Strawberry Fair

Cambridge Saturday Market and Strawberry Fair

I really wanted to check out the Saturday street market in Cambridge a couple weekends ago so Tyler and I FINALLY decided to get out of the house on a Saturday afternoon and go. Cambridge is about a 30-45 minute drive from our house depending on traffic. We weren't even sure where the market was in the town but we decided to park in the mall's parking garage and walk until we came across it. *Of course you'd think there would be signs everywhere for it*- NOPE!

We walked around until we came to a fork in the road. The foot traffic was split 50/50 so we took a random guess and went right. We came across an open field with what looked like a carnival! This carnival was called the "Strawberry Fair" and it happens once a year in Cambridge. The Strawberry Fair (http://www.strawberry-fair.org.uk/) is a "visual and musical extravaganza". There was no admissions fee to boot! We walked in with no expectations and what we found was quite interesting. There was everything from every day looking people with their small children, to hippies smoking joints (literally- the whole place smelled of marijiuana), to well-educated college students. 

This was a very strange tasting version of an elephant ear...dough covered in cinnamon and sugar. We didn't enjoy it very much.

Look at those neon dreads!

Delicious Jamaican Jerk chicken we had for lunch!

Tyler enjoying himself at the market :)

Crowd of people watching the street performers. 

All in all, we had a fun & interesting day :)

Ice Cream Social: 493d Spouses Coffee

Ice Cream Social: 493d Spouses Coffee

Every month the squadron wives of the 493d Fighter Squadron get together for what we call a "coffee". The coffee is a time for the women to get together, chat & mingle, meet new spouses, get upcoming important information from the Commander's wife, discuss fundraising ideas, and *farewell* the ladies who will be PCSing (moving to a new base) before the next month's coffee. Every month a different wife volunteers to host the coffee either at a restaurant, a venue with an activity (painting pottery for example), or at their house. 

I volunteered to host the June coffee and my good friend, Rachel, asked if she could help with it. Rachel and I decided to host an "ice cream social" themed coffee since it's supposed to be summer and all. 

Here's what we came up with and it was a total hit!

We offered an assortment of ice cream flavors-the favorite of which is ALWAYS Vanilla. We had waffle cones, chocolate dipped waffle cones, waffle bowls, and fudge dipped cones. We offered the necessities to make sundaes, banana splits, ice cream sandwiches and even root beer floats!

We also had "Clotted Cream", Chocolate, and Fresh Strawberry ice cream.

Here are some photos of the toppings...YUMMY! Offered: hot fudge, caramel, chocolate shell, mini Oreos, mini chocolate chip cookies, gummy bears, chocolate chips, M&Ms, pecans, almonds, Reese's peanut butter cups, bananas, sprinkles, Twizzler cherry bites, sour licorice straws, strawberry licorice straws, wafer straws, whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and hot apple pie filling.

This is before I heated up the fudge and caramel :)

This is the drink station. We had IBC Root Beer to make root beer floats, fresh summer punch & lemonade, Appletizer (sparking apple juice) and water.

There's usually some sort of game or fun activity at each coffee so Rachel and I decided to do "ice cream trivia". I put together a quiz with 10 ice cream related questions and a tie-breaker. The winner of the game won this fabulous prize bucket that included: an ice cream scoop, sprinkles, fudge, caramel, an ice cream dessert cookbook, and beautiful vase with fresh flowers :)

Here's a look at the buffets set up with homemade Nutella stuffed chocolate chip cookies & regular chocolate chip cookies to make homemade ice cream sandwiches. There was also fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries & blackberries) and freshly whipped whipped cream!

We had a lot of fun prepping for this party to include eating the ice cream :) I ended up having 2 large bowls at the coffee and I've been eating ice cream for dessert every night since then!

I can't wait to see what the next coffee will have in store and I hope to host one again in the future <3