the egg

Well we finally pulled the trigger (and stained the table) and got our little [big] green egg!  We had no idea what we were doing, but everyone said "it's so easy and heats up in like 10 minutes."  So here we go.... 2 nights in a row and they were both a big SUCCESS!

Night 1: Hamburgers and Apple Crisp

 burgs...

 apple crisp...

After much research (and youtube video watching) T found that you should start the egg off by cooking things that require lower temperatures.  So we started with burgers.  I'm not a huge burger eater really, but I will say this one was perfectly cooked.  So even. So juicy.  My favorite part though was the apple crisp.  What can I say, I'm a dessert kind of girl.  Remember when I made apple crisp for 2?  Well, we were celebrating Ross' bday on Monday night and I wanted to do a dessert on the ol' egg and thought this might just be the thing.  It was SOOOO good.  I mean I can't explain why, but it was much better than the oven version.  Thank you, green egg, for living up to my dreams of making desserts on you.  MMMM good.  We topped it with blue bell, just for Ross.

Night 2: Pork Tenderloin and Biscuits

We threw out the idea of doing a pizza our second night, but T read those require higher temps so he found this pork tenderloin recipe instead.  He made his own rub, which is now called the "fiesta rub" and it was the best most perfectly cooked pork I've ever had in my life.  No joke.  No part of it was chewy.  I'm telling you, perfectly cooked pork tenderloin.  We put our homemade biscuits on there to cook, too, and they were just as amazing (if not better) as baking them in the oven.

 fiesta rub

The Green Egg has lived up to the hype so far, and I know it'll only continue to be so fun for us!  Like T said on Monday, if you need us this summer, we will be here...

we have trees!

When we bought this house we had zero trees on our property.  That's right zero.  We didn't count the off-shoot magnolia in the backyard as a tree because it just always looked weird/awkward....

When we bought the house we knew the backyard had potential, but needed lots of TLC.  First step was demo-ing the rotten cover thingy that was over the patio.  T and his dad and uncle knocked that out one of the first weekends we were here... oh back in 2009.  The next step was getting rid of the azaleas along the back fence (they were overgrown with bamboo.. eeks!), and then our last step would be trees, plants, beds, flowers, grill etc.

Last summer we did full on front yard re-do.  Thanks to Adsit Landscape and our landscape designer (happy to share his name with you!), we got a full design drawn up for the future backyard and would do it in phases.

We completed phase 1 on Monday and it is already looking like a backyard!  We love to do yard work and be outside, but we wanted Adsit to plant our trees because they get awesome plants (come see our grass if you need proof).

Here's the backyard... the clean slate... No trees... No plants... No more bamboo...

Trees arrived Monday morning!

"Hey, what are you guys doing in my backyard??"

 

And here it is with all the new trees (and a ghost-doggie thanks to auto-stitch)!

 

Some crepe myrtles, magnolias, hollies, an oak and a beautiful cherry!  Eventually there will be a barrier/block/privacy line of trees along the fence.  Oh, and back in the right corner, a nice little pocket among the hollies for T's bow target to sit.

Oh and check out that trough.  That was the purchase over the weekend that we were excited about finding...at the tractor supply store!  Can't wait to put some flowers in there very soon.  It's already spring here and we are loving every second of it.