2015 Wrap Up

Hi everyone! I am checking in at the midway point of my trip to Germany. If you've been following along on instagram, you've seen a ton of posts on some of the awesome sights that we have visited. By the way, you don't need to have an instagram account to see the pictures, so do go on and check them out!

Whether you've been following along with me for the last *almost* 4 years or have jumped in just recently, fret not - in the new year I'll be sure to "re-introduce" myself as it's been a long time since I've really done it officially. A lot changes when you start a blog in the month before you expect your first child, when 4 years later you find yourself with two daughters that are pre-school and toddler age. And a blog that has grown and maintained over that whole time and all you really needed was somewhere to write out your thoughts in a somewhat coherent manner! Anyways, I digress. Back to 2015.

Here's a round up of my 9 most popular posts of 2015 from Instagram -

1. I finally made Monte Cristo waffles. So good, but fair warning - the raspberry preserves are not easy (read: impossible) to clean off your waffle iron. Lesson learned. 2. Though I've been a babywearing mama from the beginning with Penny, just a few months ago I dove into the world of woven wraps. My dear friend That Mama Gretchen and I took a mama's night out and took MommyCon Seattle by storm. I fell in love with Cassiope Wovens and was positive that one way or another, I would be leaving MommyCon with a wrap. I took a chance, entered in Cassiope Woven's giveaway and I was the extremely lucky winner of a limited edition MommyCon exclusive wrap. Woo hoo! That's what you heard if you were at the announcement of the giveaway - I wooped with careless abandon. So here you see my Ruby and I in our first wrap job. 3. Here is an old fashioned, no calories spared pound cake made from no less than 10 eggs from my own chickens. I started keeping a small flock of backyard chickens right before Ruby's birth in 2014 and have been so in love with the delicious eggs these girls provide. This photo reminds me that not only should I make this again, and that I need to share this recipe with you, but also that I should at some point make a post about how my flock of 5 increased to a flock of 9 over the summer. Ooops. 4.  2015 was a year of a ton of work travel for my husband, and one time while he was out of town I treated myself to an avocado mask after I *thought* the girls were asleep. I heard Penny call for me, so I came up to comfort her. I forgot about the mask and she FREAKED out. She had no idea who I was, and I had to convince her that I am mama and not some random person. 5. This is the view from Zugspitze, the tallest peak in Germany. More pictures are on instagram, but I do promise you that I will give you the full details once we come home.  6. I have so much love for my husband, but there is very little more that tugs on my heart strings than when I see him wear our girls. One of our family traditions (which has been a tradition from his family of origin) is visiting family bible camp in the Okanagan mountains in British Columbia. This picture is from family camp this year while agate hunting.  7. Cloth diaper reviews & giveaways are still going strong on the blog! 8. Another babywearing daddy shot! 9. Sharing recipes is another favorite on the blog, and this past summer I shared my ever favorite summer recipe - lime cilantro chicken tacos.

And finally, if you need any more reading beyond what I've shared above, here's a few of my favorite blog posts this year too.

• Love salmon? I do too. Here's two ways that I absolutely love to cook it. 
• Visiting zoos and aquariums is kind of my thing. We did quite a bit of travel in 2015 and I absolutely loved the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. 
• Babywearing takes me everywhere - even the pool!
• I got a little crafty this year and did a bit of a Pinterest copy. Do you have a child in your life that loves model cars? This model car photo frame is so easy!
• With a team of friends, I sewed over 160 cloth menstrual pads for girls in developing countries. 
• On that same thread - why are cloth menstrual pads awesome?

Thanks for sticking along with me this year!

Don't miss out on the chance to win $20 PayPal from me as a New Year gift!

Making your zoo visit count

Help me thank a new blog sponsor by clicking here 

and see how easy back to school shopping will be!
____________________________________________________

Today I'm welcoming Megan, my long time friend and my personal go-to when it comes to questions about conversationalism and ocean animals! One of my favorite things to see on my facebook feed was when Megan was working with a stranding group and she'd share about what she's working on...mostly with processing stranded whales or seals, but there's always a ton to be learned about what these animals leave behind. What I'm saying is - for the last several years I've been bouncing around in my head about how I can turn fun zoo and aquarium trips into educational experiences for myself and the kids; rather than a sideline show where they ooh and ahh at an animal and quickly move on to the next, not really comprehending that this animal that they saw was actually very special and rare. I talked to Megan about this and she was gracious enough to write up a post about it and share her thoughts as a professional in the field! 

Zoos and aquariums are a catch-22 for me. On the one hand, they provide the general public access to animals they would otherwise probably never encounter and can serve as an educational tool for conservation efforts of their wild counterparts. They can also be a last resort to prevent a species from going entirely extinct due to habitat destruction, poaching, climate change, etc. But how many times have you been to the zoo and actually taken the time to read and learn about the animals there or attend one of the zookeeper talks? I know there are people out there who do because I am one of those people but too often I see people simply wandering around from exhibit to exhibit, glancing at the animals but not really putting in the effort to learn or engage their children to learn. This is where part of my issue with them lies. Admittedly, it is not really an issue with the zoos themselves but with the people visiting; however I also feel it falls on zoo staff/volunteers to create engaging learning environments so that more people will want to learn. Here are some of my tips for making your trip to the zoo fun, educational and an act of conservationalism:

• Stop and read the postings at each exhibit to learn about the animals and their natural habitats.
• Take the time to attend talks by zookeepers and don’t be embarrassed to ask questions!
• If you are a frequent zoo-goer, have each visit focus on a certain area and spend time before and after your trip learning about each area and its wild inhabitants. 

My other issue with captivity is just that—captivity. While most captive animals these days were born that way and would therefore not survive in the wild, I can’t help but feel that they deserve bigger and more natural habitats, much like what a sanctuary provides. Besides, isn’t the point of checking out a polar bear at the zoo to see how it would naturally behave in the Arctic, something most of us will never get to experience? I’m all for going to zoos/aquariums (in fact, I LOVE going!) but I would encourage everyone to slow down, take your time and turn something fun for the kids into a learning experience for all. 

How do you turn a zoo or aquarium visit 

into an educational experience for yourself or your kids?
Check out The Pierogie Mama's zoo bucket list!

A little about Megan: I'm currently a stay at home mama to an almost 9-month old little man named Declan. I earned my Bachelor of Science degree in marine biology at Hawaii Pacific University, where I focused on marine mammalogy. After graduating and moving back to Washington, I worked for a marine mammal research organization, doing photo identification work and stranding response. I currently live in central North Carolina but hope to make it back to the coast so I can work in my field again. You may remember me from my Shark Week posts on The Pierogie Mama's facebook page. 

Visiting the Dallas Zoo

In May we took a week long family trip to Dallas as a piggyback on my husband's business travel. One of my favorite things to do with my daughters is visit the zoo, so I've made it a fun goal to visit different zoos across the country when the opportunity presents itself.

We actually ended up visiting the Dallas Zoo two days in a row. This was in part because of my sprained ankle that happened the day before our flight and because I spent most of first day in the Zoo North part of the park, only realizing at the very end that the Wilds of Africa part was worthy of an additional day as well. Luckily I have an annual membership at our local zoo which granted me discounted tickets to any AZA accredited zoo, so it was totally affordable to go twice!

It's kind of fun getting to seeing a different zoo that is across the country because animals behave differently based on the climate. Seattle is very temperate and you don't get a lot of extreme weather, but I'm sure that the warm climate creatures missing their natural sunshine. For the time we spent in Dallas it was in the mid 80's, fairly humid with scattered thunder showers. It was amusing to see what thunder showers mean to Texans versus what it means to a Washingtonian. In Western Washington we really don't get a whole lot of thunder storms. But when the thunder started rolling at the Dallas Zoo, I quickly saw the umbrellas and ponchos get broken out. Then it started to rain...and it was warm. Yes, the stereotype is mostly true, it rains a lot in Washington but a girl gets used to it. But warm rain, on a hot day, was actually nice! It was funny to notice that difference.

At the age of 3, Penny is really into dinosaurs. We even had a fairy-dinosaur joint birthday party for per and Ruby back in March. So imagine this girl's glee when we walk into the park and she spots something very peculiar on the ground..

Nope, we definitely don't have these in Seattle!

It was awesome witnessing her reaction to seeing "real" dinosaurs; as most of these were animatronic and fairly realistic, even to an adult.

She also had to make sure that each dinosaur was appropriately roared at.

Onward we went and discovered The Steam, which was a play area designed to look like a stream for children (and their parents) to cool off in. We spent a lot of time here, wading through the water, Penny jumping from different rock features and Ruby testing the waters as she toddled around.

But the part of the zoo that has me raving about is the Wilds of Africa portion. It was truly impressive because of the truly open layout of the savannah that momentarily takes you away from a zoo in Texas to actually seeing what it looks like in nature. As a matter of fact, this was the first exhibit in North America to combine elephants with zebras, giraffes, impalas, ostriches and guinea fowl in the same habitat!  

The Woodland Park Zoo recently transitioned their elephant herd to the Tulsa Zoo and it was incredibly surprising to see how many elephants the Dallas Zoo has; at one point I photographed 5 in the same picture.

Penny enjoyed the giraffe exhibit as well - the giraffe heads were at eye level with us so we were able to get pretty close to them. Sadly we just learned that the little baby in the herd died last week because of an injury.

Stay tuned for more of our adventures in Dallas, Texas!
Part 1: Getting there and staying at The Omni

Have you visited the Dallas Zoo? 

Tell me about your favorite exhibit!

Catch up on my other zoo trips across North America!

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.

Catch the moment: Week 11

A visit from the grandparents can't be complete without a trip to the zoo. Penny absolutely loved the Kimodo Dragon exhibit. It was like seeing a modern day dinosaur for her. She talked about it for the next few days.

The bonus of your kids having birthdays a week apart is that you can schedule their well child visits together! Woo hoo! Penny was very good at showing her little sister how to be brave for the doctor.

I've been compiling Target coupons for a few months and somehow managed to use them all at the same time for a portrait session.. So instead of the session costing $86, we paid $10. I call that a screaming deal!

Ooops, no pictures taken on day 73. The first time all year!

Continued expeditions outside. Ruby is getting more accustomed to being on the ground.

It's a good thing I have a sense of humor. Our craft store has a small tub of magic sand that kids can play with while mama shops. I left Penny there and went an aisle over to look at fabric. I can hear her playing and check in on her. Doing good. A minute passes by and over the intercom: "Can Penny's mom come to the front of the store?" Oh man. I find my very sheepish toddler by the register with magic sand in her hair. I felt like *such* a mom and that I had earned a new badge. But not the kind that you really want to display!

Another warm day! I relaxed in the backyard while Penny dug around in the grass and dirt. Reminiscing on last summer where we had picnic dinners out in the grass in the shade of our maple tree, the delicious scent of peaches wafting over from our tree and the curious clucks of the chickens.

Catch up on previous weeks: 

Catch the moment archives

Follow along on Instagram daily!

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

Catch the moment: Week 3

Well, this week was all catch up because I didn't spend any time on the computer while on vacation (imagine that?!) and then the rest of the week was a battle between recovering from the explosion of post-vacation and the girls and I got the crud that's been passed around. But I did manage to take my "real" camera out more!

Squirt has come a long way with the kids. When Penny was born he kept his distance because rather than petting him, she preferred to yank his fur. With baby #2, I think he's learned that they're not all so bad and sometimes they make decent companions. Typically when I'm done cooking I lay the bowls, pots or pans on the floor and let him get a taste (and do a little dishwasher prep for me). This evening Ruby came over to check it out too, and he bravely stood his ground and allowed her to peer on while he cleaned up.

I took this picture because it was Ruby's first day of going into childcare at MOPs. Until now she's snuggled with me in the Boba and napped for most of the time. Nowadays she has little tolerance for the Boba if I'm just sitting down so she'd prefer to crawl. I decided that we were both ready for her to be in the care of MOPPETs while I got my mama break time. The girls were so darling that morning; Penny dressed herself (in a dress that I absolutely love and kind of wish they made it in my size) and I ended up putting Ruby into this little tunic dress that I remember Penny wearing a lot. As it turned out, poor Ruby had skipped her 20 minute power nap before MOPs and while she put in a good effort, this time was not meant to be so she returned to spend the rest of the morning with me. 

We finally took the getaway vacation that I have been whining longing for. Adam had a supplier meeting in Vancouver BC scheduled on a Monday, so we drove up the weekend leading up to it to Whistler and stayed at a great condo. It was located right by the Whistler walking trail and it was a less than 5 minute walk to the ski lifts and sledding. No skiing for us this time around, but it was so much fun to get to play in the snow multiple times in one weekend. Read more: Whistler weekend

I am not a football fan. I really can't even convince myself to jump on the Seahawks band wagon...yea, I've got Seattle pride and I understand it's a huge accomplishment. But to step up onto a soapbox for a moment, I *hate* it when teams are called "brave" or "heroes." Really? I'm going to quickly step off the box before I get into too much trouble and instead tell you about how we spent a part of our vacation having a quiet afternoon, warming up from a morning of sledding (and rain) to snuggle and watch the Seahawks win the NFC championship. Maybe it wouldn't have been my choice of what to watch on TV, but I'm blessed that we got to do it together. 

The afternoon that Adam had his meeting in Vancouver, he dropped us off at the Vancouver Aquarium so that the girls and I had something to do. I just love aquariums! I had not been to the Vancouver Aquarium in probably 15 years and much has changed. My favorite animal to photograph is always jellyfish and seeing Penny discover that a beluga whale is in fact a real creature (not just one we sing about) was pure magic. Read more: Vancouver Aquarium

These little hens of mine. I try not to get too gushy and put them up on an honorable pedestal, but really...these girls rock. When you think about what an intense and intricate process it is to create and lay an egg (almost daily), you can't help but be thankful for this seemingly simple gift that they give my family daily. Chickens are easy to keep and will surprise you with all the benefits they provide. I'd like to remember to take a page from their book; because a chicken lays an egg regardless of whether her day was crappy or awesome. Whether she got the extra attention or if she snagged a juicy worm. Without fail she'll still do her job and be sure that the whole world knows about it with her egg-song of triumph after.

This girl's imagination is at full speed. She loves to pretend and this time I caught this little conversation: "Come on little ducklings! Stay with your mama and you will be just fine. The daddies are at work but they will be home soon. Let's go swimming. The water is not too deep, it is just fine. Stay close to your sisters and your brothers."  more: A Penny for your thoughts

Catch up on previous weeks: 

Catch the moment archives

Follow along on Instagram daily!