"Yuk!"

What better way to come back from a 13 day blog hiatus, then pictures of our little Mas-face.

B and I attempted to play vet yesterday. Mason has been itching like crazy!!! It seems a lot of friend's dogs are suffering from some unknown island source. He has been feverishly biting/licking at his front right paw leaving it all red and irritated. A friend gave me some "Yuk!" cream (yes, it is actually called that). It is a gel substance that has a terrible flavor that you put around the area your dog won't leave alone so that they get that bad flavor in their mouth and stop licking. Apparently, Mas liked the flavor or something, because that didn't work. Soo...

Diagnosis: some mystical Azorean allergy that won't go away

Possible Solutions: benadryl, calling an actual vet, yet another bath

Home-remedy: a sock and a string

Poor Mas-face! I gave him some peanut butter this morning to make sure any residual taste of the "Yuk" was gone. :)

Happy Monday!

Oh my poor neglected blog.

moving on...

Monday was a good day! We got some oh so happy good news! B got awarded a "Below the Zone" promotion. Translation: He got promoted 6 months before he was supposed to. Oh sweet songs of happy joy! Him and another airmen were chosen out of 11 candidates in total.

In typical military fashion, nothing can be simple however. There will be a promotion ceremony at the end of August, and then some more waiting he will "pin on" his additional stripe September 22nd (which marks 2 years of his Air Force enlistment).

Some more good news is he then got nominated for "Airmen of the Quarter." This really happened on Tuesday, but we will just slide it in under Monday.

To add to all this excitement, B got a call on Monday saying we had won a prize from the "Lajes SummerQuest" contest I diligently enter both of us in every time. (We won a prize a couple months ago too, in the "Lajes WinterQuest") It is well worth it, they give away great prizes at times, like a 2 day trip to one of the other islands. However, we usually aren't those lucky winners. B got a call that we won a free pet bath from the Lajes Kennel. Not so many sweet songs of happy joy.

Mason is terrified of anything related to kennel, bath, water and all the above. So we will be giving our certificate away, but at the end of the day we have nothing valid to complain about. :)

Italia (through pictures).

dinner our first night in Naples

words cannot describe the absolute deliciousness of everything!!!!

On our way to Rome. We accidently sat in first class and even got to stay seated even after the man came to check our tickets.

The Vatican & St. Peters Basilica. (Yes, we unexpectedly matched)

Tiber River

Trevi Fountain

trying to navigate us

The Patheon

Piazza Venezia (if only we actually knew the history behind these places)

Viva Italia!

I believe this was called the Forum of Ancient Rome

Glimpse of how close we were to the Coliseum, before it started to POUR on us!

If rain wasn't coming from every direction we would have ventured inside. next time

A couple of glimpses of Naples.

Not a very pretty site.

Back at the Navy terminal, dripping with sweat due to running, literally running on the streets to make it on time for our show-time. We were running late due to our pizza not being ready on time, but we made it their with our pizza along with us intact.

Overall a well worth 3ish day trip! Arrivederci!