the B sample comes back positive it will likely be a lifetime ban for him....I can only hope he's telling the truth and it was some sort of fluke in testing...but sadly, I think it's very (VERY) rare for that to be the case. Oh Tommy boy...what did you do? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let this be wrong! (and on Garmin Sharp too....the team based on being clean). So last years winner is OUT of the race literally overnight.

A bit of GOOD news is that Chris Horner is in...and after being runner up 2 years in a row, he's anxious to do that one step up on the podium. I sure hope he does well and wish him the best of luck for sure...when they interview him, he's just a different class of speaker than most cyclists...he would also make a FANTASTIC announcer when he finally does hang up his shoes. Being on a US domestic team there's pretty much zero chance he will get another shot at the Vuelta which he did NOT get to defend last year, after being withdrawn from at the last moment...THAT really hurt because he was looking pretty good!

OK. I'm tired after watching the stage...so I'm off to the snooze-sack. Have a great week and happy racing!

GO CHRIS!!!!