Monkey

This is Monkey. I don't remember exactly when this happened, but Fia decided that this is her favorite toy. We have such great friends that they have expanded her monkeys to many stuffed animals and even some awesome clothes. (Apparently this Small Paul thing is popular, but I don't know it past Fia's wardrobe)

A few weeks ago Sophie and I were running a bunch of errands. We went to about 10 places. She had monkey at the first place and didn't have him at the last place. No clue where he went. Uh oh. Oh No!

So then began the search for a new monkey. I already knew, what I thought would be enough to find it with a quick google search. It was made by Hallmark and the bananas say, "love ya a bunch"

Hallmark.com? Nope, not there. google search, "Hallmark monkey 'love ya a bunch'" Nope. every variation on the words "stuffed" "monkey" Hallmark" etc. Nothing. I was shocked that it wasn't just that easy. Not on ebay, not on google, not on anything.

So I was telling friends the story of lost monkey. And as it turns out, a friend of a friend works at Hallmark, in the toy department. He asked around, found the toy and yup, it's discontinued. So he went down the hallway to the toy designer and Monkey's designer said, "I got a few of those that I used as samples. Just grab one from over there."

And voila. We have a new Monkey. What are the odds that we live in the same city that headquarters here and I was only a very quick 3 degrees of seperation for the guy that designed this toy. Amazing.