Springfield State Fair.

This weekend we went to Springfield, Illinois to visit our family down there.  Currently, our kitchen looks like this:

So, needless to say, I was very happy to escape for a little bit.

This past weekend was opening weekend for THE State Fair, which if you haven't been, you seriously should.  I have gone to the fair just about every summer for most of my life and I am still not tired of it.  The livestock, the people watching, the fried everything.  I can't get enough.

Now when I say fried everything, I truly mean it.

I refrained from indulging in the "Fried Anything" booth, but I did get my fair share of corn dogs, elephant ears, and salt water taffy!

 The ancient-looking taffy pulling machine.  I seriously think it has been the same one for 50+ years...

 When you go to the Illinois State Fair, the visit is not complete without checking out the butter cow in the Dairy Building.

Yep, that's right.  Our fair boasts an entire cow (plus many other details) carved entirely from good ol' butter.  I've tried to explain the butter cow to many people, but you truly just have to see it to understand.  It's been a State Fair tradition since 1922, and is usually constructed from about 600 lbs of butter.  The sculptor works in a refrigerated case at about 42 degrees to make this puppy (or cow, I should say).

And the dairy building is also home to some award-winning dairy products, like CHEEEEEESE.

The fairgrounds hosts multiple historic brick buildings, each with their own featured exhibits.  We love checking out the Horticulture building, the Arts exhibits, and then the Crafts and Hobbies building.

This past weekend, an impressive display of gladiola were in the Horticulture building.  The colors were breathtaking.

The Crafts and Hobbies building is always entertaining as there is usually some sort of cooking contest going on, along with a display of people's collections of things, homemade baked goods, fruits and veggies, and handcrafted textiles.  It is seriously the strangest amalgamation of items, but everywhere you turn, there is something new to see!

There is seriously a juried competition for magnet collections.  I kid you not.

Oh yes, and wreaths of course!

Totally digging this awesome Day of the Dead cake.

The quilts are my favorite part of that building.  I want to take them all home and alternate using them.  What a beautiful art form!

And now here's the part I'm the MOST proud of (no, I am not the most proud of my fried food eating habits).

My husband entered the juried Professional Art Exhibition after not entering for about five years, and had one of his gorgeous ash glazed tea sets accepted and on display with some of the most talented artists in Illinois.  How lucky am I to be married to this talented guy?!

And while I recover from my fried food coma, we are continuing to work on fixing up our scary-looking kitchen.  All before school starts.  In FIVE days.  Good grief.

Caribbean Cool.

Okay, I am finally up and running and ready to post some pics from our recent trip to Saint-Martin, aka Sint Maarten.  Our flights coming home were pretty rough and as a sufferer of severe motion sickness, let's just say, it took me a while to get my land legs back.  Not gonna be Capt. Jack Sparrow anytime soon, I'll tell ya that much.

Well, St. Martin is a Caribbean island that hosts a large Dutch population on the Southern half of the island (Sint Maarten) and a French population on the Northern half (Saint-Martin).

We rented a room through our fave place, https://www.airbnb.com/, and stayed on the Dutch side, but veryyyyy close to the French border.  We were literally RIGHT on the water.

Yep, that's the view from our balcony.  Just a staircase down to the beach.

The best feature of the place we rented (other than the beach of course) was that the owner owned two beautiful sister dogs, and one of the lovely ladies would sleep in front of our door every night and when we opened our door in the morning, there was our friendly Walmart greeter.

This dog was the perfect cure for missing my own dog.

 The Dutch side of the island is known for its nightlife, beaches, casinos, and drinks (more on that later) and the French side is renown for its cuisine (and yes, more on that too).

Our vacation consisted of a lot of beach-hopping and sampling the island's cuisine offerings.

 

Sint Maarten is known for its guavaberry rum, as well as, other fun rum drinks, so below is THE Old Man Guavaberry Rum Shop and a pic of a locally made rum drink, bottled and beach-ready for your beverage pleasure...

 

 

The locally made rum drink seemed to contain a banana or plantain (still not sure), a vanilla bean, and some guavaberries.

We checked out the French market in Saint-Martin, wandered around, and picked up some fresh off the boat red snapper for a delish dinner.

 Sorry guys, but you tasted really good...

 The doors of the buildings where the fish and meat vendors were located.

Annd of course, no visit to a French market or neighborhood is complete without some French cuisine and pastries...

Seriously, the meal at this place was one of the best meals of our entire trip.  The food was Creole cuisine and we had the conch stew and pork ribs, and both were incredible.

And of course, sticking with the food line of thought (and apparently because that's all we did on this trip), I wanted to share some pics from Yvette's Restaurant.  The restaurant is run out of a woman's home (Yvette's I presume?) and is a local favorite featuring Cajun and Creole cuisine.  Everything on the menu was AMAZING.

Lest you think all I did on the trip was eat (which I did...a LOT), here are some other pics I snapped along the way.

Oranje School in Philipsburg

This is the post office in Philipsburg.

I loved how there was street art everywhere.

Cemetery in the French Quarter.

Can't help but photograph aged things.

  Mural on the side of a local art gallery in the French Quarter.

Church in French Quarter

And because no vacation post is complete without my door obsession (see here), BOOM!

Now that I'm home, I might actually, GASP, try and make some art!  I'll keep ya posted.

Until then, I'll leave you with this image that went through my head every single day in St. Martin.  God bless you, Johnny Depp...and rum. Bless that too.