Full Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Char-Broil however, the thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

I scrubbed with all of my might, but the grease spot wasn’t coming up off the stainless steel. My sweat dripping as the last few days of the summer heat were drawing to a close. Soon our mornings would consist of hustling to get out the door so that we can get to school on time. The grill was there, under its weatherproof tarp, ready for yet another grilling season.

But tonight, we had one last celebration of the summer. I looked at the grease spot on my Char-Broil TRU-Infrared gas grill, and the memories of the summer flashed through my mind. The best summer of camp that we could have imagined, the baseball games, and the summer road trips were all a distant memory now.

The grill was there when we needed it. The nights where all we wanted were bratwursts and the night we celebrated Father’s Day with a nice ribeye steak that was even juicier than most, thanks to Char-Broil TRU-Infrared cooking technology. It was there the night we made memories with my kids by making some of the best pizza one could make (with dairy-free cheese I might add), and it was there helping to ease an early-round exit of a baseball tournament by giving my son his favorite hot dog.

Grilling Season Never Ends

But now, there is a new season upon us.

It’s hard to look at my oldest without wondering, “How did he get to be a third-grader… already?” Much like the freedom he started to experience when he learned to ride a bike, this was the summer, his freedom was taken to another level.

I stared at that grease stain that I regretted not cleaning up every time I would see it. And now, smiling, I told myself that it is okay, that spot represents one of the best summers we could have asked for. A summer that our Char-Broil TRU-Infrared Grill stood on our back deck ready for whatever our family brought to it.  A summer where our grill was prepared for the pizzas, the quick meals between summer camp and baseball practice, or the large family gathering over Memorial Day weekend. Whatever it was, our Char-Broil grill was always ready. And because Char-Broil TRU-Infrared cooking technology eliminates flare-ups, we never had to worry about our grill ruining the food and the moment.

We might be going into a new season full of school events, ball practice, and nights filled with homework, but the Char-Broil TRU-Infrared grill will always be back there. It will be glistening in the setting sun. Ready to be fired up to help make those nights with baseball practice easy. Forgiving me when I spend an extra 2-3 minutes helping my son with his math homework. His teacher, however, might not be as forgiving when we forget to show how we got to an answer.

The strange thing is that even though to some, it might feel like grilling season is behind us, in my house, it isn’t. There will be chilly fall nights when my family wants some of my homemade (and now a house favorite) hamburgers. There will be nights when the dishes are piling up in the sink, and our best option is to turn on the grill and make whatever we have on hand. And as the first snowflakes start to fall on a Saturday afternoon, there will be a rotisserie chicken that will soon warm us up.

Grilling season never really ends in my house. There could be a pile of snow on the deck, and I would still pull off the cover that was protecting our grill, which at this point has become part of the family. The grease spot that is still on the grill is just a reminder of the summer of 2019 and how great it was. That spot wasn’t the first, and despite my best efforts of getting the spot off, it won’t be the last grease spot that somehow finds its way caked onto our Char-Broil TRU-Infrared Grill.

There is one thing that I do know though, that the Char-Broil TRU-Infrared Grill will forgive me for that spot and whatever spot is to come.