Our trip to Disneyland (AND a giveaway for a free night at Country Inn & Suites hotels!)

Country Inn & Suites is celebrating because they've opened a new hotel right within walking distance to Disneyland! Check out our visit to Disneyland and read all the way through to learn how you can enter to win a free nights stay at any Country Inn & Suites location!

I'm sure that most of us growing up, Disneyland was the ultimate dream vacation for any child. My biggest excitement was seeing my favorite Disney movie characters in real life, in their environments and getting to truly interact with them. The second most important thing I looked forward to were all the different amusement rides. It was a great mix of thrill or adventure.

My family of origin took us to Disneyland once during my childhood and the rest of our family vacations were mostly road trips around the Western US, sprinkled with a few visits to our family in Poland. My husband's family, on the other hand, visited Disneyland almost annually as their budget for family trips. So when I married into his family, the love of Disney was set in quite early.

It's a perfect day! #MickeyMouselovesPierogies

A photo posted by Bianca @ The Pierogie Mama (@thepierogiemama) on Nov 7, 2016 at 11:07am PST

My husband and I took two trips to Disneyland before having children. What a different experience it is go to to Disneyland and experiencing it as an adult! We got to zoom through the park, not a care in the world how long the wait lines were, stay up late for the fireworks show and didn't worry about character signatures and rode the coolest rides.

Then, my sister-in-love moved to the San Diego area this year and the whole family collectively gasped - we can go to Disneyland when we visit her! This past November the four of us flew down to visit her family and play at the park for 3 days, which we spread out over a week. Now getting to experience the magic of Disneyland through our daughter's eyes (aged 4 and 2) was something my husband and I will never forget. This time the priorities were very different; find our favorite characters to get signatures, ride only a few of the age appropriate rides and just simply look to soak it all in. There is so much to see in the details at Disneyland if you aren't distracted by rides! Pirated of the Caribbean is one of my favorite things to see at Disneyland because they have done such a great job at temporarily making you forget where and when you are. It's easy to get swept up in that creaky boat in the Louisiana bayou, duck your head in the midst of a drunken pirate canon ball brawl and yo-ho-ho with Jack Sparrow.

Some of our favorite memories were watching Penny and Ruby meet Elena of Avalor. It's a relatively new show and that day happened to be Princess Elena's first debut in meeting her friends at Disneyland. We also got to see an extended preview of the upcoming movie Moana (in the old Bug's Life theatre, so there were ocean sprays, smells and wind gusts!) and we had a caricature done of the girls at Fisherman's Warf. One night my husband and I left the kids with their grandparents and we went back for some night time roller coaster rides on the Matterhorn and Big Thunder.

As I mentioned before, Country Inn & Suites just opened up a brand new hotel that is within walking distance to Disneyland! With 174 gorgeous rooms that have family friendly open floor plans, spa-inspired bathrooms (for mama to relax after a day of chasing kiddos, duh), a 24/7 gym, free breakfast and an outdoor pool with views of the Disneyland fireworks, it's an easy sell for me! By saving a little bit of extra cash on transportation, parking and one meal of the day being covered, you now can shamelessly indulge in those delicious Dole Whips outside of the Tiki Room! Not going to lie, I had at least 3 a day while we were there because I was 8 weeks pregnant with #3 and that was about all I could stomach at the time!

And when I talk about saving a little bit of cash, how does one night free at any Country Inn & Suites location sound to you? That would put a little extra change in your pocket for your next vacay, right? So here's the deal - follow the rules at the bottom and you'll have your chance to be one of my readers to win this awesome prize!

To enter the giveaway:
1. Watch this short video on the all new Country Inn & Suites in Anaheim location and leave a comment below telling me one interesting thing that she said. Include your email address so that I can contact you if you win!
2. For a second entry (first option must be completed!), visit the Country Inn & Suites website and tell me in a separate comment which location you would stay at if you won.

2/1/17: The winner is comment #47, which is Sheila P! Check your email!

Giveaway rules: This giveaway is sponsored by Country Inn & Suites, not by The Pierogie Mama. The contest is open until 1/31/17 and the winner will be contacted via email only. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to the email in order to claim their prize, otherwise a new winner will be chosen. No purchase is necessary to win, but if you do want to enter you have to play by the rules described above. The comments must be relevant to the question, otherwise they won't count. If you don't provide an email address, I don't have a way to contact you. Good luck and I can't wait to see who wins!

Vancouver Aquarium

After this weekend, I feel like I'm on a West Coast tour of Aquariums. In the last year, I've been to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, Seattle Aquarium, Aquarium of the Pacific (post coming soon..so behind on this! We were there in October!) and now the Vancouver Aquarium. The only aquariums that I'm missing are Seaside Aquarium, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Monterey Bay, Morro Bay, Santa Monica and Cabrillo... Bucket list for 2016? ;)
So our weekend in Vancouver started off with a two night stay in Whistler. On Monday Adam had a meeting with a supplier in Vancouver so the girls and I spent that time at the Aquarium, which I haven't been to in about 15 years. I remember seeing the orca the last time I was there. In the emergence of the movie Blackfish (and my feelings towards cetacean capture in general), I was happy to learn that in the early 2000's Vancouver had created a bylaw preventing the Aquarium from displaying wild caught cetaceans and only obtain cetaceans from other facilities if they were born in captivity, captured before 1996 or were rescued and deemed un-releasable after this date (source). Since 2001 they haven't had an orca but currently have two belugas (one was the first conceived and born in a Canadian aquarium) and two rescued Pacific White Sided Dolphins. They do put on a show for both of these, but it's more of a walk through of their daily health check and training with a big emphasis on education of these animals. I whole heartedly agree that animals in general should have the freedom to be wild, but that's not the case every time and at the very least..I am thankful that institutions put forward the effort to education and conservationism. When I was younger, children would see the orcas and want to become trainers at Seaworld. Now this current generation will learn about these animals and hopefully want to be scientists who study them in the wild. 

My favorite part about aquariums is that the animals are always visible. Now that Penny is a toddler I take the time to stand in front of most of the tanks and talk to her about what's inside and have her describe as well. 

 My favorite animals to photograph are jelly fish!

Penny truly enjoyed the beluga show. She is too young to understand what the narrator was discussing, but it was so cool to see her finally realize that there is such a creature as a beluga (we sing the Baby Beluga song to her every night, since she was born). Penny kept shrieking "It's a BABY WOOOGA!" They did only one or two "tricks" but even as someone who has had an interest in whales all her life, I learned a lot! 

We also watched the dolphin show, which had a lot more acrobatics. Unfortunately..there's something about the dolphins jumping very high and the loud clap as they hit the water that just really upset Ruby. Poor baby just cried so hard whenever they did that! So we left the show early and I got a few very strange rude stares as we left. ? Sorry guys, yes I have to inconvenience you as I push through, my baby can't take it anymore. So strange.

Have you visited the Vancouver Aquarium?

See what zoos The Pierogie Mama has written about