This past weekend, one of my favorite celebrations took place. The annual Taste of Buffalo, the largest two-day food festival in the United States, kicked off and had beautiful (though a little hot) weather (at least when it wasn't a torrential downpour). My parents and my sister, Adrienne, came in to town to taste all of the wares Buffalo had to offer, and we all left overly full.

Ellie and Adrienne at Pearl Street!

Adrienne came into town on Thursday night, so we had an extra day to get the weekend started. There were tacos, burritos, and nachos. It was crazy. On Friday, we went downtown to a Buffalo staple called Pearl Street, which is a microbrew pub. As seen in the photo above, we ordered a Widowmaker, 100 oz. of beer in a convenient tube. One hundred ounces of beer seems a lot when you order it, but it really was pretty easy to knock it out with four people.

On Sunday, we ventured downtown for the festival. The festival itself spans quite a few blocks and dumps out into a huge traffic circle in front of Buffalo City Hall (an Art Deco marvel, Ellie would like to point out).

Mad peoples eating all my food!

The most important thing on our list of items was, of course, a wine slushie. Adrienne officially won the competition, but joke's on her. My dad bought all the tickets, so I got off free!

Adrienne and Jon enjoying their wine slushies

Dad needed stain stick pretty early on . . . I planned ahead!

After several hours of eating, we were all pretty stuffed. Luckily, we had passed many people handing out free Tums, and we even found their stand.

Helps after that spicy buffalo cheese! Dad ended up with 36 packets with 2 Tums in each!

In the end, I clearly had too much . . . but you know what? The Taste of Buffalo comes around only once a year. When it does, you have to make the most of it.

It'll pass, it'll pass

I'm already looking forward to next year; hopefully more people will come to Buffalo and join in on the fun!