with our gift certificates -

     Another good thing that our now soon to be replaced governor did, was to make it so that gift cards bought and paid for here in Michigan, do not have expiration dates. Well, that is, unless the company goes out of business. If they are going out of business, they still have to honor your cards till the day they close. If you don't use them by then, then it's your loss. They don't have to compensate you for them.
     We had decided to take full advantage of that new 'no expiration date' policy, and save cards up till we could get some bigger ticket item that we really wanted.
     That is how we had gotten our new blender. It was one of the things after our house fire, which we had decided weren't all that important to replace. But about two years later, we kept wishing we could make shakes to go with our grilled hamburgers. We dug out all of the various gift cards we had collected by that point in time, and found we had enough dollars worth for one particular store, to get the type we wanted.  We were also able to get a food processor. :-D
    Recently, we applied all of our saved up cards to a different store, for a much bigger purchase!
    How had we gotten the cards? Well, one had come from a relative for 'the family' either last Christmas, or the Christmas before. The rest had come with Thank-you's for various events we had done the food for. We had just kept stashing them away, not sure what we were saving towards, but knowing there would be 'something' .... .
    One time this fall, when we were planning to grill something for a dinner, but un-sure if we were actually going to be able to due to weather conditions, we decided that we really wanted to invest in some type of a tent structure that we could grill under. Yes, we have a screen tent. Did you know that if your grill is too close to the side, the heat can melt those things?  It can. o;-p. And did you know that if too much smoke starts rolling off of a charcoal grill, the top of most pop-up tents as well as screen tents, make the smoke roll something fierce? Not out the sides mind you. No-o, that would make it work-able. Rather, it rolls it right back down on top of the fire, where it gathers more smoke to roll again, and again, until you couldn't see the top of the grill if your life depended on it. Which sometimes it does. How? We-l-l... you are grilling peoples dinners, you know .... o;-p
    So we had started occasionally looking for a 'grill-able under' tent or canopy. We found some, but they were designed to only cover one regular size grill.  We wanted one that could easily cover three half barrel grills, as well as a four foot prep table. We looked, and we looked, and we looked. Fin-a-lly we found exactly what we had been talking about. The problem was, it was a small display sample up on a shelf. You know, the kind that would make a great accessory for a girls doll house. ;-p
    So we looked around, but couldn't find a store employee any wheres near that department. Figures. But we weren't giving up that easily!!! Brandon picked up the store phone and requested that the store operator page somebody for that department. Fifteen minutes later, the person appeared. Only to then try and convince us that they had never had any of that kind in stock in their store. (insert rolling eyes here).
    The store was a Meijer's. And there are a whole bunch of them around here. So we drove over and checked another one. Nope. Nor any at another near by store. Nor .... Bother!
    Then one time late this fall, when Brian and I had gone down to visit his folks, we stopped at the Meijer gas station down there to get gas. "Might as well check this store while we're here..." BINGO!!! They had three in stock!!
     We bought one, the bonus being that it was on sale! So we were also able to pick up some cans of water proofing spray to spray along the seams. Pouring rain has a way of penetrating those places! A-n-d, after paying tax on all of it, we still had five dollars left over from all of our saved gift cards! :-D
    It's a "Pop-Up" style frame, so it shouldn't take hours to assemble. Nor should it require the help of every single member of our family.
    It has a vent in the roof. A covered vent, so 'smoke' can get out, but rain shouldn't pour straight in.
    On one side, there is a large flap, which you can have down as a wall, or out like an awning. And the way the pop-up frame is designed, you can attach tarps around the other sides as walls, should you desire to do so.
    A big THANK-YOU to the family member(s) whom gave us the gift card for Christmas!! (And yes, we got absolute approval from every member of our little family, to use the card towards the pop-up awning/tent!)
    Also big THANK-YOU'S to the other sources our gift cards had come from!! It is highly likely that we'll be using it to prepare food again for you at some point in time. ;-)  

    Below are pictures of the front and side of the box it came in. Wasn't gonna set it up just to take a picture ..... It's winter here folks!  o;-p

 I'm sticking this under the 'Cooking and Baking' label, thinking that somebody else might find the idea for such a tent the perfect solution for them too. ;-)  But they will have to get their own ... chuckle, chuckle ....  o:-)