How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
~Dr. Seuss
Oh dear, how did it come to be so long since I have done an update? Lots of little reasons, none of them of importance now that I am here to tell you what has been happening!
I hope I manage to remember it all; I am a rather old and sometimes forgetful bear you know...
First off, Teddy Bear Central looked like a bomb had hit it... we had been so busy fixing bears that we hadn't really noticed the mess we had created. A little bunny by the name of Gracy had come to help with re-housing all the toys but when she looked in and saw this...
She decided that she had better help us too. These are bears that had all just arrived that I still needed to meet and greet....
She hopped up on the couch to survey the sea of bears...
Finally she turned around, with a very thoughtful look on her face and asked how many other ToyVoyagers were around and if they would be able to help.
She made us clear the boxes off the table so we could have an 'Indaba' (The Zulu word for a meeting).
And here we all are: NormaNikkers, Gracy, Bullet, Jubilee Bunny, myself, the lovely Eloise, Synapse and Fiona
The Indaba got off to a brisk start, she had lots of good ideas as did Synapse (he is a brain cell after all).
The decision was made to pack all the bears that were 'completed' ie, washed, repaired and bowed, into boxes and each box should be marked with a number and the amount of bears that it contained. We had overlooked this when we had packed the first lot of bears resulting in us having to unpack them all and recount them. Silly old bears!
We just had to make sure none of the TVs ended up packed away too...
That was an exhausting task that took almost the whole morning.
Next, we helped all the new arrivals out of their postage containers.
Good gracious, I felt like a magician pulling this lot out of boxes, I thought it would never end! Some of the poor dears were squashed rather flat, but a gentle shake restored them to their former glory. Our deepest thanks to the generous JaymeC.
MrsC's daughter fell in love with the bear in the glamorous dress and swapped three of her bears to keep her. (MrsC got a lump in her throat because two of those bears lived in the crib with her daughter when she was a tiny newborn baby)
Not to be outdone, her brother handed over some of his pocket money to pay for some thrift store bears in exchange for the soccer bear! He refuses to part with any of his bears - what a loyal boy!
Gracy had just arrived via JaymeC and she had three travelling companions so she wouldn't be lonely.
So that made a total of fifty bears! Two were exchanged and four were added...wow!
Steve /+/amp; Helly sent another fifteen bears! They always smell so nice... Luckily there was no confetti this time because MrsC is STILL finding little purple hearts down the side of the chairs 
AbbyB had sent these three gorgeous bears as travel companions for Synapse. I love the cranky one (he is really quite a sweety!)
These three arrived with Bullet. Thank you fam-united! Even though the rest of us were a little cold, the polar bears were ready to suntan...they thought it was a lovely warm day...
Michele_one_L sent another eleven bears and another pig. MrsC was confused for a bit till she spotted a ladybug too. Then she remembered that Michele had 'sold' toys in exchange for bears. These were two that MrsC had bought (and paid for!) They now live on her very full desk. Maybe one day she will send them out to see the world.
Last, but certainly not least, were this lovely group of bears from Finland. Thank you so much Delenna
Phew! What a lot of bears...they were sorted into their stations (washings, repairs, bows...) and dealt with then packed into the boxes and counted.
That was quite a busy day. Little Gracy said that we needed to do more repairs next... there was almost a mutiny! She admitted defeat and said we could continue the next day. We all fell into bed and slept soundly...
