Wednesday 23 Nov., Houston, TX

We woke up to very loud thunder.  It was awesome.  I got up and thought oh, oh, Bella is not going to go outside in the rain.  But, it wasn't raining when we went out and she went under the trees anyway and she was just fine.
Rob and Gene and I visited for a bit, then Maddie came down.  We had some cereal.  It was supposed to clear up later.
Rob decided to go to a golf lesson and so he left and Gene decided to go to DMV to go and get his license plates for his new car. So he left. That left Rob and I and the two pups.  They seem to be getting along much better today.

Maddie and I headed back into the kitchen.
I started chopping veggies up for the dressing and sliced up all the apples for the Apple pie.  She made the pie dough.  I sautéed the onions celery, mushrooms, and seasoned the bread pieces.
I added all the spices to the apples and got them ready to dump in the pie.
I finished making the fixings for the dressing and put it together.
Rob and Gene came back.
Bella keeps stealing Gene's chair.  Every time he gets up she jumps in his chair and settles all in.

Rob and Maddie, Bella and I went to the grocery store and then we went to lunch.  It was a great soup, salad, and sandwich place.  We sat outside and enjoyed the meal as well as each other's company.

We came back and got back to work.  It was time to put the pie together.  Maddie really needed to rest her back for a bit so Rob started rolling out the dough.  I meanwhile was peeling pearl onions so we could soak them in water over night.

Rob was having a tough time with the pie dough.  He would get it all rolled out but then couldn't get it to come off the surface of the counter without it tearing all up.  He tried twice then the third time he rolled it out just a little then dropped it in the pie dish and then pressed it with his fingers until it was spread out evenly in the dish.  

Meanwhile I was still peeling those pearl onions.  

Maddie came down and she did the dough for the top crust.  She was having some difficulty as well.  They dumped all the apples in and it was a huge pile inside the dish. 

Meanwhile I was still peeling those damn onions and tearing up.

They finally got the top curst onto the pie and we all decided it looked more like a brain than a pie.  It is very unique looking.

Yippee!  I finished the stupid onions.

We didn't have time to bake the pie because we were going out to dinner.  So we saved it for later.

We went out to a nice Asian restaurant.  It was funny though. Maddie couldn't remember what the dishes were that she had had before.  The waiter wasn't a lot of help in helping her remember.  Apparently they had some dishes that weren't on the menu the last time.

It was a fun meal.  We came back home and put the pie in the oven.  Rob faded off to bed and Gene went up to watch TV leaving just Maddie, myself and the two pups. We were pretty pooped.  We hung in there until the pie was finished and then we went off to bed.  I really was tired, but totally enjoyed the day.  I like cooking with someone else.