
I thought I’d share some photos from October (yes, October!) with you. I’m working on a backlog of photo editing from the end of last year. I guess there were just so many fantastic things going on that I got behind. And October is always a busy month for us, it seems. Every year, as you probably know, we go to the State Fair as part of Eric’s birthday celebration.

This year, they were having the Chinese Lantern Festival, so we made sure to go while the festival was still going on. We went during the day, although I’m sure it was beautiful all lit up at night.

When we went, there weren’t a ton of people there, which was nice. We just strolled through at a leisurely pace.

There were lots of little animals and flowers and mushrooms and all sorts of things. What you have to imagine, which is sometimes hard to take in, is that everything is a lantern!! I’m sure it was really a stunning display at night.

I loved the little grove of cherry trees – such fun to see their pretty pink blossoms. Reminds me a bit of my First Days of Spring post.

The dragon was stunning all by himself. He was huge – lengthwise – and absolutely amazing the closer you got to him.

Especially once you realized he was made entirely from china plates and cups. Everything was woven together in the most intricate fashion.

And there were even a couple of temples – the entire piece was itself a lantern. How amazing is that? These are all primarily constructed of fabric and wire.

And these were so cool – they are made up of tiny little glass vials filled with colored liquid. Water or oil, I assume? They looked like they were covered in crystals in the sun.

See the little vials?

The lotus blossoms on the water were so pretty. And there were frogs and birds and even fish lanterns in there too. I just really loved the pink lotus flowers.

Apparently some of the big lotus flowers actually opened and closed at night during the show. Love that!

See the bird? I loved all the colors on these lanterns. And the fabric had a sheen to it like silk. Just absolutely amazing the level of detail.

The swan paddle boats looked right at home amongst the flowers.

This was a giant fan – I do mean giant. I loved the kind of cloisonné look of the birds.

Here’s the other temple – I just loved all that bright blue!

And look at this shadow box with the peacocks – also had that cloisonné look to them.

It really was a fantastic exhibit. Like I said, I wish we could have seen it at night – but it was still breathtaking during the day.

I loved this shot – a little bit of East meets Southwest.

Of course, we spent a good amount of time at the fair doing the other things we usually enjoy. We took in two shows of The Killdares. Always good music and a lot of fun to sit and watch them play.

They had a new fancy rotating stage this year, which was kind of fun.

Eric bought a couple of their CDs and we stayed behind after the second show to get them signed by the band.

It was a great day and we definitely enjoyed ourselves. By the time the sun went down we were worn out and ready to head home!

Until next year!
Oh, and p.s. if you’ve never seen the movie Raise the Red Lantern, it’s really good.