Looking back at fun Summer BBQs!

I was fortunate enough to meet, via the internets, a very sweet lady (Hi Rachael!) who wanted to do a guest post for me on Summer BBQs. Now, I LOVE BBQs, or "cookouts" for us Southern folks. It's something that we don't get a chance to do very much around here. I think when the babies are older, it'll be a bit easier.  I love the idea of putting a theme together and buying cheap decorations to make it your own :) 

Here is one that we put together last year. Enjoy!!

~ Summer and BBQs just go together. And during the summer I always enjoy getting together with family and friends and firing up the grill. We had a pool in our backyard when I was growing up, so our house often wound as the spot where everyone would congregate and hang out for hours on end. It was great! When school was out for the summer, my cousins practically lived at my house. It was like having a summer-long sleepover party!

We would grill almost every night and we sat out on the back porch to eat while the adults would sit inside. While we were being sent to the “kid’s area,” we were happy as could be thinking we were getting away with something while being left alone. In all reality, the adults were probably even happier to have us away so they could enjoy a quiet dinner.

Now that my cousins and I are the adults and we have children of our own, we still enjoy visiting together at each other’s houses and watching our children play outside. We can only hope as they grow up, they will remember how special these times really are. I have plenty of photos of us growing up sitting in my backyard and when I pull them out from time to time and it just takes me back. The last time I pulled out those photos of my cousins and me when we were little enjoying the summer, I did upload a few to Tinyprints.com and made an stylish iPhone case for myself. This way it will be my summer case and I’ll always have those memories with me!

It is funny to see how much has changed since that time, however. When we were young, we used to set up a stack of 45’s on the portable record player, plugged in to an outlet in the garage and just kept the window open. When I hit high school, we were able to get a water proof radio to keep nearby. Now, you just connect your iPod to a Bluetooth speaker and you are good to go! I just picked up this wireless speaker system so we can listen to music outside without having to worry about it getting splashed.

While my outside space is a bit limited, I wanted my family to also be relaxed while visiting during the summer. So I picked up this cute little bistro set. It folds up so it will be easy to store when the summer is sadly over.  And it may not be as elaborate as the one my parents had; I did pick up a very nice grill!

Even though summer only lasts for a few months, I certainly do my best to stretch it out as long as possible!

Thank you again Rachael, for contributing!  I hope you all are having a great Summer and enjoying a few BBQs of your own :)