The “ice” staking rink is open now on Bloom St. There was a free preview today for Celebration residents. The rink will be open daily from 4-10pm through January 3rd, and skating is available on the half-hour.
Catching up on a few random things.
Have I mentioned that I like Thai Thani? This is from the night before their grand opening / open house.
The “ice” is down in front of Shannon’s et al. Better pictures to follow once it cranks up.
One of many great things about being back in central Florida instead of SE Pennsylvania is the proximity to Kennedy Space Center. With the Space Shuttle program wrapping up soon (only a few more launches!) we decided yesterday was a good chance to catch a launch.
So off to Cape Canaveral we went!
We were the second-to-last car allowed into the Jetty Park parking lot (if you don’t make it into that lot, it’s a looooong walk) and found a great little patch of grass to set out a blanket and baby on and chill as a family. Since it was an early afternoon launch, afterwards we stuck around the park for awhile and went for a nice walk on the beach. This had the added bonus of allowing the murderous post-launch traffic to die out some.
Hooray for spontaneous jaunts and close proximity!
Had the good fortune of attending a lovely wedding this afternoon, followed by a reception at the Town Tavern’s new outdoor bar area.
They did a nice job! I’ll be interested to see it when it’s not set up for an event.
I had no idea Halloween was such an event in Celebration. Cops directing traffic, tons of people, lots of hoopla. Some people in the Main Village report 1000+ trick-or-treaters! Not to mention some of the decorating that goes on.
It’s a strange thing. Judging by the traffic, most of the trick-or-treaters are from outside Celebration. So why do they choose to load up in the car, costumes and all, and trek over to Celebration instead of going door-to-door wherever they live? This is not me complaining, mind you. In fact, the downtown stores & eateries were doing brisk business tonight (even the Market Street Cafe and those overpriced shops), which is a welcome thing. But how do so many people decide that this is where they want to be on this night? Is the candy better here? Is it perceived to be safer for children than the alternatives? A combination?
On a personal level, Halloween wasn’t much to write about for us. We live in a condo, so no visitors. Our son is only 12 weeks old, so no dressing up for him. We never get invited to parties or anything, probably because of me, so no fun socializing. Instead we wandered downtown for a bit to people watch, then back home to put the baby to bed and watch the World Series.
Next year we should be in a house (<diety> help us if not) so I expect we’ll be drinking and handing out candy and drinking and eating candy.
An assortment of photos I took here in Celebration. Click for larger size or more details.
(click in and see original size)
Don’t forget! Shuttle Discovery launches early Tuesday morning at 1:36am. With any luck, we’ll have a better view of the launch here at Celebration than we did for STS-127.
Photo: STS-128 Space Shuttle Discovery on Pad 39a
Evidently this has turned into a wildlife blog! Not my intention, necessarily, but it just happens to be what I’m photographing these days. Don’t worry, eventually I’ll run out of unique animals and end up talking about pool rules, four way stop signs (when will people learn!!!), suspicious helicopters, or Internet provider quality.
The Celebration Front Porch forum was buzzing about this for a day or two prior. We went out for our nightly walk around Aquila Loop, and happen to catch the dispatchment (is that a word?) ceremony.
It’s too bad they couldn’t do a Steve Irwin on it — catch it with ropes and duct tape, ship it to the ‘Glades, let it go — but from what I understand, once it’s used to being around humans it’s sorta ruined. It’s a shame… it was just doing what gators do. That said, we walk around that lake nightly and wouldn’t want to tussle with this sucker.
Update 7/15/09:
Some more photos. Click in to each of them for the option to view the original size. I only had my iPhone with me, unfortunately.
The continuing tales of wildlife in Celebration that Brian finds interesting. Remember you can click on any of these for the full-size versoni.
