Sam and Bran and Ella and Anna: a green, a fruit, a nut and a cheese

On Monday - The Big Girl and I headed back over for a visit with her Ortho. A follow-up to see how well she's been doing since she got out of casts in February.

The charming, delightful, enthusiastic doctor that he is (all descriptors of said dr. entirely tic) said she's doing great. He actually said, "She has good range of motion, good flexibility and excellent muscle balance - that's all Three major things I look for. Oh yeah, and she's got cuteness, that's her #4."

Needless to say we were very excited by this news!!! (Also relieved that she's not doing her last few weeks of ballet and recital in casts)

We then proceeded to spend the rest of the day shopping and at the beaches. Delightful - let me tell you - the weather was perfect! Not too hot, not too cold or windy - Perfect! We did the rocky side of the point with tide pools first and then did the sandy side later. She had more fun on the sandy side. Even after her shoe fell off and I had to go racing into the sound in my tennies to rescue her "Favorite Mickey Mouse Croc!" Fortunately for me, the tide was coming in so I didn't have to go out too far before I caught up with the shoe. Unfortunately I was actually wearing SOCKS! and they were totally soaked as well as my shoes. I think I still have sand in my toes ;)

So, back to the green, fruit, nut etc. We went across the street and had lunch at Duke's - it used to be just a little seafood joint now they have like four or five locations and are more of a 'hip' place - not too hip otherwise we wouldn't be there - but definitely more so than when Sam and I first found them.

Anyway - Another yummy salad - not as good as the Strawberry Chevre salad but still quite delicious - AND - it had fruit in it too (I really want that head spinning off emoticon right about now)

Here are the ingredients for it - not good enough to wax poetic about - but still good enough to relate to my two blog readers ;).
Greens: Organic Mixed Greens
Fruit: Orange and Grapefruit Wedges - the ABSOLUTE redeeming feature of this salad!
Nut: Candied Whole Pecans - good contrast to the citrus actually
Cheese: Plain Ole' Ordinary Blue Cheese - I personally would have picked something sharper but I like stinky cheese so you could just go with plain blue cheese from the grocery store if you are sampling it out.

It was really quite interesting with the oranges and the grapefruits; - they were in little segments rather than wedges so it was a nice good bite. Added a ton of flavor b/c the cheese and the pecans are kind of bland. Oh, and the dressing - it was a simple vinaigrette - but with a great vinegar! that had fabulous flavor.

Ella and I went to the little oil and vinegar shop at the Market and tasted all the vinegars and oils - it was so yummy - that girl loves her vinegar and oil. Then we went and got little cheesecakes and cheesecake truffles at the Market too. They were not so good - the cheesecake was good, not great, but the chocolate was Soooo over-powering - it was not so good - too rich and the flavors didn't meld well together. To give you an idea of how not good it was - we didn't finish either the mini-cheesecake OR the two truffles - between the two of us - and we both LOVE cheesecake. Word of warning, unless you want more chocolate, thick and plain chocolate flavored, than cheesecake - not the place to go. I'm sure if you head down you'll know the place, I think it's between the gyros and the oil and vinegar shop.