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Posts tagged ‘Movie Night’

Jul 5

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Our NEW Backyard Sanctuary

This past week we finally finished our back patio. We took a little time off in June to visit France and England (it was a blast). But, when we came home to a giant dirt hole, we knew we needed to get the patio finished. After all, we’ve had the stone since April! To speed up the process I invited friends over for a tea party – giving us a week to get it all done.

The main reason for the new patio (beside it’s beauty) is to have a permanent home for our patio furniture and pots. Since we removed the lawn we’ll also have less mowing and watering. Plus, it’s great for our outdoor movie nights.

We used Tumbled Pennsylvania Bluestone since it’s the same type of stone used on the front walkway and we liked the different shapes of the stones. I wanted our patio to look natural and old – not perfect! We even left a space between the stones so a variety of ground cover would fill the gaps. So far the chickens have only eaten/devoured/destroyed the Blue Star Creeper.

To see my inspiration and before pictures you can check out a post I wrote a couple months ago: My Backyard Inspiration Picture.

Here’s my new patio:

New patio looking towards the house.

View of the back of the garage & veggie beds from the house.

Our fire pit & movie watching area. We've even got a spot set aside for an outdoor outlet.

Raised veggie & herb beds.

Pots filled with Creeping Jenny, Coleus, Bamboo, Heather & Midnight Wine Wiegela.

Coleus, Hebe & Variegated Holly.

Containers full of Coleus, Creeping Jenny, Hebe, Heather, Corkscrew Willow & Bonsai Maple.

Container filled with a young Dogwood, Heather, Coleus & Creeping Jenny.

Our backyard is now low maintenance and sustainable. I love it! Now, we relax.

Aug 31

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Outdoor Movie Night

Last night we held our first outdoor movie night in our back yard. We asked everyone show up around 7 p.m. to pick a spot and visit. Then started the first movie, WALL-E, around 8:30.

After the kiddies went home, we watched Haunting in Connecticut for our second movie. We figured a scary movie was fitting for backyard movie entertainment.
Then for the third movie, Adventureland, we went inside since our friends Aaron and Kala were the only ones left and it was starting to get chilly. That and we didn’t want to keep our neighbors up too late (we did let them know & invited them).
I tried to get a picture of everyone during the first movie but, unfortunately, it turned out a little blurry. I’ve never been known to be a great photographer.
Anyway, to add to the overall outdoor movie experience we ended up renting a popcorn machine. We LOVED the popcorn machine. It not only added to the experience but freed up time we would’ve spent manually making popcorn for our guests all night. We may even look into buying one for future parties – it’ll be well worth the investment.
To fancy it up a bit, we also provided some fun popcorn toppings:
  • Truffle Salt
  • Parmesan Cheese
  • Melted Cougar Gold Cheese
  • Tabasco
  • Johnny’s Seasoning Salt
  • Fresh Ground Sea Salt
  • Peanut M&Ms
  • Gummy Bears
But, since the popcorn machine is magic, it really didn’t need any toppings at all. Every batch of popcorn tasted perfect.

This is a bit of a surprise since we didn’t purchase the pre-measure kits that came with the machine and ended up guessing: 1 cup of popping corn, 1/4 cup of grape seed oil (then olive oil later when we ran out) and 1 tablespoon salt.I’m sure these aren’t the official measurements but they worked great last night! Plus, we just used the random oil we had in the house and I’m pretty sure this is NOT what you’re supposed to do. I read online that coconut oil is best.

All in all it was a great time. I highly recommend throwing an outdoor movie night – even if you can’t get your hands on a popcorn machine. It’s even a treat for the chickens since they’re waddling around the yard right now eating up fallen popcorn.