007 wedding cake

This was my favorite wedding cake at the Sandwich Fair. Not the most romantic of themes, but the funniest!



This vignette is my favorite. Was he ejected, or did he get out and stagger off until he passed out in the icing? Hahahaha!

Prize-winning...

Peppers


Pickling


Tomatoes


Quick Breads


Quilts


All taken at the Sandwich Fair, September 2008.

Blue-Ribbon Corn

I went to the Sandwich Fair today. I had a corndog, mini-donuts, an elephant ear, and lemon mix-up. I saw quilts and jams and pigs and rabbits. I snickered at the My Bank Pen collection, and was sad when we couldn't find the World's Tallest Man carnival exhibit. It rained hard the whole day.

I had a great time. My stomach still hurts.

Glenview Fourth of July Parade

All taken this morning at the annual Glenview 4th of July parade. There are more in this set, but these are my favorites:

Red Flags


Minutemen


Drill Team in flight


If he didn't have a kilt on, I would have thought he snuck in.


Stilts Woman


Best Friend Girl Scouts


Bolivian Dancer


The End!



Fireworks tonight! They'll be posted tomorrow.

Do you think the reception is still good?

Notice anything unusual about this shot?



Like this?



Taken in Rockford, Illinois.

Guest Photographer: Richard Plocinik

My husband recently went on a trip with his family to Michigan and Pennsylvania, and inspired by my passion for photography, decided to take a camera with him. He hadn't used one in a long time, but I was pretty impressed with what he found!



This was taken in Stony Creek State Park in Michigan, in a random unmarked clearing. I love the light in the trees behind, and the perfect framing of the bench. You get a great sense of how tall the trees are, and how quiet it must have been.




This was on a priest's gravestone, in the Pennsylvania cemetery of the church where he served for forty years. I loved the intricacy of the detail; the priest was someone they obviously respected, but the shared love of the church comes through even more.




The house's decorations are split completely in half, right down to the different shades of yellow paint and even the different walls along the sidewalk. Impressive!

All these shots are even better viewed in large:
Bench in Clearing
Priest's Gravestone
Split House


My husband has a good eye, doesn't he?

Signs at the Carnival

The computer is back, and I've got a ton of photos ready to post! Here are a few signs for the more interesting foodstuffs found at the carnivals I've been to lately.

From the Hamtramck Labor Day Festival, in Detroit Michigan. Can you tell it's a Polish-based carnival? (They spelled Babchi differently than we do. Who knew?)



I HIGHLY recommend the pierogis at the Hamtramck Festival. These people do not mess around.



From the Romeo Peach Festival, in the rural area a small town several miles outside Detroit. You would think given the name of the festival, the pie area would be more prominently displayed, but this is it. Just one lone sign tied up to a post.



I did not have any peach pie, sadly.



Frozen Coke? Really?



I didn't try this one.




I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the frozen Coke. This one is MUCH weirder!



Taken at the Naperville Ribfest in Naperville IL, summer 2006. I did have the deep-fried Snickers, just to say I did. It was pretty good!

There are a few more carnival rides and such at the Carnivals and Fairs photoset on Flickr. Check them out!

3 Candids from the Peach Festival

Little blond girls enjoying the carnival ride.




Bored Carny (Is that the right spelling? I never know.)



Every carnival needs a random bagpiper.

Take your chances, step right up!

More from the Romeo Peach Festival in Michigan...



It looks a little less exciting and glamorous in the morning than it does at night lit up, but it's still eye-catching. See, no one can resist!




Catch a duckie...



...win a tiara...



...or buy a raffle ticket to win a rifle. (??? Okay, that's a first for me!)

Midway games

Some games will always be found on a carnival midway, especially in a small town. Taken at the Romeo Peach Festival, Labor Day weekend 2007.

Severe Weather 2007

We were hit with "severe weather" this Thursday, with 80-mile-an-hour winds and torrential rains. The northern suburbs where I live took some of the hardest hits, so much so that two days later many blocks are still without power and most of the trees haven't even been cleaned up yet. To my New England eyes, it looks like the aftermath of a hurricane, although that's not what they're calling it. Whatever it was, it was a doozy. Lots of pictures follow!

Look at the size of this tree that was brought down by the wind. We think it was because the ground was so saturated with water, the roots had nothing to hold onto and it couldn't hang on. It took huge chunks of grass with it!



Luckily, there was little residual damage; the tree only fell on a large shrub wall and onto an empty street on the other side.



This is fairly typical on the sides of streets right now.



Look closely at this next one: the roots are actually intertwined with cement blocks! Didn't help it withstand the wind, though.



This time, the tree did damage.



A LOT of damage.



If you had your car at this body shop, you are likely a very unhappy customer. Now it's in worse shape than when you brought it in!



This one broke my heart. I love old cars!



Two days later, this is a typical side street.



But help is on the way!



I heard today that they are bringing in electric company workers from out-of-state to help. Good thing, we need it! According to the latest Village report, 6800 residents in Glenview still don't have power. (We're fine -- we even got our cable back up this afternoon. Whew, we missed the internet more than we thought we would!)

Although we are not near a river, we do have water issues. Techny Basin, a conservation area, handles the overflow of water during bad storms. This is what it looked like this morning.



Luckily, I was also there last summer so you can see how it normally looks at this time of year.



Yeah, let's look at that again.

Now, after the "severe weather":



Before, on a normal summer day:



!!!!!!!!!

We're as floored as you. I'm not sure if the depth comes across in the photo, but the bottom of the basin is probably twenty-five to thirty feet down -- and the bike path that travels around the edges of it is exactly one mile. That is a whole lotta water, people! (More on Techny Basin and the rain overflow here.)

But all is not doom and gloom. Our most favorite hotdog stand, fRedhots & Fries, is one of the many businesses in town without power. But that doesn't keep an ingenius man like Fred down -- he had an impromptu outdoor cookout today!



People loved the idea, and quickly lined up. Including my husband and me. :)



The guys were working hard.



People started coming from all over the place. Just in the short time we were there, they ran out of Polish! Hahaha.



Leave it to good old fRedhots to make the day brighter.





So that's how my town looks now.