Visiting Great Wolf Lodge (and staying organized with Mabel's Labels)

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Mabel’s Labels. 

I received a voucher to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item 

to thank me for my participation.

This past weekend we spent 3 days at Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound, WA. It's an indoor water park resort that is truly geared towards fun for all members of the family, at all developmental levels and ages. It was a big gift from Nana to her grandbabies - all 6 of them. We, as their parents, were so lucky to get to tag along! ;) So count this - 6 grand babies (between the ages of 1-12) and 8 adults piled into two suites and we spent 3 days of family fun at the park.  

Words can't describe how wonderful it was to be with so many family members for a few days of fun, relaxation and a break from the hum-drum every day. We made a ton of memories that will last a life time and most importantly spent it with those whom we love. 

A few memories from the trip...

• Margarita night for the ladies. It was awesome.
• Nearly falling out of the inner tube while going down The Tornado (!!)
• Watching Ruby overcome her anxiousness around the water and eventually hear her squeals of excitement while she "swam" through the water like a frog.
• At every meal, Penny would ask the auntie or uncle closest to her and make sure that they were enjoying their meal and saying "that makes me glad." We've been focusing on empathy lately and it's been paying off!

If you've got a big-group Great Wolf trip planned for the future, here are a few tips of what {I think} we did right:

• Coordinate meals. We were there for almost three whole days, so between 3 families we split who would be taking care of meals for that day. 
• Collaborative naps. We came up with a cuddle puddle of toddler aged nap time where they all snuggled in together for a nap on the pull out, while Ruby (the only infant) slept quietly in a separate room. One or two parents stuck around to keep an eye on things (aka also take a nap). The two "Bigs" went on a Magiquest while the rest of the adults got to have some non-kid fun time at the water park! 
• Collaborative bed-time. Pretty much the same thing happened as it did at nap time, except we let the kids wind down with a movie while the grown ups played games or chatted.
• Mabel's Labels made it easy to quickly see who's stuff belonged to whom. 

Can you imagine the amount of stuff we had? All of the moms started out with the best of intentions by sectioning off our family's things into our respective areas and kept it nice and tidy. That was the first part of day one. Then the morning's swim session was over and everyone hurriedly stripped off their wet swim suits in preparation for lunch and naps. As you can imagine, there was A LOT of kid stuff floating around between those two suites. Keeping track of all that was a job and a nightmare in itself.

Thankfully a few of the kids' items were accounted for and easily identified thanks to Mabel's Labels. Mabel's Labels are super durable sticker labels that you can use to identify your kids' items, such as shoes, jackets, toys, water bottles, backbacks and more. They are laundry,  dishwasher and microwave-safe! Because of their waterproof quality, I knew they'd be perfect for our trip to Great Wolf!

note: identifying information was omitted by using photo editing. Your order from Mabel's Labels will not have blocked out text like the labels do above.

I've heard about Mabel's Labels for the last few years, I knew that they were popular and had won awards...but now I am totally hooked! The quality of the sticker and printing is awesome and they are really robust. I wasn't worried about the sticker wearing off the bottom of the sandal (we wore them in the water too!) or falling off. 

We tried out the Limited Edition Camp Label Pack - for $39.95 you get a variety of 64 labels that include:

• 10 Personalized Name Stickers: 70mm x 16mm (2-3/4" x 5/8")
• 24 Mini Custom Name Stickers: 38mm x 8mm (1-1/2" x 5/16")
• 8 Custom Shoe Stickers: 33mm (1.3")
• 50 Tag Mates™ Stick On Clothing Labels: 21mm x 10mm (13/16" x 3/8")
• 2 Personalized Bag Tags: 57mm x 32mm (2-1/4" x 1-1/4")

What a deal, right? There were so many tags included that we have use for them on items down the road.



You can order your stickers. I also used promocode RETAILMENOT and got an additional discount!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. 

MCS Touch A Truck Recap!

Holy cow I am behind on a lot of posts. Seriously. So today I'm just going to limit this post to mostly pictures, because there's little needed beyond that.

Last week was MCS's Touch a Truck event. Without sounding overly gushy, this was hands down the best way to spend $20 for a day of fun for a family of 8. Not kidding. Let me begin...

Firstly, Touch a Truck was hosted at Monroe Christian School and coordinated by my lovely friend, Molly. See her? Powerhouse woman who is the definition of go-getter. Deserves an award, this woman.

Follow me on instagram! @Thepierogiemama

It all started in the morning when my husband was picked up at our house by the Kenworth Mariner's truck. We got 2 Kenworth big rigs represented at this year's MCS Touch a Truck and it was pretty cool to see the look of amazement in Penny's eyes when this big truck rolled up to our house and dad climbed in.

We followed shortly after and here's a snippet of our day.

In addition to the 50+ trucks that were there, there were a ton of free activities included:
Face Painting, Caricature Drawings, Bubble Soccer, Agility Training, Kindermusik Mini Classes, Storytime, Bubble Blowing, Craft Tables, Balloon Animals, YMCA Activity booth, live music, petting and feeding ponies & bunnies, juggling lessons, nail art, toddler zone, meeting Blitz the offical Seahawk mascot, the Reptile Man and sooooooo much more. 

Over 2,500 people came and there are tons more pictures on their facebook page.

Keep in touch for next year!

Website Facebook

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by MCS Touch A Truck. All opinions are my own.

Our trip to Dallas, Part 1: Getting there.

In the last year we've been very blessed in getting to take several family vacations at a discount. My husband travels for work often and sometimes he ends up going somewhere that I would like to take the girls along with too. Pretty much anywhere warm. Ruby flies as a lap infant, which saves us a little bit of money, and my husband's flight and hotel is covered so that leaves flights for Penny and I. Last October we took our first plane ride as a family of 4 to Long Beach, CA (a mere two hour flight from Seattle) and this past month we flew to Dallas for the week.

We stayed at the Omni Hotel in Dallas, which is connected to the convention center where my husband spent the week talking up natural gas in semi truck applications. I'm an independent gal; we expected hubby to be busy all day and past dinner while schmoozing with his contractor contacts so I had a list of ideas of what we could do while visiting. I've never been to that part of the country before so I was excited primarily for the food (if I'm being totally honest) and learning a little bit about the culture.

Let me start with the flight. Well, how about our TSA experience. No, let me back up to the day before.

The day before was my nephew and sister-in-law's birthday celebration. We went to the local indoor trampoline park and had a lot of fun being ridiculous. Well, the grand finale was a suggested moms vs dads dodgeball game (yes, on trampolines). There was a designated area just for dodgeball and there was a group of tweens playing first so we waited our turn. When the tweens were done, the ref, who was honestly just a high schooler babysitting that part of the park, ushered the kids off and allowed the adults to get into place. Somehow, the tweens came back to play and put way to many players on the court. I don't know why the ref didn't say anything, she just kind of shrugged it off and said it would be ok. Apparently not worried about an 11 year old getting pelted by grown man playing dodge ball, or the fact that there were two people to a trampoline which was against the rules in the rest of the park. I'm not even sure why none of us said anything, we definitely looked at each other like "is this a good idea?" but the game started quickly before anyone could say anything. The whistle goes off and we dash to the middle to get the 6 balls that were meant to be shared between probably 16 players. Let me preface that I am not athletic. Really, I'm not. So it was no surprise that it took less than 3 seconds of game time for me to be disqualified. Not because I was hit with a ball, instead because the 11 year old girl that was sharing my trampoline with me double bounced me and gave me a sprained ankle. Yipee! Our flight to Dallas was leaving the next morning. Ain't no body got time for that. So I tried to heal it as quickly as possible, but this was a bad one and even 3 weeks later I still can't walk on it correctly.

Ok, so that brings us to our flight experience.

Because of my sprained ankle, we opted to babywear both kids at the airport and use our double stroller as the transportation for our carry ons. This helped a little bit, but ultimately it was still very painful but I just had to tough it out. Can you guess why there is only one picture of our airport / airplane experience??

I'm always on the look out for experiences in what to expect from TSA because it seems that each time I fly that there are new policies. I've flown internationally while pregnant, twice domestically with newborns and now twice with a family of 4. I had a few bad experiences, but they weren't at SeaTac, thankfully. Adam and I both wore our children as we got to TSA and they were happy to allow us to opt out without asking us to remove the kids.

On the plane Penny had her own seat because she's 3 years old. I was given some super great advice on how to fly with littles ahead of time, and I am oh-so-thankful that we opted to have Penny fly in her car seat. We had checked it when we flew to Long Beach and it was a hassle trying to contain two wiggly kids. This time around, Penny comfortably settled in and ended up falling asleep quickly because it was no different than a car ride for her. Ruby was pretty restless. She had just learned to confidently walk and wants to do it all the time now. But we made it through and got checked into our hotel at 10:30p local time. We all settled in to the king sized bed and the next morning my husband said his goodbyes as he took off for his conference, then the girls and I prepared for our day.

Because of the sprained ankle, I really had to take it easy on the first day. It was a big bummer, it took out our day trip to the Perot Museum. Instead we relaxed in the hotel room, went down and had our first meal of many at Texas Spice and later visited the hotel's pool. Just like our visit to Long Beach in October, the locals seemed to be surprised that we are excited to go to the pool in Texas in May. Whatever, it's 80 degrees outside and that's when we play in the water in Washington! Getting into the water with my sprained ankle helped relax and stretch it a little bit too. I used my extremely handy-dandy BeachFront Baby water sling, which allowed me to play in the water with a toddler and infant!

I wasn't going to let this sprained ankle stop me from enjoying our much anticipated vacation, so regardless of how puffy and sore I was, I knew that the following morning we'd be spending our day at the Dallas Zoo. That's a blog post of it's own, because A) you know how I love to drag out blog posts into a series of stories and B) I love zoos.

Catch the Moment: Week 17

A picture a day, for one year.

 So many things to love about this picture. I'm not a huge Mariner's fan, I mean - I'm from Seattle, have lived here most of my life and I will go to a game for the food and company. There, I said it. However, the grandparents are sports fans so every once in a while I oblige and send them a picture like this one. But seriously, when did my baby grow up? She's wearing K-Swiss sneaks, for gosh sakes.

 These are a few of my beautiful sister in laws. We celebrated a couple birthdays at the local trampoline park, which ended with two glamorous injuries (including yours truly) thanks for a moms vs. dads dodgeball. Yes, on trampolines. It's a long story, but basically an 11 year old sprained my ankle and it was so awesome because the next morning we flew out for our trip to Dallas! Yay! Because babywearing 2 kids and hauling a stroller with carseats and carry ons isn't hard enough to do; we needed to add a sprained ankle into the mix to make it interesting.

 Our trip to Dallas was flight #2 in the last year with both kids - and we have our third trip planned in December to fly across "The Pond" to see my parents over Christmas. Our first trip was to Long Beach in October, which was a mere 2 hour flight from Seattle. Seattle to Dallas is about a 4 hour flight, so we learned a few more lessons about how to fly efficiently and sanely with two littles. One huge travel tip came from That Mama Gretchen, who had recently flown to Texas with her littles too, and that was to put the ticketed non-lap child in their carseat for the flight. Penny was comfortable and calm for the flight. She's used to sitting in her car seat for sometimes hours at a time, so this wasn't that different. Miss Ruby, on the other hand.. well, she was a wiggly 15 month old who wasn't allowed to adventure like she wanted to. Again..more lessons were learned, but this was the exciting start for our super fun week in Dallas, which I will share more full details with you soon!

 Due to that (im)perfectly timed sprained ankle, I had to take it easy for the first part of our trip. But that wasn't going to stop me from taking the girls up to the infinity pool at the Omni hotel. How did I manage a 3 year old and a 1 year old in the water, by myself? Babywearing, of course. 

 Ok, I seriously lucked out on the hotel's restaurant. Texas Spice rocks my socks. The breakfast buffet was to die for. My glutinous, eager fingers made this photo come out embarassingly blurry, but what you'll find on that plate are eggs, breakfast potatoes, breakfast veggies, bacon, bread pudding, rice pudding and waay up there at the top were blueberries and raspberries. Why don't I just eat like this every day??

 More poor quality, but this was taken with a cell phone in a pretty much pitch black room so you'll forgive me. Both girls nap for 2 hours in the middle of the day and I was very thankful for their flexibility in our routine. I wasn't sure how it was going to go down with putting them to sleep in our hotel room each day, but it worked perfectly. Watching them sleep together on the bed made me dream more about them one day sharing their bedroom and perhaps even trying out sibling co-sleeping if that suits either of them. 

This picture won't do it justice but I hope you can get a good look. This is a pano of the view from the Giants of The Savannah view point at the Dallas Zoo. I actually ended up visiting the Dallas Zoo on two separate days because there was so much to see on the first day that we didn't get through everything. Thankfully I have an annual membership at the Woodland Park Zoo, which gave me reciprocal membership benefits of discount tickets. Zoos are kind of my thing (here's a list of zoos I've visited), so keep an eye out for what we thought of the Dallas Zoo. 

Catch the moment archives

These aren't on Instagram, but most others are!

Visiting the Aquarium of the Pacific - Our Family Trip to Long Beach (Part 2)

Read about our visit to San Pedro, Downtown Disney and how to babywear at the pool:

Long Beach trip Part 1

___________________________________

Visiting zoos and aquariums has kind of become my thing when I travel with the kids. This past year we've tagged along on three of my husband's work trips - Long Beach, Whistler & Vancouver BC and Dallas, Texas. The Aquarium of the Pacific was my favorite part of our trip to Long Beach.

We have an aquarium in Seattle, but to be honest it really hasn't been updated since I visited in high school. I didn't know what to expect at all when we visited the Aquarium of the Pacific and in hindsight, it was one of my favorite days ever.

The Aquarium of the Pacific is right in the harbor at Long Beach. One of the first exhibits that we walked into was the deep sea exhibit which featured a recreated "whale fall." When a whale dies in the ocean, it falls to the ocean floor and becomes a source of nutrition for many animals. The Aquarium recreated the habitat that it would have become. When I saw it in October, it had already been on display for several years and it really wasn't as gross as you would expect. The crustaceans that were working on it kept everything very clean, so there were several spots where ribs and other bones were exposed but picked clean. I've always had a fascination with the ocean, especially whales and the deep sea, so I geeked out a little bit and texted pictures to my real-life marine biologist friend, who had participated in several whale decropsies. She geeked out too!

The most impressive view at the Aquarium of the Pacific if their Blue Cavern exhibit. It's modeled after Blue Cavern Point near Long Beach, a popular diving spot.

Several times throughout the day they got a team of divers in the water. They cleaned the glass, fed the fish and were mic'ed so they talked to the crowd about what they were doing, who they were feeding and conversation information.

We also visited the penguins, seals and jellies. Then I got kissed by a ray.

Penny was in a pretty intense shark obsession phase, so it was only perfect timing that the Aquarium has an area where we could touch different types of docile sharks. We worked up our courage and Penny was able to pet one. I could tell that she was not expecting the skin to feel like sandpaper!

When big sister took her regularly scheduled nap in the stroller, I took little Ruby out and she got to get an up close view of the colorful tanks without Penny's toddler agenda pulling us around. This is one of my favorite pictures of Ruby as a little baby.

We easily spent 6 hours at the aquarium that day. I walked through all of the exhibits several times, each time finding a different tank that we missed because of too many people crowding it. The outside area had toddler story time, a splash park and more climbing structures to give the kids something to play with.

At dinner that evening, Penny asked me to draw a few of her favorite animals that she saw. All I had was a napkin, but she was happy to color them in for me too.

Have you been to The Aquarium of the Pacific? What was your favorite part?

See what zoos The Pierogie Mama has written about

Our family trip to Long Beach (7 months later) Part 1

While I'm away on my next adventure, I realized that it was probably high time that I shared about my last big one with our little family. I'm talking about our trip to Long Beach, CA from back in October. Uhm...yea. Bad blogger. Normally I'd be super pumped about writing down our travels the second that we got home, but there's something about 2 kids that makes the words pause at the end of my fingertips and sometimes they just never make it to the blog. Sorry! But nonetheless, here we are. Enjoy!

My husband's current position in his company takes him around the country a little more often than we were accustomed to a few years ago. Most places that he travels to are boring or he has a work project to support and will be working 16 hour days, so it doesn't normally make sense for the girls and I to tag along. But on the rare occasion, he snags a work trip that has a light work load and is actually in a destination where we could turn it into a little family vacation. And that's what happened with Long Beach, CA back in October.

I'm a pretty independent gal and I love to travel. To turn my blog into a family travel blog would be a dream come true. But for now, I am blessed to be able to piggyback on a few of my husband's business trips. The girls and I have a blast. They travel very well and I like to justify these little trips as our warm up for our trip to Germany in the winter, to visit my parents.

During these work trips we expect that my husband will be occupied during working hours (and sometimes longer), so I make sure to find ways to fill our time and make our travels worth it. While he was networking about natural gas solutions for the semi trucking industry, the girls and I cavorted around the Long Beach area for 4 days. Our hotel was in San Pedro, not too far from Long Beach. For one of our days we puttered around the water front there.

There is a little walking trail that takes you along the water front that parallels Harbor Blvd. It takes you past the USS Iowa, and we ended at the Gateway Plaza Fanfare Fountain. Every so often, classical music begins to play and the fountains are choreographed along. It was really pretty!

After his work commitment that evening, we took the drive out to Disneyland and walked along Downtown Disney. My husband comes from a Disneyland lovin' family - he's been dozens of times throughout his childhood and together we have gone twice. Our girls aren't at the age yet where we could justify the expense of the park tickets, let alone the sheer stimulation overload! So we went the free route and walking along the street of Downtown Disney was enough free fun for all of us. My father in law keeps asking me when we think that we'll take the girls into the actual park, and our best guess is that when Penny is 8 years old and Ruby is 6 they will have a total blast. Hopefully we will have someday-Baby #3 (and maybe even someday-Baby #4) along with us, but at the moment we can only plan for at what age these two girls will have fun. :) We had dinner at Tortilla Joe's, where Penny got her first balloon animal and I learned a few secrets on how to make the perfect guacamole.

The locals had a good laugh at us too. It was October and the temperatures were in the high 60's, low 70's. That is called tank top, flip flop and shorts weather in Washington. My kids are out in the backyard in the swimming suits and playing in our sprinkler while I lounge on a blanket in that weather. Californians don't seem to think that's appropriate in October, so we got laughed at when we hauled our family down to the hotel's pool. It had already been shut down for the winter! But luckily the hot tub was turn down to low and we went in that instead. Whatevs, works for us!

Oh, and that ring sling that I'm sure you've noticed? The one that lets me wear Ruby and still play in the water? None other than the fabulous Beach Front Baby ring sling, of course!  Click on over to that link to read more about it! No babywearing parent should be caught without one this summer.

My absolute favorite part of this trip was our visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. As it turns out, I have started to make a habit of visiting the local zoo or aquarium whenever we travel somewhere. It's a fun outing for everyone because they tend to be very toddler friendly. There's countless lessons to learn about the animals, our environment and thinking about the big picture. Not to mention, it's a great way to expend some of that toddler energy that builds up when cooped up in a hotel room! Penny was able to run around and I didn't have to constantly reign her in. But that, my friends, is a story for another blog post! Head over to read about our adventures at The Aquarium of the Pacific.

Babywearing at the pool (Beachfront Baby Carriers Review)

One of the biggest obstacles that I've tackled in this past year with having two kids is simply how do I manage both of them while getting on with our lives. With a toddler and an infant, you've got two ends of the spectrum. The toddler wants to be out and free and the infant wants to stay close. Carrying around a heavy carseat or keeping a child on the hip just doesn't jive with my lifestyle, so hands down baby wearing has saved me and my sanity countless times! I really am not sure how I would have gotten anything done if it weren't for the ability to simply strap one (or both!) to me.

Back in October the girls and I piggybacked on Adam's work trip to Long Beach and we were so excited to break up the PNW rain with a few days at the hotel pool. I was a little anxious because it would just be the girls and I during the day and I didn't want that to stop us from playing in the pool. Keeping Ruby on my hip and trying to have free hands to help Penny in the water just wasn't going to cut it. Little Ruby is worn at home all the time, but all of my carriers are made of heavy material. I wouldn't be able to get in and out of the water without gaining 20 pounds of soaked material and it wouldn't dry quickly so poor Ruby be would be cold, even if the weather was warm.

I got the opportunity to try the Beachfront Baby Carriers ring sling and since then this mama is 100% water ready with my two sweeties! Beachfront Baby Carriers offer water compatible baby wearing wraps and ring slings. The material is polyester jersey mesh (think men's gym shorts) so it is very light weight, dries quickly and isn't too stretchy. Because of the holes in the fabric it's also great for hot weather (not like I will get that much of it around here!).

I preferred a ring sling over a wrap because both of my kids like to be carried on the hip and this was a great way to introduce Ruby to swimming in water. She loves the bath but recently has been a little overwhelmed by the pool. I'm thinking it's because of the sounds of rushing water and kids having fun along with unexpected splashes. So keeping her close to me and letting her feel secure with mama allowed me to continue being attentive to Penny and ready in case she needed an extra hand.

Our town has an amazing aquatic center that has a zero entry children's splash pad. Penny has been there many times for swim lessons and just to have fun, but we hadn't taken Ruby into the water yet because we weren't sure if she could stay warm enough. This past weekend she got her first in-water experience and I used wore her in my ring sling so that I could get off the pool deck and into the water with my family. 

Poor little Ruby was pretty overwhelmed with the loud noises of rushing water, kids and music. As long as I kept her close to me, she was pretty settled but still was startled if a kid jumped into the water by us and caused waves or splashes. We tried to let her out of the sling so that we could bounce her in the water or show her that the pool is really just an extremely large version of the bath tub...but all she really wanted to do was be close to mama or daddy. That's totally fine because in her high little perch she was able to see what was going on, take it in and I was able to still play with Penny. 

Over the winter we also got hit with the nasty "crud" that just wouldn't go away. We had coughs, runny noses and no sleep for weeks. I made it part of my morning routine to take showers with the girls; allowing Penny to play on the floor in the tub and I wore Ruby in my Beachfront Baby ring sling. All three of us benefited from the steam in the shower and it helped break up the congestion naturally. Both of my girls ask for extra snuggles and babywearing while they are sick, so this was perfect!

Pretty snazzy, isn't it? I was approached by several moms poolside asking me about it and they were ready to order!

Do you babywear at the pool?

Disclosure: I received product in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Please see giveaway details for restrictions.

Teaching Cloth Diaper 101

This past weekend I taught my first cloth diapering class at my local children's consignment store, Grow With Me Boutique!

Grow With Me Boutique is very quickly becoming the go-to location for anything cloth diaper related - she's stocking up on multiple different brands and accessories so it seemed appropriate to help educate our community about the benefits of cloth diapering as well as show parents how easy it is to cloth diaper.

When I was initially looking into cloth diapering I was so overwhelmed with all the different options and didn't have a location close to me where I could actual hold a diaper to see how they worked exactly. We bloggers try our best to show off the features of each diaper we review, but sometimes you just gotta hold it in your hands and have a person talk to you face to face about what it is. With this in mind, I created my "lesson plan" and Grow With Me set up the event!

I was thinking that a group of 6-8 would be perfect; more than I could ask for. As the date to the class grew closer the attendance count kept ticking up and soon over two dozen were signed up to come!

My goal of the class was to introduce the different styles of cloth and to show everyone that every family is unique so there is no "right" way to cloth diaper. I started by giving a brief overview of the different styles of cloth as well as their pros/cons:

• prefolds and flats with covers
• all in ones
• all in twos
• pockets
• fitteds

I also covered accessories, wash basics and a little bit of trouble shooting. Some of the attendees were already experienced in cloth diapering so it was great to have them share their experiences, such as while I use the dry pail method, two other moms shared that they use wet pails and why it works for them. It was a great open discussion with tons of questions and it made the time just fly by. I was also able to give out samples of Rockin Green, Country Save, Motherlove Herbals, Earth Angel Mama Baby and Planet Wise even sponsored two prizes!

We also had a special guest appearance; my own "cloth diaper community star," Amy the owner of Buttons Diapers. Amy and I have worked together several times, through my own Buttons Diapers reviews and at the Mommie Mixer in 2013. She's somewhat local to me so it was fun to have her come visit and for a couple customers get to meet her.

It had been several years since I've taught a class so it was fun and refreshing to jump in again. I hope I'll get to do it another time soon!

Connect with Grow With Me Boutique 

to find more cloth diapering resources for Snohomish County!

Whistler family vacation

I've got a dormant monster inside of me. It's called wanderlust. I love to travel. Near or far, whatever it is I love seeing new places, eating new food and just seeing what else is out there. It's amazing to me how little we know of the great places so close to us. Wanderlust doesn't mean traveling across the globe. It's just being somewhere new.

Well, this past year has been a quiet year for us. It's been spent majorly focusing on this whole transition of one to two kids and the craziness that it ensues. We've also been cutting back on expenses in order to maintain staying a single income family and honestly that's way more important than vacations. Truly. However, sometimes we just need a change in pace.

The last few months I've been somewhat obviously hinting that I'd like to take a weekend getaway with just our family. "Oh look, did you see that That Mama Gretchen escaped to the coast?" Oh man, my husband got sooo tired of all my weekly updates of everyone's travel plans during the holidays. Well, it got the point across and last week he got invited to meet with a supplier for work in Vancouver, BC and he nonchalantly asked via email "hey, would you and the girls like to come up with me to Canada? ...We could make it a weekend in Whistler."

It wasn't even a minute later that I was on Air BnB looking up condos. I even found the perfect one that fit into our budget and right in the village. Alas, that didn't work out because of some kind of techno glitch and I was ready to throw in the towel because who has an available condo on the cheap on MLK Jr weekend. Then on my last ditch effort search I FOUND ONE. It was perfect! So I snapped it up and we prepared for our trip to the north. Squee!!!

We only live about 4 hours from Whistler and with all of our stops along the way (yay for Penny in taking her first long road trip in undies!!) we got there in about 6 hours. The border crossing was a breeze for us old pro's, took a stop for lunch and groceries and thoroughly enjoyed the drive out of Vancouver up to Whistler. My camera was packed away (!!) and my cell phone was dead (!!!!) so I couldn't document the absolutely gorgeous drive out there. We talked about going up again during the summer and hiking along the way.

We checked into our cozy little condo, which was at the Marquise and just across the street from the Whistler Walking Trail. A few minutes down this trail brought us to the back of the Whistler Fairmont, which is at the base of Wizard and Magic lifts. There was a bit of sledding behind the Fairmont but in the early evening when the lifts stopping running, many people came out to sled that part of the run.

The condo

We spent the next two days alternating between snow play and warming up in the condo. Unfortunately it poured rain all day on Sunday and that was the time that we decided to take the trail from the condo to Whistler Village. Normally it would be a 15 minute walk for an adult, but when you're pulling a sled with a toddler (who wants to get out half the time) and/or wearing a baby (both of you are bundled up in your snow gear), it takes like 45 minutes. Add that it was raining and creating huge puddles, and your toddler just LOVES puddles, which means their non-waterproof snowboots get soaked before you get to the village. Oh, and for some reason a ton of the restaurants and shops were closed! On a weekend during the winter season. So weird. But, we made it to Blenz for some coffee and cocoa, warmed up and started the trek home. Along the way, our brave all weather warrior passed out. Yes, those are pink gloves on her feet. We couldn't bear to put the wet boots and socks back on..

daily photo challenge for 2015

But no complaints here - it was exactly what this family needed. We are so project driven, between house renovations or whatever other project the hubs has going on, we very very rarely aren't "working" on a weekend. So it literally took us hopping the border to get a break.

On Monday, when Adam had his meeting with his supplier, he dropped us girls off at the Vancouver Aquarium so that we'd have something to do while he was busy. Read more about our Vancouver Aquarium adventure tomorrow!

Off Roading and Sledding up Foss River Road

We live right in the corridor of a lot of great snow just north of Seattle. Within an hour we have access to a ski resort and if we go a little further east we can visit Leavenworth, a quaint little Bavarian replica town (where we took our babymoon last year!). Even though we're so close to the mountains, our town is only about 70 feet above sea level and don't get very much snow (if any at all). So a little bit of a road trip is in order when we want to go sledding!

Our family tradition has been to go sledding at the start of the new year and the last two years we've kind of struck out with our sledding locations. The first year we checked out Stevens Pass, but there isn't a designated sledding area and the parking lot isn't that much fun. Leavenworth reportedly has one for older kids, but I think there is a height requirement. Last month we drove up Foss River Road outside of Skykomish to chop down our Christmas tree and we knew it would be a great sledding location within a few weeks!

A word of advice - this was mild off-roading conditions. Vehicles with street tires are not recommended to go up this road when it's snowy!  During snowy conditions as a bare minimum we recommend an AWD/4 wheel drive vehicle, with all terrain or mud terrain tires. Bring a set of chains (and any other recovery gear you might have) in case you get stuck, because we did! Thankfully this was considered "fun" for the husbands, so the mamas and kids started sledding while the dads put their off road recovery skills to use. Always travel with a secondary vehicle in case yours get stuck. There's no cell service up there.

My husband's new hobby is quickly becoming off roading in our 3/4 ton Duramax Suburban. This past summer we took our first family-of-four camping trip and teamed up with friends to drive the WADBR (which is an off roading trail that runs from southern Washington to northern Washington) and this month he was excited to get to take our rig out into to snow. Our Suburban has mud terrains and our friends joined us with their 2006 Ram 2500, with a Cummins Turbo Diesel and All Terrain tires. 

Not too long after switching to the gravel road it became very icy and both vehicles started to slip and slide. We threw down some gravel to gain traction and headed up a little more. The trail quickly becomes switch backs and soon you will see a short cut that connects two switch backs and is the perfect sledding hill. That's where we stopped. A few weeks ago when we had come up this same road it was still mud and rocks we had driven up that short cut. This weekend it was packed snow and was a perfect sled run. So we decided to chain up the trucks to make life a little easier for us and played in the snow for a couple hours. 

PS, did you notice that Penny is wearing a tutu? This girl cracks me up!  She lives in tutus! I got her dressed in her snowsuit, got started on Ruby and found that Penny had somehow procured a tutu - in the car. This girl will always make me laugh!

The snow condition was perfect for making snowmen, angels and sledding. The two toddlers, both aged 2 years 9 months, had a blast and absolutely loved the sled hill. Even Ruby loved snowflakes on her nose and eyelashes (one of her favorite things!) and enjoyed a ride in the infant sled. At first we thought the sled hill might be too long and fast for the toddlers, but even when they took a tumble half way down they got back on the disc and finished up!

Directions: Head east on highway 2 towards Skykomish (about 45 minutes). Stop at the Skykomish Ranger Station (74920 Stevens Pass Highway, Skykomish, WA 98288) to get a map. Continue headed east and turn right on Foss River Road. Follow the signs to Tonga ridge, FS 6830. Keep headed up until you find a decent sledding hill!

Follow along on my 365 photo challenge on instagram!

Getting toddlers involved in the holidays

Toddlers are such a handful at times, but when things are good, it's pure magic with them. This year the spirit of Christmas is making a big impact on my 2 1/2 year old, Penny, and I have been going through a list of holiday activities with her. Here's a few ideas to help you get going on how to get your toddler involved during the holidays:

1. Picking out the tree together
2. Creating ornaments (we bought a couple ceramic ones from our local craft store and I let her paint them)
4. Cookies! Check out our experience below
5. More Christmas candy, like dipping chocolate covered pretzels and decorating with sprinkles
5. Make garlands using pom poms, popcorn, cheerios, macaroni noodles, cotton balls, beads
6. Hand print crafts
7. Felt board stories
8. Read Christmas books together
9. Make scented playdoh
10. Create Christmas cards
11. More craft ideas: make candy canes with beads and pipe cleaners, Popsicle stick ornaments, salt dough hand and foot prints, pom pom wreaths

I'm a baker at heart and it's been a long time dream of mine for the day when my daughters can help create goodies for our family. So last Christmas Adam made a kitchen step stool station for the girls that will safely bring them to counter level. While Ruby rode along for the ride, Penny and I got started with decorating our first cookies together.

Because fun and being mindful of the time (for both the toddler's and infant's attention span!) was of the utmost importance, I used Toll House Rolled & Ready Cookie Dough. Toll House has 4 different flavors of pre-rolled cookie dough to choose from, and I chose sugar cookie because that's a family favorite! The dough was already rolled out the the appropriate thickness so from Penny's standpoint the fun was ready to begin!

I showed her how to gently press the cutter into the cookie dough (just like how we practice with playdoh) and I moved the cut shapes to a cookie sheet for her. Following the instructions on the package, we let them bake and fully cool before moving on to the decorating portion of our activity. Meanwhile, we played with the playdoh from item #9 above because she wasn't done using the cookie cutters!

For the decorating portion I made a simple frosting using solid coconut oil.
4 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup solid coconut oil
5 T milk
1 t vanilla extract
food coloring
Cream together the coconut oil and powdered sugar until smooth. Gradually mix in milk and vanilla until it is smooth and stiff. Add a couple drops of food coloring until you get the color you desire. 

And then I was reminded of the valuable lesson about toddlers. Even when your plans are laid out perfectly, things hardly ever go as planned. 

Once the cookies were done baking and had cooled, I showed Penny the frosting that I had made and laid out all the sprinkles for her to choose from. SUPER excited. I slathered on the frosting onto each cookie and laid them out onto a piece of butcher paper for her.

And then things took a 180° turn. Suddenly, according to the toddler, all sprinkles MUST be put away and the frosting MUST be removed from the cookies. NOW. Like "mama give me a wipe, no no no no frosting on these cookies pleaaaaaaaaaaaase!"

Friends, life's greatest mysteries are not about Nessie, the Bermuda Triangle or Stonehenge. It's toddlers. No one will ever understand why.

And there you have it. Mothers dream about the day when we get to bake cookies with our sweets for the first time and how magical it will be. In my case, I was spared the flour dust parties (thanks to the pre-made cookie dough!), and I even thought it was smooth sailing until the end...and then true to form, my daughter makes it interesting at the very end!

Find out more about Rolled & Ready Cookie Dough Sheets 

Share your favorite toddler friendly holiday activity (or toddler friend holiday activity fail!)

Disclosure: Thank you to Nestle Toll House for sponsoring today’s post and inspiring me to create and decorate delicious cookies with Nestlé Toll House Rolled & Ready Cookie Dough Sheets!

Lights Extravaganza! Lights of Christmas at Warm Beach

The holidays are so full of traditions! Our family traditions include Candy Day, pierogies, cutting down a tree from the woods and a big favorite for the kids - The Lights of Christmas.

If you're a Seattle local, this is a light show you do not want to miss. My husband and I have been to most of the large light shows between Seattle and Portland and we keep going back to Lights of Christmas in Stanwood because it's such an awesome experience!

The Lights of Christmas is at Warm Beach Camp, just an hour north of Seattle. Warm Beach Camp is a Christian camp and conference center that lights up 15 acres with over one million lights during the month of December. The truly stunning lights displays are the best I've ever seen, but what sets this festival apart from the rest is all the other fun activities!

It's a truly festive experience with live carolers, plays, choirs, story telling, arts and crafts, shopping, a gorgeous Nativity scene and so much more. Here's what our experience was like this past weekend.

Most of my husband's immediate family showed up to walk the Lights of Christmas together. Penny ran around with four of her cousins while Ruby enjoyed being passed around and carried by the adults. As soon as we walked through the gates, we beelined for the closest donut stand and ordered probably a dozen packages of freshly made donuts and multiple cups of hot cider and cocoa. You cannot go to the Lights of Christmas and miss out on the donuts!

Next on our agenda was Bruce the Talking Spruce. It's adorably corny, just a tree with a face and a mysterious voice coming through and talking to the guests. You'd think that it was a pre-recorded voice, but they have a camera rigged up and "Bruce" really talks to you! He'll ask the children specific questions (asking "the little girl in pink") and impart a few tree jokes. What's a tree joke? Well, for example...

Our group of kids weren't scared of him and just had a great time talking to him.

Afterwards we filled up on more goodies (kettle corn) and headed over to the Polar Express Train, which drives around the camp.  No Lights of Christmas experience would be complete without a pony ride (according to the girls) so we headed over to the corral.

Our final stop for the evening was at the petting zoo, where there were llamas, goats and sheep.

The Lights of Christmas

20800 Marine Drive

Stanwood, WA 98292

360.652.7575 | 800.228.6724 

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Disclosure: This post was sponsored by The Lights of Christmas. We were so honored to be invited to the event, we simply love it! All opinions are my own