Elevation Burger: Grass-fed, organic, and yum!

April 6, 2014 by melissa

It’s like the burger trifecta.

A few bloggers were invited to head over to our local Elevation Burger and try out a few things from their menu.

They call it a “better-for-you burger.”

And it’s true. Their beef comes from 100% organic grass-fed cattle, giving the meat more vitamins and nutrients. One thing I didn’t know about this kind of meat is that it has less fat and fewer calories. BONUS!

I KNOW you’ve been to a place with great, mouth-water burgers only to have it paired with limp, blah fries. Lucky for you, their fries are delicious. They’re hand0cut and cooked in olive oil. Can you name another place that cooks fries in olive oil?

I had a regular burger with cheese, lettuce, pickles, grilled onions, and their signature Elevation Sauce. Quite possibly the BEST burger in town, y’all. It’s juicy, cooked perfectly, and on a great-tasting bun. If you aren’t a carnivore, they also have vegetarian and vegan burger options. I tried their vegan burger with carrots and corn and it was delish as well!

Not to mention, they list the calorie amounts beside each menu item. No surprises (and no denial “oh I bet that’s only 100 calories” either)!

No need to head elsewhere for dessert either. They serve shakes, malts and plain ole scoops of ice cream. That’s what my little guy opted for. That is, after I made him eat most of his burger and fries. You know what he told me? (look at the boy holding the ice cream cone in my picture above first.)

He said, “I bet the little boy in the picture didn’t have to each his burger and fries first.” What a rascal, that kid.

Elevation Burger has over 30 locations across the U.S. and 10 international locations. One thing I found interesting? Since there meat is also halal, you can find their locations in many Muslim countries like Kuwait and Qatar. They’re projecting to open 100 locations by the end of 2014.

If you wanna see if there’s an Elevation Burger in your area, check out their website. And if you’re local? Get yo’ self down to Brier Creek and try one of these burgers. Seriously good eats.

Disclaimer: No compensation was given for this post. Just food. Nom Nom.

And Then They Were 7 and 4

March 9, 2014 by melissa

I tucked them into bed as 6 and 3 year olds, then they woke up as 7 and 4 year olds.

Well, duh. That’s what happens on birthdays.

But my kids share the same birthday, with a 3 year (and 4 hour) age difference. So all those birthday emotions hit me all at once. Maybe it’s a good thing because I knock out all the emotion all at once. So February 23rd is filled with lots of reminiscing, complete with marking their heights with tick marks in a door frame for proof of how much they really have grown.

The day before their birthday, we threw them a birthday party. Given they’re winter babies (and we’ve had a crappy winter), we thought we’d warm it up with an indoor pool party! This place is awesome, with slides, a lazy river, vortex (like a whirlpool to get the kids spinning around in the water) and some spray equipment in the little kid area.

They’ve been really into Planes lately so it only made sense to do Planes theme. I’m sure I could find a connection to swimming in there somewhere (blue icing and water is also blue??). They each blew out their own side of the cake.

On their actual birthday, they opened their birthday presents from us, which consisted of Cars, Planes and some train tracks and 3DS games.

We spent the first part of the day at his friend’s birthday party funny enough, which was a make-up party that had been postponed because of snow. Since it was family affair, we all went and enjoyed some paddle boating and stuff, before heading to a place called Adventure Landing for some arcade games and go-cart riding.

It was the kids’ first time on a go-cart (other than the go-cartish car at the Tomorrowland Speedway). Can you tell they were excited?
We finished the day off with dinner at Cowfish (the awesome burger and sushi place). Yum!

I love that the boys don’t mind that their birthday is on the same day. One day I might laugh hysterically when reading that, but for now, we’re all good.

I Didn’t Need Valentine’s Day to Show Love. I Needed Snow.

February 13, 2014 by melissa

Snow has never quite been my thing.

I grew up in the South, where snow doesn’t happen all too often.

I’ve never skied in my life.

I did spent a few days snowboarding in Colorado one year and my tailbone hurt for two weeks after.

While I love the look of snow, I’d much prefer hiking in the Arizona desert (though we did have fun sledding today).

You know what else isn’t really my thing? Valentine’s Day. While we’ve definitely celebrated Valentine’s, it’s not my favorite holiday of the year for sure. Too commercialized for my taste.

Yet today, two days shy of Valentine’s Day, I sat in my warm house with my heart-pounding at the thought of my husband of 13 years not making it home in the snow.

Yesterday morning he went to work per the usual. I work from home on Wednesdays, but had the kids with me since school was closed in anticipation of the crazy winter storm coming our way. Sure enough, shortly after lunch, the snow started coming down.

First the is-that-really-snow specks in the air.

Then BAM, snowing hard.

By the time my hubby Daniel left work, pretty much every other worker in the city was leaving work too. It didn’t take long to realize this was going to take a while. His normal drive is about 10 miles. With rush hour traffic, it takes maybe 20-25 minutes, which isn’t bad.

But with all the snow and traffic, he had only moved about a mile or two in an hour. To give you an idea, here’s what a major street in our city looked like yesterday:

Apocalyptic looking picture from Glenwood Ave. in Raleigh. pic.twitter.com/fPw6VM3qnv — FOX46 Carolinas WJZY (@FOX46CAROLINAS) February 13, 2014

As the snow came down harder and harder, I got more panicked. The Internet was my friend and my foe.

On one hand, I used the Find Friends app to watch his icon on the map. As I refreshed and refreshed, I painfully watched him move (or not move) maybe one street address every 5-10 minutes. He was pretty much stuck, but at least I knew where he was.

On the other hand, I kept hearing online about people I know abandoning their cars and walking home. We’re talking MILES in the snow with probably the wrong kinds of shoes on since they were coming straight from work. That only made me worry more.

In the meantime, I was trying to simultaneously work and take care of the kids, but like a kid in love, all I could think about was him.

I cried. I paced the house. I maniacally checked my phone. It was all-consuming because I didn’t know when the snow would end, nor if the road conditions would be any better if he kept pressing on.

Would he spend nine hours in the car like people did in Atlanta? Would his car slip and get stuck? Would he be forced to walk for hours in the snow do get home?

After about four hours, he wasn’t even halfway home with no end in site to the traffic.

That is, if he turned the direction of our house. So after talking it out, he decided to go back to work, since traffic was just about dead going that way.

I knew it was right choice, but my heart sank knowing he’d be spending the night somewhere else. Especially since the weather wasn’t supposed to let up for another day or two. The kids were sad, but I assured them he’d be warm and safe so it was okay. He made it back to work with little trouble.

He had dinner with his boss, who lives next door to work, while I ate a somber dinner with the kids. During grace, my oldest asked to say a prayer for his dad and I saw him wipe his eyes. I gave him a reassuring hug and we finished dinner.

At this point, it seemed that all of the people I knew who were stuck earlier had made it home. Except Daniel. He decided it might be worth attempting to make it home now the roads were clearer. He has a Subaru, which is all wheel drive, so he didn’t have trouble earlier in the day. It was just the traffic and abandoned cars that were the barrier.

So… he made a second attempt.

As I watched his little icon on Find Friends, I immediately saw that this time would be different. In two minutes his icon leapt across the map. At a light, he texted that he was behind a snow plow and not slipping a bit with his car.

Ten minutes later, he had made it just about half way home. Twenty minutes later, he turned onto the main street by our neighborhood. Five minutes later, I saw his little icon on our street and I smiled like when he used to knock on my front door for our first dates.

He walked through the door and I wrapped my arms around him and just stood there, letting the side of my face just melt into his chest.

After 13 years of marriage, you just don’t really hug that much any more, ya know? In our normal day to day, coming home to work is usually met with a quick peck on the lips, not a long, drawn-out hug.

So a hug was just what we needed after a long day of uncertainty and snow. A perfect finish to a day when my husband consumed my mind all day, just like he did back in those beginning days of young love. Young love like a pristine blanket of fresh snow, before the footprints of routine and daily life leave their marks. A comforting reminder that love exists without a special day dedicated to displaying affection and buying gifts.

Take that Valentine’s. I don’t need roses, cheesy cards, or cheap teddy bears. I just needed snow.

My One Word for 2014

January 30, 2014 by melissa

It’s not too late is it?

With all the hubba-ba-loo with changing Momcomm’s blog name, plus snow days and sick kids, it’s no wonder I haven’t blogged at all this month. It’s not that I haven’t CHOSEN a word for 2014…

It’s just that I haven’t blogged about it yet. So I’d better hop to it before February hits (yep, cutting it close, y’all).

My one for the year came pretty easily for me this year. And that word is…

Why, you ask?

As busy as I felt last year, I think most of that was due to writing Blog Design for Dummies. I had SO many other things I wanted to accomplish last year, but they fell to the wayside in order to meet deadlines and promote the book. Not just work or blogging things either. I want 2014 to be the year I put these “things” into motion. I don’t have delusions of being able to do everything all the time, but the key here is to keep moving. Here are the ways I want to stay in motion:

Keep moving with exercise

This is a biggie for me. I’ve always been an exerciser, but never a hard core, 7 days a week type of exerciser. In the recent past, I’ve been able to typically do Zumba twice a week and the rest of the week was a crapshoot. When Daddy Roo started working out regularly a few months ago, we started lifting weights together like we used to. But holidays and sickness got us off track a bit.

I want to work out consistently this year, 3-5 times a week, doing a mix of Zumba, running, kickboxing, and weights. Once the spring hits, we’ll add hiking into the mix too.

Keep moving with my Spanish skills

Again, I fell off the wagon last year. Not only do I want to improve my Spanish but I want to be talking daily to the kids in Spanish. I don’t know enough to ONLY talk with them in Spanish, but I can do my best to talk with them as much as possible. One of my Dad’s biggest regrets was that my sisters and I aren’t fluent. I’d like my kids to have a bigger knowledge of Spanish that I did growing up.

Keep moving with organizing my house

So far this year, I’ve given a boat load of things to my sister for her kids and donating bags full of stuff we didn’t need. I want to continue on that path. We have some rooms we aren’t using to their potential, not to mention piles of papers to sort through. Ugh. At least I know I’ll be happy with the end result.

Keep moving with my blogging

I have a few big things happening on Momcomm (now Blog Clarity) and then I want to settle it down a little bit. By settle down, I mean NOT working on blogging pretty much every single night. I have many things coming this year on Blog Clarity, but don’t want to push as hard as I have to get my new course launched! I’d also like to post on here more, sharing stories about my kids and our little adventures. I miss doing that! So it’s still all about motion, but STEADY motion. Ha.

Keep moving with my memory keeping

And by “keep moving” I mean, start using all my scrapbooking supplies again. Last year I don’t think I scrapbooked one single thing. What a bummer since I really love the creative process of it all. I don’t think I’ll ever return to the scrapbooking pace I had when Big Roo was little, but I’d at least like to finish a few projects and make some scrapbook pages of Little Roo (he has so few of them)!

What about you?

What’s YOUR word for 2014? And since it’s the end of January, how’s it going so far?

Let There Be Chaos

December 31, 2013 by melissa

The day before Christmas Eve, we were stuck inside all day. After a weekend of over 70 degree weather – in DECEMBER mind you – the rain started pouring and didn’t let up.

At all.

Big Roo had been up half the night with the fever but by the afternoon was back to his usual self. And so, we had to check one more thing off our Christmas to-do list: decorate the sugar cookies.

Before I had kids, I looked forward to craft projects, making messy art and squishing Play-Doh. But now with two boys I learned a few things:

Play-Doh colors being squished together makes me cringe
My kids don’t much like doing crafts (at least with me)
Cleaning up the mess is a massive undertaking, even if the kids help

For someone who considers herself relatively creative, letting my kids freely create is sometimes a mess I’d rather not even get into.

Despite all of that, I was actually looking forward to decorating cookies with them. I bought three new types of sprinkles and piping bags with decorating tips (something I’ve never really bought before).

And boy was it messy. On the table, on the floor, on their clothes. Too much food coloring, too many sprinkles, icing overkill.