Chocolate & Art, not chocolate art

Today was a lot of fun. Hubby and I went to Gig Harbor to check out the Chocolate Art Walk, highlighting many of the shops along the waterfront and marina. I'd never been to the waterfront section of Gig Harbor, and it sounded like a nice, different way to spend the day, so off we went.

Many of the shops participate in an Art Walk once a month, but since it's so close to Valentines Day, all the participating shops were also giving out chocolate treats. We started at one of the shops, picked up a "passport" and each shop we visited gave us a special stamp or sticker. If you collected enough stamps/stickers, you could turn in your "passport" when you were done, and be entered for a prize drawing for several fun prizes. I'm not sure what all the different prizes are, but I wasn't really in it for prizes anyway. I really just wanted to check out the shops and the art.

A few things I want to point out:

1) I love (big heart LOVE) boats. I love to be on the water, love to sail, and just looking at boats makes me happy. So being around the marina and seeing all the boats parked there - made. my. day.

2) I seem to have a thing for wine corks. This is something new, apparently. I found a cute corkboard made of wine corks a couple months ago, but it was entirely too big, and I had nowhere to put it. Today I found another board made from wine corks, but this is a much smaller version (about 8" x 8") and I had to have it. It, too, made me very happy.

3) The event was much busier than I expected. There was a band, it was a beautiful day, and many people had dogs out with them while walking along the waterfront. At first I thought someone had left their dog's water bowl in front of one of the shops. Then I noticed that many of the shops had dog bowls out front, filled with water. This was very cool - very thoughtful. Any community that is this caring of the K9 companions is aces in my book!

4) I am not big on sweets. I like them just fine, in small amounts, if I really have a craving. After about the 4th sampling, I was done, and happily declined any more. Hubby was also done, but could not bring himself to kindly decline, as he felt that he was being rude if he declined. Needless to say, hubby had much more chocolate than I did. I can say, that there were brownies that were absolutely heaven, a chocolate fondue (I had with a banana slice - hubby enjoyed with 3 bites of various cakes), and a chocolate cheesecake that was AB-FAB!

This evening was UFC time - quite the contrast to the calm, cozy art walk. I am not a UFC fan. But hubby's buddies have been wanting me to tag along to one of these get-togethers, and I promised to go to the next one. And I must say, I actually had a lot of fun. There was really good food (I am still stuffed!) and the people are really nice and laid back. Side note: I don't exude "warm and fuzzy" with people I don't really know. But these people made it too easy to just be at ease and kick back. Also, they have the most well behaved, adorable kids ever.

Overall, grade-A day :)