Queenstown 2022 "wrapped"
What a year it has been! 2022 came with many surprises, laughs, new friends and family members.
The year started out with a potential for puppies! Then February came and Colin and I got engaged!!! A few weeks later Helena had her first ultrasound and found out she was having 6 puppies! (of course I had to do a little photoshoot for her :) It was a very exciting and happy month for us.
Over the next month we started preparing for the little fur babies and they showed up on March 14th. Helena went in for her scheduled C-section and everyone waited anxiously for an update. Colin received a call from her doctor who said, "Everything went well. You have 9 healthy puppies!". Colin spent the next few minutes talking with the doctor, questioning her and asking if she had the right person? We were only expecting 6 puppies....this can't be right?! However, she did call the right person and a couple of hours later the crew arrived home and poor Igor's world got rocked! He ended up having the best time playing with his new brothers and sisters and learned how to be very very gentle.
Over the next 8 weeks we got to know these 6 little boys and 3 little girls very well. There were a lot of sleepless nights, back pains from sleeping on the couch next to the whelping box, the laundry never stopped, there were many Costco runs for pee pads, and bless the lord for Amazon!! You always think you are prepared until you realize you forgot the most important things haha.
This was the most incredible experience. Our new puppy owners came to visit weekly (sometimes more than once a week!). Friends and family would stop by to see how much the babies had grown. Those 8 weeks seemed like months at the time but looking back you realize just how fast they went by!
Since then all of our dogs have had major milestones!
We had lots of STAR puppy title holders. Finn looks very proud of himself in this picture :)
Igor and Juno went to their very first dog shows and did very well for themselves! I even went in the ring to show Igor a few times and boy oh boy....the pros make this look easy!!
We had puppy play dates throughout the year and got to babysit them when their parents were out of town. Whenever they come to stay with us, they think they are at summer camp. There are no rules. Only zoomies!! EVERYWHERE! :)
We will be finishing 2022 out by having 8 of our Berners with us for Christmas this year! There will be 3 generations in attendance, Helena, Gianna (Helena's mother), Henry (Helena's brother), Igor and his sister Ia, Juno and her brothers Seamus and Finn! We will need a quite a few more stockings this year!
We hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
- Queenstown
Katherine, Colin & Siobhan
I came across Coin Strike 2: Hold and Win here while searching for newer games with a classic visual style. It is a Playson release from July 2025, but it does not simply copy the traditional fruit formula. The main attraction for me was the Hold & Win respin feature. Landing three or more scatters starts the special round, where sticky coins can lock into position. If the feature retriggers, two additional spins are added. Multipliers from 2x to 5x can also turn up during the round. The game has four fixed prize levels, ranging from Mini at 10x to Grand at 200x. Its RTP is 95.65% and volatility is high, so the statistics matter. The maximum advertised result reaches…