Upcoming events:
Chocolate Lovers Festival
The perfect event for anyone with a sweet tooth is the 18th annual Chocolate Lovers Festival coming up Feb. 6 and 7. The festival is a two-day event based entirely on chocolate with events all relating to cooking, creating art from and eating chocolate. It will take place in Virginia, hosted by the city of Fairfax.
The festival will showcase chocolate art and craft projects, hold chocolate art competitions and, of course, host chocolate tastings galore. The festival kicks off on Saturday morning with the Kiwanis Club of Farifax Pancake Festival. Festival secretary Patsy Maddox says, “both regular and chocolate chips pancakes are served, along with sausage, applesauce, orange juice and coffee.”
Maddox says that the most popular occasion is the Taste of Chocolate. The Taste of Chocolate will be held from 12 to 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Visitors get the chance to buy tons of chocolate treats, including cakes, brownies, fudge and more. Maddox says it’s hard to pick a favorite treat, but she particularly likes the chocolate walnut fudge.
Another more hands-on part of the festival is the Chocolate Challenge on Sunday. Anyone can pay $1 to view the chocolate sculptures and cakes created by professionals and amateurs. Chocolate cookbooks are also available for sale, containing recipes using only chocolate, says Maddox.
Click here for more information and a complete schedule of events. The festival will go on regardless of the weather. Maddox says, “Even snow and ice don’t deter the chocoholics.”
Kite Festival
Even though the spring seems like it will never come, when it finally does the Kite Festival at the Smithsonian is the perfect way to celebrate. The Kite Festival will be held March 28 at the Washington Monument, where people can come out and have fun flying kites, or just enjoy the good weather.
The festival also has awards for the kite-flyers. The children’s competition for 11 and under is from 12 to 1 p.m. and then the one for 12 to 15 year olds follows. The kid’s awards range from most artistic, to most humorous and many in between. Smithsonian staff members will judge the kites and pick the winners.
After the children’s competitions, the adult competitions will be held from 10:30 to noon, and then 1 to 2 p.m. These awards include wittiest, most patriotic, best costume and others, such asmost interesting trick, that relate the actual flying abilities. Everyone at the festival can vote on their favorites in each category, and in the end the votes are tallied to decide the winners.
Each year the event is based around a theme, and this year it is “going green.” The festival urges participants to create their kites using recycled material or make their kite green-themed.
Click here to register or get a full list of events for the festival.
