HaleySomehow, this past weekend flew by in a whirlwind and I find myself needing another day to recoup. Well, honestly, I find myself needing another day nearly every weekend.
Friday, after another good CrossFit workout at the gym, I came home to tag team making dinner with my friend Chris Bair (ladies, he’s still single in case you’re interested.) We had sauteed tilapia, baked sweet potato fries and this apple fennel salad I got off my emeals plan I just signed up for.
So, what is emeals, you ask? It’s an online meal planning service that I learned about from a past gym member a couple months ago, I just haven’t had any time to research until this week. The plans include seven meals each week (main entree and one side) along with recipes and grocery shopping lists with ingredient quantities.
After browsing the sample plans, I was immediately intrigued and figured it was worth a try for three months. I chose the Paleo plan, but there are other fun plans such as gluten-free, clean eating, low carb and natural and organic, just to name a few. The apple fennel salad was great, simple but great because I never would have used fennel without the recipe. I’ll report more on my experience with emeals in the coming weeks.
Saturday morning, I had planned on a morning WOD but I found out our grassfed beef was ready to be picked up from the processor. I assumed the processor was near the farmer in Canton, but Saturday morning I found out the business was out west close to Alabama–a 1 hour and 15 minute drive from our house. So I scrambled to load up James Michael in the car and made the journey to get the 360 pounds of meat. We split it with a woman from the gym, ending up with 180 pounds to stock our deep freezer that Santa brought us for Christmas.
James Michael was such a trooper being trapped in his car seat (and it was around lunch time), that I decided to stop by Chik-fil-a on our way home. I’m fairly certain it was his first time ever visiting a fast food restaurant–and definitely his first time getting his very own purchased meal.
He enjoyed the kids meal of grilled chicken nuggets, an apple fruit pouch and a water. We sat right in front of the indoor playground so he was fully entertained. After we ate, we attempted going into the chaotic glass box but gave up after 2 minutes because the kids were so crazy and so much bigger than him.
When we got home from our 3-hour excursion, JM took a nice nap while I made buffalo chicken dip and glute- free reese’s pieces brownies for a CrossFit Addiction cookout that afternoon. As soon as JM woke up, we were in the car in less than 5 minutes. James Michael had a ball at the cookout, which was moved indoors because of the weather. He soaked up all the attention and chased the host’s dog around the whole time.
We left the party just before his bedtime, and James put him to bed while I met my friend Sara for dinner at Soho in Vinings. Despite being the youngest patrons by a decade or so, it was great being able to catch up and enjoy some great food. I had some amazing sea bass!
Sunday, we ventured outside to a nearby park for a while after lunch, but it was so windy that we left after 30 minutes. Then after JM’s afternoon nap, we hoppedg in the car once again to visit our friends the Browns and their new 17-day old baby Liam. He is super super cute and it’s hard to believe that JM was ever that small. The visit also made me so excited for Baby #2’s arrival later this summer.
We left their house and traveled up to James’ old boss’ new house for a Super Bowl Party. The house was amazing. James Michael once again loved the new surroundings (especially the fire and the three staircases) and the resident dog, and was happily passed from woman to woman for a good 30 minutes before he decided to continue his explorations.
We ended up spending most of our time in the home theater room, mostly because it was somewhat baby proofed with 10 cush recliners–and the fact that he couldn’t escape. He loved the orange lights that lined the three tiers of seating–it was all so new for him. But what he enjoyed the most was the small 10-inch raised stage directly in front of the 12-foot wide TV screen. He must have climbed up on and off that stage 50 times. And he thought everyone was staring at and cheering for him, which elicited squeals and laughter and the repeated clapping of hands. He thought he was the one putting on the show, and quite honestly, he was–and a much cuter alternative to Beyonce.
