It's been a month, where in the world is Amy?

Back in Cyprus, and I'm totally behind in blogging and even further behind with work and life! How did -that- happen? I promise to post about the pups, the quick trip to Europe, my second visitor!!, my birthday and many other things.... as well as post some new pics.

First, let me start with the pups; they are HUGE! Well, not as big as they are going to get, but seem so big compared to when we got them just a couple months ago. Ajax is now about 18 pounds and the others about 16. They are so much fun, and so much work! My goodness, how people with multiple births do it I'll never know. We got travel crates for them and are trying to crate train and house break at the same time. Somehow it's not going so well... any advice out there? They are really good about going outside when we take them out, 4 times a day. But they still have issues once in a while about making it through the night and when we try to expand their time out of the crate for going outside, they end up piddling on the floor eventually. So far we've been able to expand to about 1 hour, up from 30 minutes. But it's been about 18 days and it should be much better than, according to all the websites and books. Of course, none of the info talks about having 3 pups at the same time.

Ralph did a great job taking care of them when I was out of town for 6 days (see below). I think he now knows how much time and energy I spend on them all day, every day. I clocked the path for first and last walks, it's about 1.7 miles, the other 2 walks are less, about 1 mile. If this doesn't get my ass in shape, I don't know what will!

My quick trip to "old" Europe was fine. Saw Nikki in Paris for about 24 hours, it was great to hang out with a friend. Specifically, one of those friends to whom you don't have to explain everything, they already know all the stories. Her feet look like they are recovering well and we had some yummy Senagalese food! After that it was all business: Velizy until Wednesday then to Munich through Friday and back to Cyprus.

Did I tell you that a kitten makes 4.... just kidding, kind of. I was out for a walk with the pups a couple weeks before the trip and came across the tiniest of tiny kittens in the dog walk. It was really crying and very pathetic looking. So home it came! I called one of Ralph's friends from the embassy who has a new cat (Suliman the Great) and asked if she wanted another. When she got home later that night, I walked over and we decided it was too young and we needed to find it's mommy. We went back to the dog walk and put it down and watched. Several cats walked up, classic version of the book "Are You My Mommy?" with no success. A couple ladies were standing outside on their patio watching and we started talking, come to find out Helen (Ralph's friend) knew one of them. She thought it may be her neighbors. So we all walked around to the neighbor and sure enough it was her's. This lady must be St. Gertrude of Nivelles, Patron Saint of Cats! She has 2 dogs (a little one and a German Shepard) and takes care of all the cats in the area. A couple days before I found the little one, about a dozen cats died of poisoning on her street. This is VERY common here, people leave out poisioned milk and meat and bones for cats and dogs all the time. She saved about 8 or 10 and they all now live with her. She would find a couple shaking and foaming at the mouth, take them to the vet, get them shots, drive home and find more. The mom of the baby I found was killed. She has another one who just had a litter and this mommycat is feeding 11 kittens. The kitten was left there for good keeping and she is going to ensure this one gets fixed. She has a deal with a local vet who does it for cost for all her strays. So no, kitty does NOT make 4!

After the kitty and before the 'old' Europe trip, Sharon came! It was awesome! She got here the Friday before my birthday, Ralph had a business trip on that Monday, Sharon left on Wednesday morning and Ralph (eventually) got back Wednesday night. It was a perfect blend of spending the weekend for the 3 of us, and a couple good days of girl time. We went to the North Sat and Sun, did Nicosia on Monday and drove the entire South Coast on Tuesday. It was fabulous to spend time with her, and just beyond comprehension that it was 8 years ago we spent Labor Day in Antibes, crazy! I think I may she may be back this way to do some diving in Sharm al Shiek with us.

Which brings us, unfortunately, to the birthday. Ralph had to go to Vienna for a couple days, and while he was there he did an amazing job of picking out a risky (but spot on!) necklace. It's by Frey Wille, a well known (in Europe) jeweler who bases his pieces on various artists. The piece he got me is so new it's not on the website or in the catalogs yet. It's based on Alphonse Mucha, a Czech artist from the turn of the century. It has beautiful orange and red poppies on it, reminding me of both home and Normandy. It's great! (and no, I'm not saying my age!)

Which, very quickly, brings us to today. I'm really behind at work, trying to finalize the R&R trip for next month, the pups need to get ready to move to the US and about a million other things.

Oh yeah, the Saturday before I went to Paris the Embassy had it's Annual Chili Cookoff. About which I found out on about Thursday evening when Ralph told me he (was) volunteered for his group! Friday being a work day, and Friday night being poker night, we didn't have the slightest idea what we were going to do until we googled "easy award winning chili" at about midnight! People had been simmering theirs for days, no joking. This is very serious stuff, apparently. I don't even eat chili, so what I do know... anyway, we hit the store at 8 am Saturday and had chili ready at 2 that afternoon at the Marine house. By the way, did I tell you we WON FIRST PLACE! His group now has the 2005 First Place trophy on the wall.

More soon, I promise...