Grill shopping

We went to price and purchase the parts for our outdoor grill area. My husband's parents went with us. My MIL insisted on buying me a measuring cup and a garlic press because they were on clearance and very good prices. It was very nice of her, just not necessary.

We also went to look at options for fire bowls/woks for the columns that will be on each side of the stairs going down from the house/patio level to the garden/pool/yard level. The designer had included these ribbed round bowls. They were...old fashioned...boring...uninspired...what everyone has? My taste runs more modern (which is what we've clashed on the entire time I've worked with him) so I like the simple round bowls.

We found the ribbed bowls at Phoenix Precast and I hated them. The ones that had some contrasting color (like the ribs were dark colored) were better, and Mick liked those. He thought the simple bowls were too plain and his parents agreed.

And then I saw them....so Mick and I discussed our options and the sizes and how it would look.

this is from online, not the store
the ribbed ones are in the background

They are square. They are so awesome.

On the other end of each wall will be another shorter column but we aren't using another fire bowl. The project manager suggested either a lantern or a planter bowl. We are concerned because our concrete planter gets so hot my mint died this summer. So these planters won't have much/any shade. That means we'll have to plant seasonally in those. I wasn't able to talk Mick into lanterns so we looked at deeper versions (and 2 foot across instead of 3) for the planters and I think we've agreed.

I was frankly worried that I would get outnumbered into something I didn't like. But I actually got exactly what I wanted even though I didn't know that was what I wanted until I saw it. (and my MIL said we would know when we saw it. LOL.)

I'm super surprised. And happy. It was exhausting. And hot as hell out there in the sun. But it is done.

We had lunch at BJ's. They no longer carry Tito's vodka but they had Smirnoff. They had an interesting mojito on the menu that included muddled watermelon and mint so I asked if they could just do that with vokda and they did. I don't know how it has this much liquid because it does not taste like straight vodka. It's actually pretty good.

I had the Thai Mango Chicken Salad without wontons, same similar to last time. It was drowned in dressing and it seemed like a very small salad. I'm guessing they have a lunch portion and I should have asked for a regular. Otherwise, it was very good.

Mick got his normal pizza and beer so he had leftover pizza for dinner and I had other leftovers.