Celebration Life

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):

• 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.