Today the whole nation celebrated Koninginnedag, nicely translated as Queen’s Day. Started as a kind of honourable tour to celebrate the queen’s birthdayat Soestdijk Palace during the reign of the former Queen Juliana. Nowadays, under Queen Beatrix, the Royal Family visits some cities on Queen’s Day. Although it’s not her birthday (this is January 31st) it’s still in honour of Queen Juliana, that the Royal Family decided to keep this day as the day to celebrate.

But there is more. It’s an official national holiday. People go to Vrijmarkten. On these markets, people can try to get rid of their old stuff. A kind of second hand market.
In Amsterdam and Utrecht you can find the biggest ones.

Koninginnedag isn’t just a Dutch festival, in my Simstown River’s Hill people celebrated this day too. People went to the Oranjeplein to meet each other, to dance and to play games.

Check River’s Hill Dagblad (in Dutch, but there will be a special picturepage on the blog) to see how happy everybody was on their own Sims Queen’s Day.

When co-workers are fired, when dogs decide to get puppies, so … when everything is going wrong, then you stop blogging….
And more, you stop being a Simsfanatic, stop designing Sims stuff, stop being just a human person. But I don’t like to complain. I have a wonderfull life, a wonderfull wife and some wonderfull children.
Stop now, before I start to puke, or you…..

In the meanwhile I opened my Space at MSN again, in Dutch. I decided to make a mirror to SNWeblog:Paul, so sometimes logs on my MSN-Space are translations of logs here or vice versa….

But be carefull, I’m back….

The pups are three weeks old and finally we’ve found the names.
But although we had the plan to give them all a name starting with the letter B, we decided to give the male pup an another starting letter.

The oldest one, the male pup, is named DeeJay. Although we had enough possibilities with a B, finally we thought of a name more suited to this giant pup.
The second pup, a female, will be called Belle from now on.
The last one is named Bijou. This one is the little problem child and a jewel too. Just when I think of the bills of the vet, she already costs me. One thing is for sure, this puppy will stay with us.

How about the other two? Well, we still don’t know. In our heart we know not to get attached to the pups, but it’s just so cute. They are all adorable, and now they have name it’s more and more difficult to decide. We will see, they aren’t ready for the big world outside right now. They have at least six weeks untill they can leave their mother.
But, OMG, this is going to be a big problem, that’s for sure….

It’s not a original idea, I saw it on Alex’s weblog some days ago.
But I’ve added a photo book with all the photo’s of the three little puppies in our life.

A little update is in order. Tomorrow they are already three weeks old. Last Saturday they opened their eyes for the first time. We decided to give the three names, starting with the letter B.
Why? Because their parents, Bindi and Bowie, have names starting with a B too. But it’s tough, to name these three. So, suggestions for one male and two female puppies are welcome.
How are they doing? The oldest one is already the biggest. He is growing and weights almost 1 kilo. The second one is a good eater. Not as good as her big brother, but no problems.
The third isn’t doing very well. She is already the lowest in rank, tries to eat, but isn’t getting enough. We have to feed here some extra milk every day. We have an appointment to make some X-Rays, because there is a possibility that there is something wrong inside. But, she is still alive, although she isn’t gaining enough weight per day.

Still the big question here at home, how many do we keep? OK, there is still no answer. Hopefully soon …

Yesterday our dog went in labour. I don’t know what the vet was thinking, but approx two weeks earlier than we expected … KABOOM … puppies!

At first two, but eventually their were three little rascals squeeking for milk. By the way, Mom and Dad are very happy and doing well.
Some pics….

According to the vet, now it must be the time, that we can feel that Bindi is pregnant.
Well, he was right. First of all, her belly is growing. Considering the size of a ShiTsu, like Bindi, her belly begins to look like a guinea-pig, which is attached to her body.
Last night, she knows how to look when she wants to sit on your lap, she was lying on our sofa, close to my wife. And my wife saw her belly moving.

With her hand she felt something kicking. The first time we really mentioned that there is something growing inside this little dog. This morning she told me about it, I had to work at that time. Paul, she said, I think we have at least one boy, this one was kicking. I think we have the first soccer-player in a doggy-size.

So I’m proud, I allways hoped one of my children would become a Johan Cruyff, a Pele or a David Beckham. Sorry, all my children like soccer on TV, so now I’m very happy. One of the puppies will become the first dog on our national soccerteam… YES!

Maybe you’ve noticed Sims 2008 in my personal blogroll. Sims 2008 is the follow-up to Sims2005NL, a site I own for many years.

But today this is altered, Sims2005NL and the download partner Sims2005DL are history. Today I uploaded the first pages (it’s still a TEST) of Sims 2008 to the new server.
At this moment still in Dutch, but I am considering to make the site bilingual, in Dutch and English.
Besides this I created a download policy. Most of the downloads are free, but there had to be a way to create exclusive downloads. And I found one and it’s called SNW.
All the exclusive downloads will be found on the Exchange of Simsnetwerk/Simsnetwork, so if someone like to have them, he/she have to become a member of my favourite sites. What a way to help another….

Like I said, we’re still in the testingstage, but Sims 2008 is a fact …

I knew it existed, but never took the time to look at it, until a couple of days ago. I read the whole story ChEeTaH placed on SNW Int. and yes, I took the time to download.
first of all, I was an artist who was always messing around with ZIP and RAR, and now … I can make installers too

Thanks ChEeTaH (and The SimsZone too). Only some seconds after downloading I packed one of my dresses into a Sims2skin-file and uploaded it to Simsnetwerk. For those who are curious I included a picture. You can find this one on the Exchange of the Dutch Simsnetwerk, I will upload it this night to Simsnetwork Int.

This is an old picture, but it’s a start. The mainpart is Bindi, our mom to be. The heartshaped insert is Bowie. I don’t think I have to tell you who he is….
So now you all know, what I’m talking about. Two little rascals, now you’ve met. More pictures will come, no doubt about it.