Heavenly

If I could fill a perfect day with things that I loved, Monday would come pretty close.  It started off with a 3.5 mile run around my old stomping grounds. It felt good to run farther than I'd ever gone on my old 'route'!  I showered quickly and hurried to Legends Salon and Day Spa for a massage. Rachel gives the best massages ever. Seriously. I've had a lot of bad massages, and hers are amazing.  I would pay twice what she charges if I had to!

I've always liked this painting in the massage room

Such a comfortable massage table

After my supremely relaxing and 10-months-overdue hour-long massage, I headed to Starbucks for an iced latte.  I hung around there for a bit catching up on oh-so-important things like google reader and facebook (it was kind of nice to be away from the computer so long while I was traveling, though).  After an hour or two, I headed to Central Market for lunch.

The blue sky looks good with everything

The fans and shade made it comfortable enough to eat on the patio

Tabbouleh and apricot chicken salad samples

Gross picture. Best ribs ever.

Perfectly ripe berries

Then Brittnye and Avery arrived and we wandered the store. I'm sorry to the Whole Foods lovers out there, but Whole Foods has nothing on Central Market. It's the best store ever. You know how they tell you to "shop the perimeter" at normal grocery stores to get the freshest, least processed stuff? Central Market is organized in an "S" shape with entire sections dedicated to "perimeter" departments: produce, butcher, seafood, alcohol, bulk nuts, grains, dried fruit, coffee and tea, bakery, cheese and deli counter.

They do have about 6 aisles of more shelf-stable items such as cereal, baby food, pasta sauce, pasta, soups, baking mixes, etc. But these are all meticulously chosen brands and you can often find good sales hidden in those aisles. The serpentine path leads you to the cafe and gelato station (yummm). I could've taken pictures of everything, but I had to share a portion of the bakery display with you.

Drool-worthy. So many choices, so little room left in my tummy after that lunch.

I love Central Market's raspberry chocolate mousse torte, turtle cheesecake, carrot cake, pineapple upside down cake, cream puffs, eclairs, and gelato (basically, I wouldn't kick any of their desserts out of bed).  It was a hard decision, but I finally settled on a cream puff and we headed back outside with desserts in tow.

Holy yum

I bet the clouds in heaven are made of real cream whipped with powdered sugar

Sweet

 Avery inhaled her cookie, chased some birds, and found the playground by accident.

Central Market knows their audience

The Lena Pope chapel is up and over this wall

Happy girl

Last time. Mama and Miss Therese have to get ready for girl's night out!

Ft. Worth skyline

We headed back to Brittnye's to get ready to meet Kate for dinner downtown at my favorite restaurant ever.  Ross and I had dinner here the night we got engaged, and so did Kate and her (now) husband Nick!

Brittnye and me ready to hit downtown

Piranha. Killer. Sushi.

I usually like to try different things at restaurants. But every time I try a different roll here, I enjoy it but still end up wishing I had ordered the sexy roll. The entire menu is amazing, but this roll takes the cake: shrimp tempura, ginger cream & cilantro topped with avocado, crawfish & mango.

My mouth is watering again just thinking about it

After dinner (I ate so slowly because I didn't want my roll to be gone) we walked around and decided to dine on the Reata rooftop for dessert. Good food, great company!

Dessert!

Kate is one of my good nursing school buddies. We missed you, Amanda and Liz!

Kate and Brittnye's husbands grew up together

(P.S. I want to own that Reata cookbook in the background. It has the recipe for their yummy jalepeno mac 'n' cheese as well as the tamale bread pudding.)

By the way, I didn't forget about Ross! I had so much fun at Central Market, I picked up his favorite goodies for him so he didn't feel too left out.

Focaccia bread

Hatch Chile flavored Dorito-type chips. But with real ingredients that you can pronounce.

Never leavin' Texas? I guess I ignored the label since I brought it back to Kansas.

Dublin Dr. Pepper is made with sugar, not high fructose corn syrup.

I had such a great evening catching up and talking with friends for hours on end.  Thanks, girls!  This trip was a big morale booster.