Ferdinand the Bulldog Blog: Ferdinand Attends the McCarthy Bash 4

So, every year my friend Stephanie and her husband Kerry have a get together that they call "The McCarthy Bash." This year, Derek and I decided that we were going to go and bring Ferdinand along. They live in Virginia and this would be Ferdinand's longest trip in the car.

Before we left for Virginia, we got a nice gift in the mail from a super nice guy from Australia, Timothie Fielder. We got hand towels, oven mitts, an apron, hats, flags, a small handbag, a dog toy and more! All of it, minus the dog toy, were Australian themed, since that's where he's from. So we wanted to say thanks so much! Here are some pictures from that.

Derek and I modeling the hats.

Ferdinand wanted to wear the hat too...sort of!

But he enjoyed his toy better than the hat.

If you like my blog about Ferdinand, Timothie just started one about his Rottweiler, Thunder. Check his site out!

Thunder's Blog

Here are a few random pictures that we took throughout the week.

Sometimes we snuggle on his bed.

Ferdinand stands true to his name

He loves the flowers, especially the ones off the Dogwood tree

If I lay on the floor, this is what happens.

We were doing laundry in the living room and Ferd kept messing with the hamper. This is the result.

Anyways, before we left, Derek had to mow the grass. Of course, Ferdinand decided he needed to go out right after Derek had mowed the grass. Here is the result.

His nice white paws turned a lovely green!

Since he was already messy from the grass, we figured that we would give him his favorite treat. The carrot!

He's saying, "Mom, cut that carrot up faster and quit taking pictures of me."

He was going to town.

He had to lick every piece off his face!

Also, while Derek and I were getting Ferdinand his food at the Tractor Supply Plus, we ran across the Frontier Brand Moo Shoes Dog Chew Toy. Basically, they are cow hooves. We got them for $5 each. Ferdinand LOVES them! He will sit for hours chewing on them.

This is what they look like before Ferd gets a hold of them.

Ferd likes to bring it over to me so I can hold it while he chews on it.

After a very long week, we were ready to get on the road and head to Virginia. Previously, Ferdinand had been a little crazy in the car. We decided that before we would do a long trip we needed something that could keep him in the back and keep my car safe. This forced me to finally clean my car, which was good, and we purchased the Top Paw Travel Hammock from Petsmart.

This is the picture from the Petsmart website to show what it's supposed to look like in your car.

This is how Ferd's set up ended. We, of course, brought Mr. Frog and his new bed.

He did pretty well in the back seat. He slept almost the entire trip, except when we were going up and down the mountains. I'm pretty sure his ears were popping like mine were.

He's way to comfy laying like this with me.

This is how he spent the majority of the trip. Just relaxing and watching us from in between the front seats.

When we finally got to Steph and Kerry's on Friday night, Ferdinand and Stout picked up right where they had left off at Easter. They played for about 3 hours that night. It was great.

When we went up to bed, we left him in the room with us. This is the first time that we had not penned Ferdinand up. Minus the fact that he cried for a bit because he wanted to play with Stout, he did AWESOME! He didn't have any accidents and he didn't chew on anything. It was really great.

Ferdinand woke us up pretty early because he wanted to play with Stout. He and Stout played just about all day. At one point, we had to make them take naps, like little kids. Neither Ferdinand or Stout were happy about that.

All he wanted to do was share his bed with Stout.

Just like how they shared Stout's water.

If they could have stayed like this, we would have let them nap together, but that was just too much fun for them.

Steph was able to snap a great picture of Ferdinand. Probably while he was waiting for Stout to come back and play with him more.

That face is saying, "Can Stout come out and play?"

While we were at Steph and Kerry's Ferdinand got to meet Casey, Stout's neighbor. Here are some pictures of the three of them playing.

Ferd checking Casey out.

The three of them wrestling.

Stout was jealous that Ferdinand and Casey were off on their own.

Once they got back inside, Ferdinand was beat.

Stout really wanted Ferd to get up.

Stout and Ferdinand were always good to invite people passing by to come to the party.

This is a great picture. But what's even better is Stephanie's reflection!

Here are some pictures of our non-furry friends.

Of course, Derek & I

Kerry & I

Steph & I

Typical Steph & I

So, during this whole weekend thing, Ferdinand was doing a lot of air humping. So, of course, the story came up where I let everyone know that Ferdinand has been getting a lot of "red rockets." In case you don't know what that is, it's a boner. haha Anyways, since I made a fuss about it, when the guys went out to buy beer, they bought me a special beer. This was my reaction.

That's right. Red Rocket beer. Thanks a lot, guys.

So, of course, we had to drink it. It was by far, the worst tasting beer I've ever had in my entire life. I'm not a big fan of Red Ale, but I will drink it. I had the luxury of taking the first sip. After my face looked very similar to the one in this picture, only with less color on my face, I passed it off. It took about 4 times of passing it around 5 adults to get rid of it. And with each sip it became so much worse, that I had tears watering up and almost vomited.

Here is the site for the Red Rocket in case anyone wants to give it a whirl.

Red Rocket Beer

After that traumatizing event, we enjoyed the Mardi Gras themed, McCarthy Bash 4. There was delicious food and an awesome 3 bottle, homemade, Sangria bong.

We did it in the colors of Mardi Gras. Purple, gold and green.

Every time that Derek and I travel, if we happen to be near family, we always try to make plans to stop in and see them. We had told my Aunt Wini and Uncle Chris we would be around that weekend, and since my Dad and Uncle Mitch were down for a fishing trip, we thought it would be fun to see them all.

So, we packed up the car on Saturday and drove about 35 minutes to Maryland. That's were Ferdinand got to meet Cody.

My Aunt and Uncle had a beautiful Rotty mix that passed, named Callie. This was the first time that we got to meet their new dog, Cody. She was very sweet and very gentle. She just wasn't a fan of Ferdinand....at first.

Hunter, my cousin, however, got along wonderfully with him.

The flash made Ferdinand close his eyes, which is exactly like Derek. ahaha

In the morning, as we were packing up to leave, Elizabeth or EB, as we've always called her, came home from a sleepover. It was great that she got to see Ferd.

As we were getting ready to leave, that's when Cody finally started to play with Ferdinand. Figures.

Normally, Cody would avoid Ferdinand.

I think this is just like out of "Romeo and Juliet."

"Romeo, oh, Romeo. Wherefore art thou, Romeo?"

They are making googly eyes

Ferd loves the sun

This is their first kiss!

Once we got the car packed up, we figured we just let the dogs run. Basically, we wanted to wear Ferdinand out. Cody was so fast and so insane when she was out there, she scared the crap out of Ferdinand. So badly, in fact, he bolted and hid under Wini's van. It was hysterical.

You may not be able to see him from here, but he is hiding right under the bumper of Wini's van.

Finally, he comes out!

After getting Ferd to come out, we hit the road. At the end of Chris and Wini's driveway, we ran into someone with a bulldog, her name was Grace. She was a beautiful and big dog. Ferdinand loves meeting other bullies.

We got on our way and at one point, Ferdinand wanted me to hold him. Here was a video of him sleeping.