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We had so much fun meeting people that working the booth hardly felt like work at all, but 9am-6pm each day got a bit hard on the feet. Carin, Miki, and I were all craving pedicures by the end. Daniel and Chad weren’t as excited at the prospect. Anyway…

Top 5 highlights:

5. Daniel teasing Carin about the way her love of sports borders on obsession and watching her strained smile as someone touted a team she hates.

4. So. many. amazing. toys.

3. Chatting with some of our great reps.

2. Finally connecting with the some of our retailers who we’ve never gotten to meet in person before, and meeting so many great people who are now going to be retailing our products.

1. Hearing other parents’ passionate support for manufacturing in the United States with safe plastics.

–It feels fantastic to be able to provide parents with something we believe in so much!

The team at DANO2 has been out at Toy Fair NYC, and it’s been a blast! I think that the best part about the trip for me is spending time with all of our retailers, reps, and fellow manufacturers. I suppose that I’m drawn to the type of person who can spend the better part of a day in a world designed to amuse children. Go figure.

We started out Valentine’s day with a tasty Bouchon bakery breakfast with our reps and then have spent the rest of it talking non-stop about our new product, The Little Sky Riders. Single, as I am, I spent most of the day talking about my love affair with Ace, the zippy leader of our new troop of planes. He’s red, hot-headed, but full of heart. Just my type. The best part about him is that this summer he’ll be flying around our site in a free video showing our little active learning fans how to make letters.

So anyway….Happy Valentines Day Ace! You take my breath away.  - Lauren XOXO

(PS don’t tell Amelia, the pink plane; she might get jealous)

Upon arrival to the city, Ducki went on a photo shoot. It was tough to block away all of the paparazzo to get great shots, but we did our best. Thankfully, we brought along the talented photographic genius, Michelle Kirk, to capture the relationship the  made in America duck has with one of America’s best known and best loved cities.

The toughest shot to get was at Ground Zero as one of the part-time DANO2 staffers is also a firefighter whose friend was called in that fateful day. Both our staffer and Ducki sat in reverence to honor those valiant Americans who stepped up with nobility to save lives.

In Central Park, the ducks paid homage to the controversial literary great, J.D. Salinger. In his classic work, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caufield keeps asking where the ducks go in the winter- symbolically asking where he should go in the cold times of life. At the end of the book, he finds that the ducks migrate to southern California. This week, though, the ducks came from Southern California stuffed with tributes to Salinger and answers to the question “What does it mean to be an American teenager?” written by Carlsbad, CA high school students. Some of the highlights to those answers are as follows: “you get to eat as much fast food as you want. Good-bye J.D.”, “Freedom!!!! Thanks for Holden”, “You have to clean your room”,  and ” Lots of opportunity…if you do your homework.”

A few more of our favorite Ducki photojournal photos – click on thumbnails to view larger: