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<\/a><\/p>\nTrue friendship means being able to grow separately without growing apart. This is the truth with all my long distance besties- whom I miss everyday!<\/p>\n
So, Merry came down to visit this weekend because we\u00a0wanted to check out Winterfest for the first time. Winterfest is a two weekend festival on Lake Chelan. There are free events, a wine walk, an alefest, ice sculptures, and lots more. We only went on Saturday of the second weekend, and it was really fun!<\/p>\n
On Friday, Merry arrived right as I was getting off work. I made us some dinner,\u00a0we had some drinks, and basically stayed up laughing and catching up.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Merry bought me lunch for my birthday at one of my favorite places in town – Blue Flame. We had crab wontons (the best things ever), a California roll, and gyoza. So delicious. I could eat at this place every day.<\/p>\n After lunch we headed to Chelan to get our day started! Our first stop was Tsillan Cellars to taste some wine. This place is absolutely beautiful- love it. It’s $5 to taste 5 wines- and between the two of us, we were able to taste them all. Merry stuck with the whites, and I had the reds. We shared sips of each though so it worked out perfectly. The Syrah is my favorite of all we tried!<\/p>\n After our tastes, we headed to Manson to Winterfest. We found the alefest venue, paid our $35 and got our buttons, taste tokens, and tasting glasses.<\/p>\n We walked into a nearby place called Troy’s pizza to order something to munch on. We split an order of breadsticks, found a table and ate and sipped.<\/p>\n There were a ton of different booths where you could taste local beers or hard ciders. My favorites were Schilling Cider<\/a>, Icicle Brewing Company<\/a>, and Whiskey Barrel Cider Company<\/a>. We had a really great time sipping, and chatting up some of the cider makers. A highlight was definitely all the Seahawk love! A couple times someone would start the Seahawk chant completely out of the blue. “SEA….” And everyone else would yell back “HAWKS!!!” So excited for the Superbowl next weekend. Go Hawks!<\/p>\n Winterfest was a success- and we had a great weekend! I already can’t wait for my next Merry weekend:)<\/p>\n I can’t believe we’re already into our last week of January. It’s been a great month- a perfect start to 2015. I’ll share a recap on January 31st!<\/p>\n Wishing you a wonderful week!<\/p>\n xoxo,<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a>At six o’clock, they started letting the wish lanterns go. This was the main reason I wanted to go to Winterfest- but I didn’t realize that you had to buy the lanterns at places in town. I didn’t see anything mentioned about that online, so I just assumed they would be available when you got there. We didn’t get to let one go ourselves, but we did get to watch them as they floated up, up and away. It was beautiful, seeing all those wishes lighting up the sky.<\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
\nKayla<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"