The Lion is Awake is a 1000-piece puzzle from Genuine Fred, and the artist’s name is Souther Salazar. I picked it up at my local puzzle box because there weren’t many puzzles I really liked and this one just seemed so interesting and unique.
This was also the first puzzle I had done from the brand Genuine Fred. It turned out to be a really good puzzling experience. The quality was very good, and the image was perfectly suited for a puzzle, with lots of distinct colors and textures to work on .
I actually did this puzzle on Mother’s Day. Michael was with his dad, so I went to church and had lunch and then started working on this puzzle. He came home later in the afternoon and brought me a card, flowers, and chocolate. So sweet!

The day before I did this puzzle, I went to a puzzle competition that was being held nearby in Hershey, PA. I did not participate as it was my first time going to something like this and I wanted to scope it out first to see what it was like. The competition involved teams of 4 doing a 500-piece puzzle. This was a fundraiser for metastatic breast cancer research and was held at the antique automobile museum, and the puzzle had antique cars and trucks on it.
There were about two dozen teams participating in the event, which was great. The first three teams got done in 33 minutes, 45 minutes, and 54 minutes. I stayed for a little while after that, but left before the entire event was over. I was by myself because the friend that was planning to go with me had a family thing come up and couldn’t go.
Here are a couple of pics from the day:


If I get another opportunity to go to a puzzle competition like this, I think I would like to find a team and join in.

