Lake Wapato

Sometimes on a nice hot sunny day it is great to get out of the house for family time.  A nice air conditioned car, bottles of water, hot & sweaty kids, all make for a great adventure to Lake Wapato.  This is in Tacoma Washington United States, right off I-5. There's a nice paved walkway around the lake, a playground for the kids, and lots of trees for shade!

This view is from the east side of the lake.  

I think I ruffled too many of momma duck's feathers while snapping a few too many pictures of her and her babies!  Taken from the north end of the lake, looking north.

Looking east.

Thank you to the man upstairs for providing beautiful weather the last few days for the greater Puget Sound area of Washington State!  I am in Heaven ~ literally!

Embroidered Owls

Hi there! Here's a crafty post so don't get mad it's not about BBQ, but as the title states this would fall under the "other things"! I hope to do more like this in the future!

As I mentioned last week my brother got married!  He's in his mid 30's, no kids.  His wife has five kids!  Talk about instant family!  I was really excited to make this for him.

Their wedding colors are pale yellow and royal blue. The towels came from Walmart. They cost just under 5 bucks and come in a pack of 4 or 5 depending on the size. (There's two or three different sizes. I can't remember what size I used. I think they are 12" by 16".)

The owls, I purchased the designs from  my favorite embroidery website.  I get all my designs here and they have great sales too! They also have a free design a month!  Check it out!  I have a Singer Embroidery/Sewing machine that does all the sewing! You just have to set it up, push the button and advance through the design, and change the threads as needed.

Let's get a conversation started!  What website or where do you go to buy your embroidery designs and what type of machine do you have? And do you like it?

Weather

I'm missing the sunshine here in Washington State where I live!  So in honor of the sunshine coming back this week, here is are a few beautiful pictures I took when I lived in Arizona!

I miss palm trees!

The first two pictures were take  at the neighborhood park.  By the time we got home and little kids were getting tucked into bed I snapped the picture below from the little kids' bedroom window.

I miss the sunshine and the warm weather! I can't wait for the gloomy cold weather goes away!  I have been cold all weekend long!

What is your favorite type of weather?

Grillmaster Coke

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I hope you all have a safe weekend!  School is out an extra day, a snow make up day was not used so we, well the kids have a four day weekend!  I get to work for a few hours this Friday morning, but have Monday off!  I hope the weather is nice enough for all of you to BBQ wherever you live! If it is not, stay inside, and have a craft day! I'll share some of my crafty stuff next week with you!  Have an excellent weekend!

Since Memorial Weekend is known for grilling, I thought this was appropriate to share!

We started collecting the bottles last year with our family names on them.  We only found four!  I like these Grillmaster ones, I should buy a few for my brother in law that is turning 40 early next month!  He loves Coca Cola!

Please be safe in whatever you do and remember those loved ones lost.

BBQ Teriyaki Chicken Wings

It has been busy around here as usual!  My little brother, finally got married this last weekend!  The night of the wedding my BBQ King, aka the hubby, marinaded some chicken wings and drummettes that he thawed out the night before in a yummy, delicious teriyaki sauce!

For the marinade he used Aloha Soy Sauce, Yoshida's garlic flavor teriyaki sauce, one medium onion, and about a cup of brown sugar.  Mix well and dump in an air tight container.  This was left in the fridge overnight.

Now get those coals smoking and set up the propane grill to use the side burner to boil the sauce.

The sauce will thicken quickly.  Delicious!

And tasty looking! I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into these! My taste buds were definitely watering. 

I don't know why he does this but My BBQ King dumps the sauce into the chicken before he brings it into the house.  We had white rice with this. Fill the plate with rice and put the chicken on top of it and drizzle extra sauce if wanted.  Don't forget the veggies!  We had green beans!

I'm so proud of my husband for making this for our family. Absolutely delicious! I'm also proud of him because he did not use my nice bread pans on the grill!

Maybe next time I will share my recipe.  I make a home made teriyaki marinade sauce using soy sauce.

To give credit where credit is due, My BBQ King took these pictures used in this post! He used his Samsung Galaxy Note 2 cell phone.

Potlucks at Work

My BBQ King loves to have potlucks at work.  They love to have some excuse to share food with each other!  On Tuesday this week, they celebrated Cinco De Mayo, May 5th! So I made home made salsa for this event.

My husband was given ghost chili plants from a co worker this last July for helping someone out.  For a while he didn't listen to me, but eventually he finally used miracle grow to help these babies turn into big thriving plants!  While I was making the salsa he picked a few for me to add in the salsa.

I diced up these peppers into the salsa very fine. My homemade recipe also included about 6 tomatoes, 2 small onions diced, one jalapeno, a few spoonfuls of garlic and cilantro!

Of course this was before I stirred it all together.  The brown looking stuff is the green pepper,  It looked brown inside.

Here's something else from the potluck.  It's called meat on meat, made by one of the guys!

I definitely need the recipe for this meat on meat!  It was maple syrupy flavored with a cheese sauce. Little smokies wrapped in bacon! Delicious!

Well when My BBQ King sends me pictures of  their potluck I will update this post!

What is your favorite thing to make for a potluck?

Container Gardening

We live in a rental house and every summer for the last two years we say we are going to move because the neighbors behind us build fires in their backyards early in the evenings and start smoking their pot.  It stinks our house up and we have to shut the windows and turn off the air conditioner that we have.  So just in case we move, we want to be able to take our garden with us.  Last month we did sugar snap peas from a start and have had our first harvest.  We have gotten a few dozen! They are so delicious! It is so hard to share with the kids, but I do share! 

Today I usually go volunteer at the elementary school, but today I spent it with my BBQ King who stayed home from work.  We went out to eat this morning at I Hop, picked up my new glasses, had a recheck for my contacts, and then went to the Goodwill & Dollar Tree.  My husband picked up a new stereo for work and a kitchen gadget. I got a new skirt and a dress!  I am so excited because last time I got a new skirt I wore it to church and I swear, even though I really shouldn't, everyone or just about had the same skirt on!  The new to me skirt is a little tight, but I have been eating healthier since being sick last month. That's where the Dollar Tree comes in!  I brought home banana chips from there a few weeks ago and my hubby stole them from me, so we had to go buy more!  There's also trail mixes and other yummy healthy snacks we get from there! After a quick trip to Cash & Carry for our famous popcorn butter and some snow cone syrup we found ourselves at home with about one hour before kids start coming home from school.

I rolled up my shirt sleeves and capris and played in the dirt!  I am planting 3 strawberry plants and there is 4 zucchini starts in the one container.

 Here's the results!

These are zucchinis. The starts were bought from Walmart garden department.

First before you fill your buckets with dirt, make sure there is good drainage in the bottom of the bucket.  If not, just do this first! See picture below! If there is no drainage then the plant might not live - just to warn you from my experience!

Please drill a few holes in the bottom of all the buckets you use!  These buckets don't have to be fancy!  Ours were free from work.  To try to get a few buckets for free, go to the deli or a bakery and ask them if they have buckets for free.  Some places will give them to you for free and very dirty!  You will just need to clean them!

I then did strawberry starts, bought at Walmart.  Here is the days work lined up along the fence.

There's my baby, waiting for the strawberries to be ready to pick! Here's a peek at our green beans!

Well that's about it for now!

What's your favorite thing to garden?

What is your favorite thing to buy at a thrift store?