Happy New Year's Eve!

After 11 days of traveling and visiting with friends and family, we are home. We'll be doing lots of this the next couple of days, 

Isabelle

Tallulah

Petunia

but hope to have a real blog post very soon.

In the meantime, we wish everyone a peaceful New Year's Eve and a healthy and prosperous 2013. 

Merry Christmas!

May your days be merry and bright!

And may all your Christmases be puggy!

We made it

We got to Aunt Mandy's last night safe and sound.
Here's our cousin Noah with Petunia.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Yikes! Where did December go?

We are on the road for Christmas so short post just to let you know we are ok. 

We made it through the snowstorm in West Virginia on Friday (12/21). 

It did kind of feel like the end of the world, but we made it!

We met 22 dogs today. 

We are digging hotels, especially Isabelle. 

When one pillow just isn't enough.

We have one more day to drive before we get to Aunt Mandy's house, then we can get some rest and catch up on all the blogs!

Bah, humpug!

Our friend Chloe the pug (@morrisonchloe) on Twitter put this Santa hat on Tallulah.

Mom has papers to finish (her last before exams and starting the dissertation!) so we'll be back in bit!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Petunia

Tallulah

Isabelle

2012 Grand Illumination Parade!

We are so pooped after the parade. But it went great! 

The theme of the parade was Storybook Live. We were the nursery rhyme, Old PugDonald had a farm.

This parade is a really big deal here. 100,000 people line the route in downtown Norfolk. Over 12 miles of lights all turn on at once in Norfolk and Portsmouth. We have the big balloons like the Macy's parade and marching bands and dancers. More than 400 volunteers work to make about 1500 participants flow together smoothly and put on a fabulous show. 

This was our third year and the best one yet. Our rescue and meet up group work together to corral all the pugs and people. It's wonderful to be able to showcase our rescue in a way that shows how fun pugs can be! 

Tallulah and Petunia were chickens. This is probably the best picture to show how the costume worked.  

Here is the costume lighted up. It's an Illumination parade so the more lights, the better.

Zombie pug chickens!

 There was a spider.

 And a bumblebee.

 And a cow. 

The humans were all farmers. Aunt Mandy got mom a pink John Deere hat! With rhinestones!

 Isabelle's hat was generously donated by Cole, Sequoia and Emma! Isn't she just too stinking cute?

 Oliver (he was our foster this year) was a horse with an elf rider. 

 This is the only picture we got of Daisy, Oliver's sister. She was a lamb.

 And yes, this is terribly blurry, but we had to show the covered wagon that Oliver and Daisy's mom created! 

Another cow. She couldn't decide if she wanted to walk or ride. 

Bawk bawk!

Yes, the headlights work! Nothing runs like a Deere!

We were so tired that all three of us snored last night. Mom probably did too! 

And we slept most of today. Being this cute in front of thousands of people is exhausting!

And you can see us in the parade here.

We are at the 19:50 mark, number 28!

Parade prep!

The Grand Illumination Parade is tomorrow! We are still getting ready and have a ridiculous amount left to do.
But here's a sneak peek.
If you want, check out the parade tomorrow night as it streams live on WVEC.com. 7 pm Eastern time. We are number 28!

Delayed Halloween photo shoot

Our Halloween photo shoot got rained out, 

but our photographer loves us so much that he let us make it  up today!

Mom made our costumes and her skirt. See, it's a pug instead of a poodle! 

We had our initials embroidered on our dresses so folks could tell us apart!

Showing off our excellent sit

Tallulah was a tad grumpy.

But she finally smiled!

This one will be the magnet for the fridge.

Although we aren't on Facebook, we heard a rumor that some of our outtakes might be on the Photos by Feist page. There were some doozies. 

Happy Halloween!

Almost over

Sandy seems to have blown through here finally. The wind is still blowing some, but we are going to bed. It's been a long weekend!

We send our prayers to our friends north of us who are dealing with Sandy now. 

Wilma, Brigitte and Sluggo and family

Sid and his peeps

Macho, Mochi and Marshmallow and family

Scarlet and her parents

Pug Possessed family

So many people in the path of this storm. So many animals. We hope and pray that everyone is safe. 

Since we aren't on Facebook, if you hear news of anybody in the path, please let us know that they are okay. 

Help P.U.G.S. in a cool way *Updated*

See there's this crazy game happening from 9 am Saturday to 9 am Sunday. It's called Escape for Good. People have 24 hours to get as far away from New York and back. The team that goes the farthest wins for their charity. Two guys in bunny suits picked PUGS!

You can follow their adventures on Twitter @rocco and @bucksurf.

They are going to meet us tomorrow at Pug-O-Ween in Richmond on their way further south.

Two guys in bunny suits, people! That's hilarious! Check out this picture. http://instagram.com/p/RQjhTxESOu/

You can help them raise money by visiting this website.

http://www.crowdrise.com/TeamEscape-EscapeForGood-rocco/fundraiser/buckmaster

Help them escape New York so they can help pugs escape abuse and neglect!

Follow PUGS on Twitter too! @pugsugottasave

*Update*

Rocco and John didn't make it to Pug-O-Ween, but we did pick them up at the Greyhound station in Richmond and drove them to Norfolk. 

Here they are coming out of the station.

John

Rocco

Here we are before hopping (get it) in the car. 

Giant bunny heads don't fit inside small cars very well, so they did take their heads off.

Petunia gets a little love from John.

Turns out, John has a puggle named Shiloh. 

They picked our rescue because we have a cool name! P.U.G.S. stands for Pugs U Gotta Save. They thought that was cool so they decided to raise money for us. 

We still don't know who won yet, but we know they made it all the way to Miami or further. Unfortunately (or fortunately) they are stuck in sunny Florida because the airports in New York are closed due to Sandy. 

We'll let you know what happens!

Ah poop

Looks like the East Coast is going to be soggy soon.
We hope our friends to the north will be okay!

Southern Fried Pugs Come Home!

Overall, we had the most wonderful time. It was so awesome to meet our blogger and Twitter friends in real life. Pug people are truly special people who think nothing of driving miles from home to meet each other and hours out of their way to help a new friend in need. In the cold rain. 

We crashed pretty hard once we got home. It was Thursday before we were back to our old tricks. 

Tallulah's eye is improving, but it's not 100% yet. The ulcer spread out over her cornea and required a serum made from her blood to treat it. She is only squinty when she's tired. Thank pug for pet insurance!

We all need to have a huge meet up of the 1000 Pugs! when the book comes out and pawtograph all the copies!

We loved meeting everyone! 

And if you ever want to see our part of the world, our dog beds are your dog beds. 

PS, mom is on the hunt for a doggy John Deere cap that doesn't cost a fortune. If anyone sees one locally, please let us know! Or if anyone has one we could borrow, that would be even better! We need it for the parade in November. 

Southern Fried Pugs Take Manhattan!: Little pugs in the big city

Sunday, we had big plans to go into the big, bad city of New York. Manhattan and Washington Square Park, specifically. The Sunday 1000 Pugs! shoot was headquartered there, and we were going to meet up with more friends!

Unfortunately, mom woke up with one of those migraines that made her really sick to her stomach. So bad that if she took the medicine to help her headache, she would not be able to keep it down. She was dizzy and couldn't even stand up straight. She had some medicine to help with upset tummy but had never tried it. Even after taking it, she knew that she would not be able to drive into the city. That would take way too much concentration that she just didn't have.

But Wilma's mom to the rescue! A true pug hero, she offered to drive all of us into the city for the meet up then drive all the way back to the hotel. Now, they live an hour to the north of the city, and our hotel was an hour south of the city. So awesome woman that she is, she went two hours out of her way to make sure that we got to go. We absolutely <3 her! She completely saved the day.

Believe it or not, there's five pugs back there. 

It was cold and rainy in Manhattan, but so worth it because we got to see Tim and Christy again! And Scarlet's mom for a little bit. And a brief glimpse of Sid and his people. Plus, we got to see Marshmallow, Mochi and Macho and their people! They are adorable!

Washington Square Park

Pugs took over the small dog park, and it was just like yesterday. So many people stopped to take pictures of all of us! We are going to wind up on so many people's Facebook pages. The puparrazi attention has gone to our heads!

Waiting for treats! There's half of Petunia, Wilma, Sluggo and Brigitte.

We heard this was a fountain in the summer. The water was turned off to get ready for winter. 

Petunia and Brigitte checking out some pee mail.

Tallulah now automatically poses when someone holds up a phone. 

What the pug? Why are you out there, and     we're in here?

It's not a big park, but not too bad for little dogs like us. 

It's Kathy, Christy and mom! And all six of us pugs. Mom's bundled in the coat because we are southerners. We don't do 70 degrees or less. 

 Look, it's Miss Amanda again! She had to jump on a bench to get away from the voracious pugs. Treats!

We're chilling on the park bench. 

Puglet apparently has this thing about sitting on stuff. This time is was someone's foot!

We hung at the park for a few hours, getting super dirty and wet. Then it was time to go. Although the headache thing was a pain (literally), it worked out for the best. Mom never would have made it into and out of the city intact. The folks here drive on the offensive. We are southern and were raised to be polite, even when we don't want to be. Mom would never have lasted in the traffic to the tunnel. Again, a huge thanks to Wilma's mom for braving the city with six pugs.

Sluggo, sleeping on his mom's arm.