Backyard BBQ

Well the first day of school has come and gone and the kids did great! They like their teachers and have found old friends. Now I just need to figure out a good organization system for all the paperwork. I am thinking a binder system. Do any of you have a system that works to keep all the school papers together? The paper just kills me. It gets piled on the counter to be dealt with later and that seems so inefficient.

Well our backyard BBQ was so much fun. It was a great time to visit with neighbors and just hang out. It started out pretty hot but cooled off nicely. The bees were also a problem. I was worried about mosquitos and got all sorts of sprays and candles but it was the bees that caused the most trouble. No more August BBQ's, I think we will have to do June next time. They loved the food and drinks but fortunately no one was stung.

We have some Adirondack chairs in the front of the house that we brought back for more seating.

The drink cart came in handy for bug spray and glow sticks for later as well as a place for people to set their drinks.

The table was fun to decorate with pop bottles and lots of citronella candles.

The smaller white balls were lights and added a great ambiance once the sun went down.

I loved the flowers! I really had my heart set on sunflowers and they were not easy to find. Next year I need to try to grow them in my garden. The white flower is a spider mum and the pink one is stock.

I attached Christmas lights to dowel rods with ribbon in the gardens. It looked really great at night and helped keep people from stepping off the patio into the dirt as well. Next year will be so nice when we can add plants and mulch. I need to find a more permanent solution for lighting but this worked great for the party. I think we would use our patio more at night if we had better lighting. I will have to plan over the winter.

Everything worked out really well. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. Did you do any entertaining? How do you light your patio? I have a couple of ideas, we may have to test them out next summer.