It's my kind of town!

**WARNING** this post is verrry long and has a crap-ton of pics, so you might want to get a snack and a beverage and find somewhere comfy to relax! Mom and Dad took me on a little ROAD TRIP....

Hmmmm...I wonder where we're going?????


Soon, I saw the familiar skyline of CHICAGO! We drove the car to THIS place and gave the keys to some man that worked there and said he would take care of it for us.

"The Drake"....hmmm....I like the sound of this place!


Wow...this is MY kind of place! The elevator even has a little SOFA in it! PERFECT!

It's a LONG RIDE up to the 8th floor....I must rest!


Check this out....ANOTHER resting spot when we got off the elevator!

Ahhhhhhhh....that was an exhausting ride up the elevator!


WOW! This is our room????

Overlooking Lakeshore Drive and Lake Michigan!!! SO pretty! There was even a dog beach right there, but it was FREEEEZING cold!


Instead of the beach, Mom and Dad took me SHOPPING on Michigan Avenue! Chicago is a very dog friendly city and mom asked Dr. Google which stores would allow me to shop. She was surprised to find out that there are a LOT of them!

Now THIS is more like it!!!!


Here is our first stop...Anthropologie

Mom got some vanilla perfume that makes her smell like a cupcake! MMMMM


THIS was my favorite store....BLOOMINGDALES!!!!!

THIS lady is BETTY from the hosiery department....she said I was the best looking customer she'd had all day, but she was sorry that they didn't have any Spanx in my size. HAHAHAA! As IF I'd cram my PugButt into a pair of Spanx!!!!! She also told me that she only dates on Sundays and Mondays and said I could come back anytime.


After we covered just about ALL of Michigan Ave, we went back to The Drake

I had a nice nap on their Big Cloud Bed and waited for dinner....


Dinner is served!!!!

Gino's East deep dish supreme with broken sausage (not the patty). NOM! Mom gave me her sausage and pizza bones (crust).


The next morning, after a NICE long sleep...Mom had her coffee in bed and I helped her and dad with the crossword puzzle.

I was also King of the 'Mote....I had to find a weather forecast that would tell us when it would stop RAINING in Chicago!


The rain didn't stop, so Mom dressed me in my rain slicker and we went out for breakfast....

SPRINKLES CUPCAKES!!!!!


If any of you watch CUPCAKE WARS on Food Network, you should know about Sprinkles! Candice Nelson is one of the judges on the show and Sprinkles is HER cupcake bakery!

They even have DOGGIE cupcakes! Mmmmm....vanilla!!!!
***Mom's note*** I tried the ginger lemon and I'm here to tell you that sometimes cupcakes ARE worth the $3.50 price tag. I have some experimenting to do here in my own kitchen!!!!


To work off the cupcakes, we walked all the way from Walton Ave. down and over to Navy Pier (map it....it's like 93923827278485 miles)

The SUN came out, but it was still COLD! Here are dad and I in front of Navy Pier.


As we walked around, LOOK what we found!!!!!

McD's of the Future???? WTF????


Nope....regular old McCheesyburgers! Nothing futuristic about this!

I had to hurry and nom kind of fast......
Because these GIANT TURKEYS WERE TRYING TO STEAL MY MCCHEESYBURGER!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dad called them RATS WITH WINGS but mom said they were funny the way they move their necks when they walk.


After some shopping in the Pier shops, I had a therapy session with none other than BOB NEWHART!!!!

He didn't have much to say.


After some more shopping and a long walk back, we left to get back to Indy.

Bye bye Chicago! See you again SOON!

Vacation flashback

Hi everyone! I've finally gotten over my almost WEEK of abandonment at the beginning of the month when the peeps went to Washington for their vacation.

I think I'm finally able to talk about it and share a few pics
***Mom's note*** Yes, I realize that looking at someone else's vacation photos are about as exciting as watching milk curdle, but I picked out a handful of faves just to share some of the fun we had (despite being pugless).


The peeps flew to Seattle and then drove straight to Ocean Shores, WA where Mimi and Pa rented a condo near the beach! This was Holden's FIRST trip to an ocean, so Mom captured the exact moment. Look at Pa smiling in the background!

His exact words were "WHOOOOOAH!"


Mom and Holden wanted to bring this guy home for me...but dad talked them out of it!

He said that he wouldn't smell very nice by the time we got back home!


Mimi and Pa took us a bit north to Olympic National Park to a beautiful place called Ruby Beach

The peeps spent the whole day just collecting stones, walking along the shore and just seeing things that they don't see at home. Those big islandy things in the background are called "sea stacks".


Mom searched all over the beach for Tweedles' friend, Puff! We didn't see him, but we did see some other friends that said they knew Tweedles.....

Starfish and some Sea Aenenome!


Uncle Scott (mom's brother) joined them back in Ocean Shores and the next day, they hiked all the way around Brown Point. Mom loves this picture of all of them....

That's Daddy, Pa, Mimi, Holden, Mom and Uncle Scott! All that's missing is ME!


The last day of their vacation was spent in Seattle, and they spent the entire day down on the waterfront and wandering around Pike's Place Market! You know...the place where they do THIS:

***MOM'S NOTE*** We didn't take this video...it's borrowed from YouTube. It was SO crowded, we couldn't even get close enough to see any fish tossing!!!



Mom found her "Mecca"! The original Starbucks!



I guess I wasn't COMPLETELY forgotten...because they found a cool store in the basement of Pike's Place called Animal Gifts and Collectibles where they found THESE:

PUNK ROCK PUG

and


CUPUG!!!

The humans came back all sandy and had weird shells and things for me to sniff, and they PROMISED they'd take me with them next time!

Fabulous Chicago trip (Part 1)

Dad has been talking about a business trip that he had coming up in Chicago and mentioned to mom that the hotel where he was booked was "Pet friendly" and suggested that Mom take me on a little vacation! OMG I KNOW people in Chicago!!!!!

When I came downstairs Monday...THESE were sitting by the back door!

LUGGAGE! The ladybug tag is on Mom's bag...and that big bag with the PUGGY TAG was MINE!!!!!!!


Mom got me all settled into the car for the 3.5 hour drive up to Chi-Town!

"Kindly wake me when we arrive, driver."


We stopped off at this cool DAIRY and mom picked up some fresh milk and CHEESE CURDS! NOM NOM NOM!

"Thank you cow! Your cheese curds are DIVINE!"


Mom/driver woke me when we got to the hotel and handed me to Daddy (he drove the other car up there)

"OOOHHH Embassy Suites! Am I the representative from the Pug Embassy?"


I found the hotel to be QUITE satisfactory...

I enjoyed their fine paw wiping station.
***MOM'S NOTE*** ok, I'm laughing myself stupid at the angle of this mat...we really didn't stay at the "Assy Suites Hotel"!!!


They had this COOL moving room thing with doors that closed when you pressed a button! It was like we were FLYING up over the foodables area!

WHEEEEEEEE!


Daddy unlocked our room and let me inside to sniff around...



Luckily, there was a big cloud bed, just like ours at home (only ours at home is cloudier...but I suppose this will do!)



Daddy and I checked out the room service menu...

"Pssshhhhh...NO FOIE GRAS??? I suppose a filet mignon will HAVE to do. Tell them to make it RARE and not to be cheap with the Bernaise sauce ok Dad???"


OK....that's enough for PART 1!!!! I had some very important meetings to attend while my assistant (mom) and I were up in the ChicagoLand area and we will devote our next few blog posts to each of these meetings in great detail!

Happy Hump Day everyone!

Where the heck was mom????

So Mom just UP AND LEFT me home with Daddy last week. Some crap about her going to Arizona to be with Mimi and Pa (her parents) out in the SUNSHINE. Pssshhhhhh....

Here I am TRAUMATIZED by the notion of my primary caregiver/cook/Lady-in-Waiting leaving me!


Here is a lovely pic of Mom (in the coral) whooping it up with Pa and Mimi in the White Tank Mountains. (Sigh...boy...I would have LOOOOVED hiking with them!)



Mom tried to make me feel better by taking all these silly pictures of Mimi's Golf Club cover that looks exactly like me.......told me some B.S. about her feeling like I was there with her!

With Pa


With Mimi


Sitting on a pile of Spring Training baseballs


The Ant that guards the front door


Ooohhh...quail eggs!


Pretty flowers


On the Rosemary hedge (mmmm....smells SO good!)


At JACK IN THE BOX!!!! WHY did she torture me like this? We don't even HAVE Jack in the Box here in Indiana!


As if THIS wasn't bad enough...mom has a mess of pics of her CHEATING on me while she was out there!

This is Mom holding Ellie....a cute Bichon/Maltese mix that belongs to one of Mimi's good friends (Hi Mrs. Carbary!). Ellie is pretty cute, so I can let that one slide...but check THIS out....

HOLY CRAP!

She's CHEATING ON ME in broad daylight with another PUG!!!! This dude is named Hercules and mom says she's going to do a whole post about him tomorrow. This ought to be good! She better come up with a GOOD story for cheating on me like this!
(***Mom's note*** Don't worry....it's a GREAT story and you'll all LOVE it!)


Mom was gone ALLLL that time and I figured she'd at least bring me home some decent swag to make up for it.....NOPE!...look what she brought me....

LEMONS!!!??? What the @#$% am I going to do with these????

Mom DID give me lots of kisses when she got home and also some extras from Mimi and Pa. It's a start!!!!