Celebration’s semi-annual, community-wide yard sale was last Saturday. The homeowner’s association does a terrific job at organizing it, and I think everyone — buyers and sellers alike — have a decent time. We left our house in the East Village at 7:45am; I returned at a little after noon, and my wife about an hour later. That should give you an idea of the distance we covered on foot.
Traffic is always a concern for this event, as you have a confluence of factors conspiring to make the day miserable:
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The number of people
That the people are looking sideways, trying to peek at people’s stuff, instead of paying attention to the road
That many people simply can’t drive well, even on a normal day
Some Celebration streets that aren’t fun, even on a normal day (*cough* Nash *cough*)
Lots of pedestrians, some of who have children and pets
As with the Halloween issues every year, I don’t know that there’s any good solution. Certainly strategically-placed No Parking signs and off-duty sheriff’s deputies would help, but this is another situation where the Homeowner’s Association has to expend time and money on something where there is no possibility to recoup those resources.
Personally, I look forward to these community yard sales. They’re a terrific excuse to wander the neighborhoods, meet fellow residents, and pick up cheap books (me) and baby stuff (wife).
We attended the first night of Grouchos Comedy in Celebration on Feb 5. My wife’s parents do the Canadian snow bird thing, so we were fortunate enough to have trusted help in town to watch our 17 month old for a night. We started at around 7pm at Cafe D’Antonio, me with wine and a kick-ass Caprese di Bufala and the wife choosing to fill up on bread and Bruschetta alla Romana. Hunger sated, we strolled over to Thai Thani for the show.
Now… it was the first night for Grouchos at Thai Thani, so I didn’t know what to expect. I heard about it from Mike Nunez with Lexin a few weeks prior, but didn’t have any insight into how widely it was advertised, how well advanced tickets were sold, or how many people would actually show.
We didn’t do the Dinner & Show deal, which meant we wouldn’t have priority seating. BUT, I was pleasantly surprised to be seated at the back of the room — meaning they had done very well in selling the package and filling the place. There were ‘Reserved For…’ placards posted on most of the tables. Sure enough, by show time the room was packed, a great environment for comedy. “Trailer Park Diva” Michelle Harrington had a great set, and headliner Dean Napolitano absolutely killed.
Notice on the very left of the photo that Nat seems quite happy about things.
All expectations were exceeded — even on an opening night, where glitches are expected — and we shall definitely be repeat visitors. Thanks to Nat with Thai Thani, Larry with Grouchos, Mike with Lexin, and whoever else was involved in bringing this to Celebration. If you’re around Celebration on a Saturday evening, I encourage you to take advantage. The dinner & show package is a tremendous value:
Tickets- $12.00 or $25.00 Dinner Package (includes show, dinner, beverage, and choice of seats)
Menu Includes
Choice of one of the following:
Egg Roll (2-piece)
Crab Rangoons (3-piece)
Chicken Satay (2-piece)
Plus Choose One Entree
(Choice of: Chicken, Beef, Pork, Tofu or Veggies)
Fried Rice
Phad Thai
Sweet & Sour
Garlic Meat
Mixed Vegetables
Cashew Nut
Pepper Steak
All Entrees include choice of soda or Ice Tea.
You can tell them you read about it here, but it won’t get you anything special beyond funny looks. 
Live comedy is coming to Celebration! From what I understand, terms were worked out earlier tonight to feature live comedy by a nationally touring comedian every Saturday night at 8:30pm in the Thai Thani banquet room. The first show is scheduled for February 5. Admission is either $12 or can be purchased as part of a dinner and show package.
I hope to have more information in a day or two such as a list of performers and how to purchase tickets. In the meantime let this serve as a save-the-date!
Update 2011-Jan-19: The first six weeks’ acts have been announced. See the Grouchos site for more info.
From July 23 to 25, Celebration becomes a veritable Who’s Who of Survivor stars, with some Amazing Race and Big Brother people sprinkled in there for good measure.
From CelebrationTownCenter.com:
Come meet the stars of the hit reality shows “Survivor” , “The Amazing Race” and “Big Brother” as a part of this year’s Summer Sidewalk Sale in beautiful Celebration Town Center and participate in the “Sales” Survivor Treasure Hunt July 23rd through the 25th.
On Friday, the Sidewalk Sale kicks off with a “Sales Survivor: Treasure Hunt”. Visit the restaurants to get your “treasure map” and use the clues to navigate through Celebration Town Center to uncover the answers. One “Sole Survivor” will walk away with $500 worth in cash and prizes. Continuing on Friday a special VIP sponsor party will take place at The Mona Lisa Suites Hotel with all the cast members’ on-hand for pictures autographs and more.
On Saturday, a special autograph signing will take place in Downtown Celebration from 4:00-6:00 PM and a special “Survivor Party” at the Celebration Town Tavern hosted by comedian Dean Napolitano will be held that evening with all proceeds from the party and autograph signing to benefit Give Kids the World Village. On Sunday, the Sidewalk Sale continues and it will be the last day to return your completed treasure maps to be eligible to win.
That link also has a list of everyone scheduled to appear, including favorites Jerri Manthey and Richard Hatch. This is a great charity event for Give Kids the World, so if you’re a reality TV fan, Celebration appears to be the place to be this weekend!
Every month or so the Celebration Town Tavern hosts a “tweetup”… which is, as far as I can tell, just an excuse for people on Twitter to get together in Real Life and have some beers. I am not judging, as I am a willing participant. The photo is Exhibit A.
If you happen to see this in the next hour-and-a-half, come by the Celebration Town Tavern for a Summerfest Sampler of beers. If you find this later, add this site to your favorite RSS feed reader and I’ll tell you when the next one is!
HAPPY NEW YEAR, Celebration residents and visitors!
Things to look forward to in the New Year, in no particular order (‘cept the first one):
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We will move into a house. We’ve been patiently waiting out the purchase of a home via short sale. It’s been a long road, one that started mid-July. I think the end may be in sight, but that may just be an illusion brought on by extreme temperature changes.
House projects. Related to the above, my list of house projects is officially empty. My expectation is that moving into a 7 year old house vs the 37 year old one we moved out of will translate into a shorter house project list, but maybe that’s hilariously naive?
Grill! Also related to moving into a house will be bringing the grill out of storage. Not being able to grill despite so many fantastic grilling days here in Florida has been like living in a straightjacket.
New businesses. The arcade next to Kilwin’s is shuttering its doors, I believe at the end of January. There’s also another spot still available on Market Street where the Village Merc used to be. I’ll be interested to see what kinds of businesses choose to open their doors this year; I’ll be sure to write about them here when they do. I’d love to see a small corner market type store here in Celebration… you know, things like milk, eggs, chips, beers, some staple produce. That, coupled with the produce stand at the Sunday market, would mean we only have to leave the bubble for meat!
Geocaching. Did you know there are several geocaches stashed away around Celebration? If you don’t know what geocaching is, you should check out geocaching.com. You’ll need a handheld GPS and a sense of adventure. You might even be able to get by with an iPhone 3G or 3GS and the right GPS app. It’s a great family-friendly excuse to get outside for a few hours to see parts of the world you may not otherwise have seen… and get a little exercise, to boot. Our new GPS arrives Wednesday so we can find & log the caches we haven’t found yet.
Epcot After 4. Looking forward to getting the maximum return on our brand spanking new Epcot After 4 annual passes!
Meeting neighbors and making friends. Once our five month old is a little older, we’d like to be a bit more social again. “How so?”, one might ask. Good question.
Tennis! I’ve been trying to take tennis lessons and get to the point where the other person I’m playing with won’t want to slice me with a rusty razor blade after 10 minutes. I’ve had some trouble maintaining a consistent training schedule with my coach but expect to work something out in the next few weeks. If you’re an OK tennis player (or a good tennis player with plenty of patience) and live in Celebration, drop me a note at blogmail at celebrationblog.com.
GREAT food. Bangers & Mash at Shannon’s. Stackers and Clam Chowder at the Town Tavern (and I’ve been neglecting my beer checklist). Pad Thai (4 star hot) at Thai Thani. That mozzarella/basil/balsamic flatbread thing at Imperium. Lunchtime California Combination at Seito Sushi. Tapas and Cuban bread like I remember from Tampa at Columbia Celebration. And I hope to frequent Cafe D’Antonio, Angelinas, and Jean Pierre’s Bistro more often as we find babysitters. Celebration is truly a place for great food.
What am I missing? What else do Celebration residents have to look forward to in 2010 and beyond?
The baby is coming. Soon. We’re 26 days from the anticipated due date. And since she can go pretty much whenever from 37 weeks onward, we’re close.
A friendly and helpful lady from the county, Barbara, met us today over at the Celebration fire station on Celebration Pl and helped us make sure our child seat could be properly secured in our car. Our last Childbirth 101 class is at Celebration Health tomorrow night. We obtained great baby stuff — including a change table, an awesome crib, and a terrific car seat — from our neighbors here in Celebration either through the Front Porch forum or Craigslist.
I guess the reason this is on this blog instead of my personal one is that so far we’ve been able to accomplish everything we need through the Celebration community. (Well… except for pediatricians… but that’s a topic for later.) It’s a validation of the decision we made to move here, a decision that was first made on November 3 of last year and finally realized May 18. Feelings of uncertainty and doubt about moving down are being replaced by optimism and acceptance. We had a good thing going in PA, but we felt the grass was greener down here (figuratively, this time of year)… so we split a pair of 10′s (which you should never do) and it paid off.
These are the feelings as of July 27, anyway. Once the baby is born, I sincerely hope we can find parents with children about the same age, who have similar ideas about how to raise children, that we can bond/socialize/drink with. We see some babies in strollers but we see more dogs on leashes… let’s just hope that’s because dogs need to be walked more than babies, and those parents are out there somewhere.