A Beary Special Birthday - Happy 4th to our littlest princess



Our youngest Granddaughter and Princess, is celebrating her 4th Birthday today!




Happy Birthday to our

Eggs-cellent Easter Enjoyment


A fun filled day was had by all, including our three pups and most especially the grands!  We traveled to Greenville for the day and it was a beautiful one at that!  Good eats, and family time together made it

Cooking up something new!


We recently made a purchase that will change our way of life.  Well some of what we eat anyway, and how we cook it.  We are the proud owners of a Big Green Egg.  If you have never heard of that, it's a grill / smoker/ outdoor oven even.  It has us loving cooking and most importantly, eating!  We have been contemplating for some time now which way to go with getting a new outdoor cooker.

We have had a gas grill for the past several years, it was getting old and we missed the taste of a charcoal grill, so we converted the gas grill and used it as a charcoal grill for a while.  We have looked at other gas grill types and had done some comparison shopping on many different types of grills.  Shhh don't tell the hubby I said so, but I have been the grill master most of our grilling life, and I am glad that he is also taking an interest in becoming a grill master too!  

We decided on the Big Green Egg-(BGE) after much research and a trip to the local distributor, where we learned much more and also even tasted some BGE grilled food right on site.  We were hooked, or hooked-up that is with our large sized BGE and a few extra accessories, egg-cessories that is, which we just couldn't do without.  We have been cooking on it quite frequently since the purchase and we are very happy we made the choice of the BGE!

We have done some basic grilling such as chicken, burgers, and pork chops<--my specialty, along with veggies and side dishes, such as roasted corn-on-the-cob too.  We smoked a pork boston butt over the past weekend that has us wanting to do it again this weekend, and so we are and we will be enjoying it for Easter dinner with the family.  The BGE is a fantastic long slow smoker, which as I said we tried over the weekend with cooking the pork boston butt.  Oh my, that was some kind of tasty, not to mention impressive and it made for some delicious barbecue pulled pork sandwiches!

I look forward to even more experimenting using the BGE as an outdoor oven and cook pizza or calzones, it gets hotter than the oven in my kitchen!  I really want to try that out, how fun making homemade pizzas?!  Grilling is even better now that we have our Big Green Egg, and we love it!  It's good timin' grillin'!


~ The Big Green Egg ~


It is a little unusual looking, and it does indeed look like a big green egg!  Admittedly, I wasn't in love with the look of it when I first saw it, but I know now that what is does is by far much more important, and what it is all about!  I have been eyeballing some tables that are created to house the BGE and offer storage too.  So many ideas and different types of tables to choose from, we will take some time to figure out what choice is best for us, and our egg!


Now for some drool worthy food photos! 


~ Grillin' ~

Grilling up a feast with all of the dinner food on the grill.


My pork chops, corn-on-the-cob, and one of my recipes-potatoes cooked in foil.  I actually prefer my thick pork chops to a steak any day!



Grilled prosciutto wrapped asparagus!  That's some yummy good stuff.  Two things that I love, put together and making each taste even better. 







Grilled fresh pineapple too, mmm so delicious!  Grilled fruit takes on a whole new flavor!




~ Smokin' ~


Pork boston butt roast!  I wish this were smell-a-vision so you could enjoy the wonderful mouth-watering aroma of this baby.  Hubs found a butt-rub recipe that he put together, rubbed it on the pork, then wrapped it up and let it sit over night in the frig.  


The smoked pork boston butt after pulling it open, it fell apart easily!  The pork had been long smoked slowly for almost eight hours on the Big Green Egg.  It was tender, juicy, and quickly became pulled pork bbq sandwiches that were very tasty and delicious!  
Big Green Egg  <~ Learn all about the Big Green Egg on their website. 





We are very happy to be Big Green Egg owners!...








Spring-time and Family-time




My heart is happy and full when the house is full of my loved ones! 



Enjoyed spending the weekend with our kids, grand-kids and the three pups too!  It's nice to have some time to spend together when we are all usually in different places, doing different things and living busy lives.  On occasions our paths do cross, connect and intersect, even if only for a short while.  The ole saying "time flies when you're having fun" rings true and surely did in this case, as the time went far too quickly!



~ Some moments and memories ~


No fooling it's April!


April!  Wow!  Hold on a minute!...March went march-ing on out of here way too fast!  I'm all for a slow down for a while as I enjoy the nice change in the weather and the appearance of all things blooming outdoors.  I was certainly not feeling a fool with the beautiful warm and sunny day that was April Fool's Day.  It was a great start to April and I look forward to more of those beautiful warm and sunny days.

The dreaded pine pollen has started making it's appearance now, but a couple days of rain has helped to 'dampen' it down some.  You can actually see the stuff blowing through the air!  Yuk!  Hopefully only a few more days until it is over, and having more rain this evening should make it nicer to be outdoors over the weekend.

It's just one of the not-so-nice things that we have to deal with here in the Spring with all of those great Georgia pines.  On a good note though, many of the trees are starting to fill out, and  my hosta plants are popping through the ground and should be looking full in a matter of days.

Spring is in full bloom!  I love the springtime!


  I have shown my vinca / periwinkle before, but this little beauty keeps showing off with lots of blooms and I enjoy seeing them.
Such a beautiful color!




 The trees are filling out nicely, and I love how they enclose and add privacy to our yard.





The hostas are popping up and will fill out quickly.  They take up a lot of space when they are larger.
They're a no fuss plant, I love that about them!





It's time to get outside and do some spring cleaning, while enjoying spring!...




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Tammy is the design enthusiast behind the blog, Tips, Treats & Treasures, where her creativity is explored with a mixture of her artistic abilities and style through her home decorating, thrifty finds, DIY and creative craft projects, along with her family favorite recipes. She shares through her blog her ideas and helpful tips on everything she has learned over the years and much of which she is passionate about in the hope of inspiring others, with her own unique style storytelling.