Laima Chocolate Museum

The embassy CLO organized an outing to the famous Latvian Laima Chocolate Museum 

here in Riga.  A perfect way to celebrate St. Paddy's day.  :)

 
We had a great turnout of many families which was fun for everyone.  There's really not a whole lot to say except, "Yummy!"  The chocolate was and is amazing and for about 16 euros each, we got our fill of it!

      Our tour guide started us off with chocolate from the fountain.  Dark chocolate, very rich!  The kids and I couldn't finish it, so Bri did his "duty."  ;)

While we ate our melted chocolate, Gita, our tour guide, taught us about what cocoa beans look like, where they come from, and the intensely time consuming process of becoming chocolate.  We learned that Laima gets its chocolate all the way from Ghana!  I was a little distracted by the chocolate coma that was setting in at that point, so I don't remember much except that I thought, "It's worth whatever we pay then because it's a pain to make chocolate!"

 Showing how the beans look at one stage of the process.  Not tasting like chocolate yet.

 We then got to personalize our own Laima chocolate bar wrapper.  Thomas ate his before I could get a picture, but Rhea said, "I love everything!" and Savannah of course loves horses!  Bri wrote "I love Micky" in Russian.  :)

 Ever since we moved to Latvia, we've enjoyed collecting the different Laima chocolate tin containers.  Here at the museum, they displayed the containers back to 1920.  Fun to see the evolution of design and how it reflected the time period.

 We then watched a movie about chocolate making in a little cocoa bean covered corner of the museum.

 The favorite activity was the green screen where the kids held large foam chocolate candies.  I think they were supposed to hold the candies and move around a little, but the boys started this activity off with hitting each other with the large candies, so every group after that followed suit. ;)

 The shy little girls.

The last stage of our tour was the chocolate making room where we got to make our own candies.  It was right next to one of the factory rooms where they make the chocolate.  It was a Saturday, so we didn't get to witness the making.  They're working on building a larger factory though, so I'm not sure how much longer this one will be in use.We were given hair nets and aprons to wear, and chocolate molds to fill up with whatever kind of liquid chocolate, fillings, and toppings we wanted!  All kinds of melted chocolate...white, milk, dark, semi-dark, etc.
The girls with their friend Kampbell.

 Scarlet, our three year old friend.  A riot in every way!

 Bri and friend Tanner.

 Thomas, standing by friends Clark and Andrew.Now this is a satisfied smile:

Finishing up.Gita helped us to wrap our boxes of chocolate in cute ribbon.After finishing our 5 chocolates for our box, Gita said we couldn't leave until all of the chocolate was eaten.  ;)  So we gladly filled our little cups with more chocolate and toppings and ate away.

 Leaving the chocolate museum.  Funny how we hadn't noticed the chocolate ceiling and walls on our way in!  After our tour, none of us, even Bri, wanted anything to do with chocolate the rest of the day!  I couldn't believe it, but we were all sick of chocolate and feeling the coma set in.  Of course that didn't stop us the next day.  It was just a 12 hour hiatus.  ;)   

 In the city, we look for the little red Laima brand circle whenever we want chocolate.  There is no shortage of them.  They're all over.  And of course their chocolates can be found in every store as well!