My sister-in-law was in town for a short visit. It was wonderful to see her in person and get to catch up outside of the family zooms, which tend to be a little chaotic. We had great weather for her visit, and spent part of Monday at the Arboretum. The bonsai exhibit was open, so we took that in and wandered around by the capitol columns.

Technically this should have gone into last week’s delights, but on the night she arrived we went to dinner at a tavern nearby. Given the gorgeous weather, the only reason we were able to get a patio spot at relatively short notice was the holiday weekend. So thank you to everyone in the neighborhood who went out of town. Anyway, we had a nice leisurely dinner and drinks.

This week’s bouquet was pinks, reds and whites, with a splash of purple. I added the white bellflower and a couple of other things that were still doing OK from last week’s bouquets. Then on Saturday I bought another bunch of peonies at the market and reworked the bouquet a bit to include them.

I went to yoga for the first time in a while, which felt pretty good. And it was nice to be back in the studio in person.

This year’s early season gardening was severely hampered by messing up my back, but I finally finished sowing all my various zinnia seeds. I am excited for future zinnia bouquets!

There are tomatoes coming in on both of my tomato plants, and tiny peppers on one of my tiny pepper plants. A tiny pepper on a tiny pepper plant is just delightful.

Made the traditional strawberry shortcake with farmer’s market strawberries. There’s a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen that I like, though this year the berries themselves did turn out a little sugary.