Brad and I have been enjoying our backyard and new deck already this summer. It has been so great to simply sit outside and bask in the warm evenings. We decided to have a “Welcome to Summer” Kickoff BBQ to initiate the deck with it’s first party and to have an excuse for our friends to get together.

While we love our backyard, it does back up to a water retention pond so we often have to compete with mosquitoes for the airspace. (The pond is right on the other side of those trees in the background of the photo below). About a week and a half before this BBQ we had TruGreen come out to perform a Mosquito Defense treatment. This targets pests where they live, and the company’s professionally trained specialists use an innovative mosquito control formula to treat all areas of the yard where mosquitoes hide including trees, shrubs, mulched areas and all types of ground cover.

The specialist performed the mosquito defense treatment to our yard and then called me before he left to let me know what all he did, and that the mosquito defense treatment comes with a guarantee; if I saw any mosquitoes in the yard before my next scheduled treatment they would come out for a complimentary re-service.

For this summer kickoff BBQ we enjoyed each others company, ate some delicious food, and sat around the fire pit without worrying about getting bit. We also had some lawn games out for people to play. Aubree and Jaxon enjoyed tossing the bean bags (and they even got them in the hole a few times). If you are looking for a great lawn game, make sure to check out my tutorial on how to make your own ladder golf.

This BBQ was so much fun and it was great knowing that we didn’t need to worry about how many mosquitoes might be flying around looking for their own meal. It definitely made us want to host more BBQs this summer!

Of course it wouldn’t be a summer party without some beach balls and the hot tub! I got a text from Brittnee earlier in the afternoon letting me know that Aubree was asking if she could go swimming in the hot tub. I gladly agreed and both Aubree and Jaxson got some quality water fun in.

Hosting a Welcome to Summer BBQ is a great way kickoff the season. All you need are some good friends and delicious food to have an amazing time enjoying the outdoors; and thanks to TruGreen Mosquito Defense, the party can be a hit without having to share your airspace with blood-thirsty (and potentially disease-ridden) mosquitoes.

What is your favorite way to kick off summer?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.