Hello, hello!

I was sort of back on a semi-regular blogger roll and well...I'm not now lol

My reading fell off again and then we had visitors last week. My niece came in on a Monday, followed by my SIL on a Thursday.

I had THE BEST time with my niece! She is the sweetest person and loves books, food, baking and the animals. We spent the week going through old cookbooks, baking pie (she taught me how to make pie crust), doing puzzles, visiting bookstores, Asian markets, and watched horror movies. 

Then when my SIL arrived Kevin took her hiking and we all went to the farmers market, Japanese Gardens and Powell's Bookstore. 

I'm exhausted and need to introvert for the next month to recover but it was a nice visit.

Here are a few pics because I have read nothing.

This is the apple blueberry pie we baked. We had extra dough and my niece stuffed it with a tiny piece of apple and a blueberry, plopped it in the center - we called it pie inception lol - but I had no idea it made the pie (with the venting holes) look like a face with a nose until I took an overhead picture 🤣

I baked bread that was GORGEOUS

But....because social media doesn't show the other, non perfect, side of life - the crust softened, so I popped it back in before it finished pre-heating - forgetting I have a gas oven and....

I had to slice the top off but it still tasted great ha!

And finally, here is a picture of the tea service we had at the Japanese Garden in Portland. We were able to get an outside seat near the tree tops that overlook the gardens. So pretty and relaxing.

Welp, that's it for now. I'm so far behind in visiting blogs and saying hi so I hope to get to it this week. I hope everyone is doing ok and enjoying fall!