And lastly:
Merry Christmas to all of you!
from the Trolls.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
from the Trolls.
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Thank you very much, guys! 
Merry Christmas to you too.
Primrose and I are enjoying a nice Christmas holiday with our respective families and relatives. We plan to do a final recap of 2023 during the following week, and then, we also have an announcement to make regarding our plans for the new year, so stay tuned.
Well well! I see the Koopas DID NOT behave, not even on Christmas! 
Look at those little rascals! 
2023 is just about in the books now. 
What a year... well, many people seem to think that it was a mixed bag at best.
As for the Trolls, it certainly didn't always go according to plan - because we did have big plans. Our poker challenges, which were supposed to be the bread and butter of our blog, eventually died down in a labyrinth of red tape and technical issues. We planned many sporting challenges too, both cooperative and against each other, which became impossible after Primrose's early injury.
Despite those setbacks, though, we had a lot of fun this year. So what were some of the top stories of 2023?
Our Burgers Around The World tour was continued throughout the year, and concluded with a final "World" burger just a while ago. We had some "creative" versions for sure. Some very good ones, some "novelty" burgers... but while Primrose and I didn't always agree about the final result, we had fun throughout the whole trip.
There was more cooking, though. The Trolls discovered some new recipes during their Recipe Raiders series, and later too when we added our Surprise Menus, which have been on hiatus lately. Primrose discovered some tasty "Poulet Yassa":
...and I discovered how to turn it into a burger. 
Also, I got to make "my stupid nachos":
How could we possibly forget our Aquatic Challenges? In many ways, they were the highlight of the year. It all started when Primrose and I went for a casual swim once and the grindette showed me how to crawl. I couldn't stop there, and just had to go for the DLRG swimming badges, earning all three of them to become a fully qualified swimmer before the end of summer. Primrose even gave me this mermaid doll in celebration:
We still weren't done - I eventually signed on for a lifeguard course, passing my exam and earning my bronze badge this month. Here are some of the swimming sites we visited this year, whether it was for swimming badges, lifeguard training or just a casual summer splash:
Primrose even personally helped me out to get my Gold badge. We definitely earned our sushi that day:
We didn't stop on dry land either. Harrier went for the German Sports Badge, dubbed the "Trollympics" - and got the Gold after several weeks, if not months of practice. This was the venue for the Trolls' big summer challenge:
Maybe Primrose will join next year?
Yeah... so Primrose left Pokerstars, and we briefly tried to get something going on Party...
There were some technical difficulties early on, and the selection of games turned out to be not so great for our purposes after all, so I kind of regret that move... but who knows, maybe that account will come in handy one day - and at least we got a cartoon out of it.
Ah, yes, we stopped in the Palmengarten in Frankfurt once again. Twice, in fact, once on a pretty relentless summer day, and once after some slight rain in spring, which made some of our planned activities impossible. During our summer trip, Primrose got her revenge at miniature golf, however. Sure, it was a handicap match, but a win is a win.
Even after getting Gold in the Trollympics, Harrier was hungry for more. It was time to improve my stamina, so I went to practice for a full 5K meters run, in all kinds of weather conditions.
The run was successful, finishing with a time below 30 minutes - a good sign for next year's Trollympics.
When sports were impossible, the Trolls resorted to gaming - including sports games. Primrose may still not be able to gracefully make it through one round of our Super Mario Land drinking game on her own, but often preferred to give other games a try anyway. She even found some new favorites, like her beloved Koopalings.
And apart from that, we had our Troll Trivia quiz game. We had everything from childhood antics to weird habits, awkward moments and rugby brawls. I suppose you all got to know the Trolls a little better this year.
There was a lot of stuff going on in 2023, wasn't it? Well, I was enjoying it, and I hope you guys did too. I wonder if the grindette has anything to add?
Well, I would say: Summer swimming was a big highlight in 2023 (injury, so what? We have fun anyway!), it was a bit of a more relaxed sports year, because I coudn´t compete in tennis (big ouchi on my left leg!), the Palmengarten was definitely also a wonderful highlight in 2023! And the new Koopas! They´re adorable! There was not much poker going on, only some occasional recreational play, but 2023 was also my first BIG gardening year! And it was a full success!! 
Well, almost, as my hottest chilis refused to grow fruits 
But I suffered also some setbacks in the garden: the cabbage was eaten by snails, the eggplant was eaten by "Roger Rabbit", the potatoes got eaten by potatoe bugs and now, my beautiful Carolina Reaper which I took indoor for hibernation got eaten by lice and my beautiful, lovely Aji Charapita got eaten by mites! 
The Zimbabwe Bird´s Eye and two Trinidad Moruga Scorpions are still healthy and well, though! 
And there will be new chilis in 2024 .... this time from sweet pepper to the super HOT stuff!!!
I hope you guys enjoyed following along with the Troll Challenges in 2023. As you could see in yesterday's recap, we had a lot of fun, and we would like to thank all of our readers who joined in for the ride, who voiced their support for our challenges, and who played along in our interactive series like the Troll Trivia.
And now, Primrose and I have an announcement to make:
The world of online poker, including this forum, has changed a lot over the years, as you guys surely have noticed too. Most worryingly, Prim and I were not able to do any more poker challenges against each other starting some time this year, and while having some off-topic stuff is fine, I am aware that this is a poker forum, so I don't really think it's appropriate to have an entire blog dedicated to only non-poker stuff.
In addition to that, we often run into issues finding enough content for our own blogs, which are mostly supposed to be poker blogs anyway. Primrose in particular mentioned that she has serious doubts about whether she would like to continue playing at all, at least in any volume that is worth posting about.
We had a talk about how we would like to continue as we were entering the holidays. Whether we are going to keep this blog right here up, whether we keep blogging at all, posting at all... even play poker at all, for that matter. In the end, I had an idea, which should find a solution to all of those issues:
The bad news for anyone who liked to follow along is that the Troll Challenges blog will indeed come to a close, but the good news is that Primrose and I will stick around - and we will start a brand new shared blog tomorrow, on New Year's Day! You can think of it as a direct continuation of the Troll Challenges, as well as our individual blogs.
That was the whole idea behind it: Instead of having to struggle to come up with content in three different blogs, we will combine all three together to a single "Super Blog", so we should hopefully always have something to post about, poker-related or otherwise, even if one of us really ends up taking a longer break from the game.
So yes, the Troll Challenges will carry on, just under a different name. Our ongoing challenges shall be continued over there too, and in addition to that, you should also find the content of both of our individual blogs there. Gardening, chilis, tennis and occasional poker adventures from Prim, and mixed games, mixed drinks, and other exotic challenges from me. I think this should be the best solution, and Primrose liked the idea as well.
The new blog will be revealed and linked when it is ready, I hope to see you guys over there. Until then, the Trolls would like to wish you an excellent start into 2024!
Originally posted by Harrier88
The new blog will be revealed and linked when it is ready, I hope to see you guys over there.
Thanks!
Have a great year!
Happy New Year, Trolls and friends!
The new version of our shared blog is called Double Trouble, and it can be found here. Hope to see you guys over there, feel free to say hi to let us know that you are still on board. And don't be afraid to drop us a few lines now and then, we love interacting with our readers.
The Troll Challenges blog is now over, thank you very much for following along over the years, we will keep going on the new blog. This thread will stay open, but we don't intend to update it anymore, so I encourage you guys to post any replies you may have on the new blog as well.
Best wishes, from Primrose and Harrier.
