Looking for something different to do with your mom this weekend?  I found the perfect thing.  Thursday I took my daughter and mom to see Beauty and the Beast at Straz center, and a great time was had by all three generations!

I seem to be getting hooked on musicals, but with all of the great shows at The Straz Center can you blame me?  Beauty and the Beast is a story told almost entirely through song, and the Broadway musical includes songs that were not in the Disney movie which I loved.  I spent the evening trying unsuccessfully to decide on my favorite song.

You don’t know how it could be so hard to decide?  Take a look at some of what I had to choose from!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Qb72ddIBE?rel=0]

My first favorite? Gaston of course. All of the girls in town and all of the tavern patrons joined in for a rowdy, beer mug clinking good time.  All in the name of cheering Gaston up of course.  So that was my favorite.

But then they did Be Our Guest.  The entire stage was filled with happiness and joy, colors and dancing. Confetti even.  So that was my favorite.

But then Mrs. Potts (Emily Jewell) sang Beauty and the Beast while standing quietly at the edge of a nearly dark stage and blew me away.  It’s amazing that one person can have such a presence. So then…

I decided it was OK to like them all.  And that’s my final answer.

So, moving on.  There were two other parts that really struck me. The first were the scenes in the woods. They were amazingly done, the woods were foggy and creepy and the wolf attack scenes were pretty awesome.  Oh, and the night time scenes with the stars and moon were also pretty amazing.  But that wasn’t supposed to be part of my 2. So I guess make that 3 parts?

The other was the rug during Be Our Guest.  I can’t even imaging being dressed as a rug while flipping around the stage and singing. Talent much? There’s a little clip of him at about the 15 second mark in the video I embedded above, but that doesn’t really do him justice.  I guess you’ll have to go see for yourself!

I won’t subject you to my inner dialogue about which was my favorite character.  You’re welcome.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is playing at the Straz Center through May 10th. Take a look on Straz Center’s site for tickets and times.  Tickets to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast would make a perfect mother’s day gift for a lot of moms out there!

I received 2 tickets to Pippin as a member of Tampa Bay Bloggers and their partnership with the Straz in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own, of course.

I mentioned the other day that this weekend the place to be is downtown Tampa, at Riverfest 2015.  You already know about the run, but that’s just one piece of the celebration!

There’s also the Bloody Mary Festival this Sunday May 3rd at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park from 11 – 3pm. general admission tickets get you unlimited samples from lots of local restaurants – and the opportunity to help decide whose is the best! You also get 1 full size drink with your ticket, so you can be certain about the choice you made. 🙂

All that AND music – check out Busted Blues:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seTRhrmWmp0?rel=0] I love listening to the Blues. Why yes, I do like most music. How can you not? Especially when it’s live.

Get your general admission or VIP tickets (all you an drink!) HERE.  Or you can enter to win a pair.  Just leave me a comment and enter here: a Rafflecopter giveaway.

Bloody Marys and the blues aren’t your thing?  Fine.  How about a carnival? How about games and rides like the Para Trooper, Carousel, Fun Slide, Orbiter, Swings or Star Screamer? How about kid friendly shows like magicians, story tellers, balloon artists and face painters? Like you have to be a kid to appreciate that. All that and a full bar and music too.

Ya, of course it sounds amazing. The urban carnival will be at Cotanchobee Park on the Tampa Riverwalk both Saturday and Sunday.  You can go the old fashioned route and buy tickets for the games and rides or you can purchase an all day ride pass here. 

Of course, you could just win a pair by leaving me a comment letting me know your favorite carnival ride and entering my drawing here: a Rafflecopter giveaway.

I’ll announce the winners Friday!

I received tickets to the tampa downtown carnival as a member of Tampa Bay Bloggers thru their partnership with the Big City Events in exchange for this giveaway. All opinions are my own, of course.

I have a confession to make.  OK, it’s not really a confession because everyone knows and I’ve said it before.  I am a LAZY runner.  I’ve been running for ages and still have never run much more than 4 miles because I tend to take breaks. Usually just because I lose the bug, sometimes, like this last time, because of a ulcerative colitis flare. Even when I take a break because I’m sick I tend to milk it.  I haven’t been sick in over a month and I just started running again last week. This time I decided to stop pretending like I have running pride and I am sticking to a beginner 5K plan I found on Runkeeper. For free!  Check them out.

Anyways, I found the perfect motivation to stick with it for a couple of weeks at least, and by then I’ll be back in the habit.  Sunday, May 3rd at 10am Cigar City Brewing is having a fun run in downtown Tampa along the Tampa Riverwalk.  There’s no color being thrown on you, no obstacles and no mud.  So what makes this a fun run?  Well.  Let me tell you.

First of all, it’s only 2 miles making it the perfect run for someone who hasn’t been running so much lately. Short and sweet, sounds perfect!  Secondly, since it’s being put on by Cigar City Brewing you know you’ll be getting a Cigar City Beer afterwards. AND the medal that you get doubles as a beer opener. Which (call me an optimist if you must) I feel pretty confident will also open my Angry Orchards. You also get a t-shirt. I really should begin calling myself a professional t-shirt collector between running and donating blood!

OH, lets not forget that this run is just one part of a BIG weekend in Tampa!   As part of the RiverFest 2015 there will also be the Bloody Mary Festival and a downtown carnival, both of which I’ll be doing a giveaway for very shortly. There’s PLENTY more going on as part of RiverFest 2015, you really should check it out!

But, back to the run.  Want to go?  You can check out the run and register here. Or, I’m giving away a pair of tickets to a random winner.  To enter just leave me a comment telling me what your first run was, or letting me know if this would be your first!  Don’t forget to click HERE: RiverRun giveaway and let me know you are entering!  That way I’ll have your email address to let you know if you win.  🙂  The contest runs through Sunday night and I will contact the winner on Monday.

I received 2 tickets to River Run 2015 as a member of Tampa Bay Bloggers thru their partnership with the Big City Events in exchange for this giveaway. All opinions are my own, of course.

To be honest, I didn’t really know what Pippin was when I first heard about the show. I looked on Straz’s site and saw “Broadway’s high-flying, death-defying hit musical” and thought death-defying DOES sound interesting!  Maybe no zombies and no space monsters would be OK?  After all, a Spartan race is not the only way to step outside of your every day and try something new.

Then my partner in crime asked around and was told he was uncultured for even having to ask. Seems Pippin is a big deal with a lot of history and we WERE uncultured for not knowing it. Well, thank goodness we were able to right that wrong!

The theater was full and it was pretty obvious that people were excited about the show. And now I know why. It was excellent! Pippin the Musical has a little (or a lot) of EVERYTHING. It seems the entire cast has incredible singing voices, can dance, can flip, balance, and do all sorts of other things that I would not even attempt.  The sheer number of people all doing different things yet perfectly working together at any given time in the show was pretty amazing all by itself. It’s a circus act rolled up in a drama that includes war, patricide, sexual innuendos, philosophy and love. And I would say that technically speaking there is even a zombie or two. But don’t quote me on that. In other words, something for everyone.

My pictures a a wee bit fuzzy because I used my (brand new) cell phone and I was back a ways, but I’m still sharing.

Which, by the way brings up a great point – if you decide to go see the show there is not a bad seat in the house. I was pretty neat the back and could both see and hear everything perfectly, the fuzz is my phone not the seats.

This guy is kind of amazing, I so want to try this at home. Stupid insurance deductible.

If you’d like to go there is still plenty of time! Here’s a list of showtimes at Straz Center:

• Thurs.April 16th at 7:30 p.m
• Fri. April 17th at 8 p.m.
• Sat. April 18th at 2 and 8 p.m.
• Sun. April 19th at  2 and 7:30 p.m.

If you aren’t in the Tampa area, move because you are missing out.  But  while you are waiting for your house to sell you still may be able to catch Pippin, it is after all a U.S. tour not a Florida tour. But heads up, they will be in Orlando and West Palm Beach. Check here to see if they are coming near your town.

I received 2 tickets to Pippin as a member of Tampa Bay Bloggers and their partnership with the Straz in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own, of course.

I mentioned that I was going to the Spring Beer Fling last month, then never got around to telling you about it.  Why, you may ask?  Well because I was super happy with some of the cool pictures I took, then I dropped my cell phone (aka my camera) into the toilet.  Happily, it was freshly cleaned and shiny. Unhappily, my phone didn’t care about my wonderful cleaning habits. Here’s a thing I found out: turn your phone off IMMEDIATELY if it gets wet.  Because otherwise things get fried, to put it scientifically. Even alcohol and organic rice will not save it.

Anyways, coming back from another squirrel moment…

The Spring Beer Fling was A LOT of fun. I didn’t get to try all of the different drinks I would have liked to because of that thing were I had to wake up eventually but I did try Light My Fire which was as amazing as expected. A mixed drink with Angry Orchard and Fireball? Like that could be not awesome. Also the Arnold Palmer Remix with Sam Adams Cold Snap, lemonade, and Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka. ‘Cuz vodka. I did not try a single Beerlini Puree which is a sad, sad thing but I was a too little distracted to remember everything.

The bands were a lot of fun. And guess what? My partner in crime did not destroy his phone so I actually have a couple of pictures. You have to love The University of Tampa in the background. As a matter of fact I was so loving it we walked across the river to check out the buildings.  If you get a chance, walk through them, they are pretty amazing. I’d show you, but you know, the phone incident.

That’s another great thing about the Beer Fling.  We got bracelets at the door (paper, not like, jewels or anything) and we could leave and come back as we wanted.  Since the Fling was from noon to 10pm that made it pretty cool. There are a LOT of things to walk around and look at around Curtis Hixon Park.

If you missed it you can’t go to the Spring Beer Fling again until next spring, of course.  However, Big City Events, who put this on, has several other events every year, and they seem to add new ones all the time. So check out all of their coming events, and maybe I’ll run into you at one of them. Not that either of us would know that, but still.

I received two VIP tickets to Spring Beer Fling 2015 in exchange for writing a review and a giveaway. As always, my opinions are all mine.

So. You may or may have noticed if you’ve read much here that I kind of have a thing for color runs.  Why? Well, for one thing these are my running partners:

They love color runs so much that this year their birthday party was Color Me 4 – complete with a color run around the park.

So what’s the biggest, best-est (yes, that’s a word. Stop mocking me!) color run coming? How about Color Me Rad? Of course it is.  This year they’re going to have DOUBLE the color- powder AND color gel. How cool is that?  Very, that’s how cool.

Check this out:

OK, yes that would have been better set to Slipknot but I had nothing to do with the music choice.  I think the point is it looks like a whole lotta fun.  So you should probably sign up to win a pair of tickets to the Tampa run! The winner will be emailed next Wednesday morning.

Enter here: Rafflecopter Color Me Rad giveaway

Here’s the link if you want all the details, but here’s the basics:

Saturday, April 18th, 2015 from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
Florida State Fairgrounds
4800 U.S. 301
Tampa, FL 33610

Your entry includes a t-shirt, a pair of knee-highs, a color pack, the run of course and free photos.  I love free photos!

Just in case you don’t win, want to get your tickets NOW, or just want more than 2, here’s a code for 40% off the Tampa run. How are you gonna beat that?

Disclosure: I received race entries through the Tampa Bay Bloggers’s partnership with Color Me Rad in exchange for this giveaway and for writing a review.

I am super excited, next weekend is the Spring Beer Fling in Tampa.  I went last year and had a really good time.

This year they’ll have (once again) a bunch of bands that sound like they’ll be a lot of fun.  The headliner is the Black Lips. Check them out:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZscgSDYDHM]

Sounds like summer and a good time to me!

Jensen Surf Company is going to be there too. This clip outta get you in the proper mood for the Spring Beer Fling:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2UjhD6gCw0] The Spring Beer Fling Will feature 12 signature beer cocktails, fresh made shandys, and beer-linis.

I didn’t actually know what some of those are, turns out a shandy is your choice of beer mixed with lemonade.  Sounds like the definition of a refreshing spring drink! The beerlinis are beer mixed with fruit puree. So, basically I’m pretty sure it counts as a health drink, seeing how the word fruit is in it. Yay! They even include Angry Orchard Cider as a beer for those of us like myself that are less beer inclined. Not that I won’t be sampling some of them!

They’ll have lots of mixed beer drinks too. The ones I really want to try are Light My Fire which is a combination of Angry Orchard Cider, Fireball Whiskey and peach puree, the Arnold Palmer Remix which is Sam Adams Cold Snap, Lemonade and Deep Eddy Sweet Tea vodka and The Screw Brew which is Wheat Beer, Deep Eddy Grapefruit Vodka, orange juice. I just want to try that last one because I like the name. 🙂

The festival will be at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park in downtown Tampa on Saturday, March 21st, 2015 from noon to 10pm. Enter at the main entrance of the festival will be on Ashley Dr, closest to the Sykes Beer Can Building.

Ticket prices:

General Admission: Advance $14 | Door $25 (if available)
VIP Fling Experience: Advance $75 | Door $125 (if available)
For more information, visit www.SpringBeerFling.com

I was given the opportunity to give away not just one but 5 pairs of general admission tickets, just leave a blog comment or follow my on Twitter and let me know that you did through this Rafflecopter giveaway. The contest ends Thursday night and I’ll notify the winners Friday morning.

I received two VIP tickets to Spring Beer Fling 2015 in exchange for writing a review and this giveaway. As always, my opinions are all mine.

Last weekend I finally ran a Spartan sprint at Raymond James Stadium.  Just about time. right?  I had a blast, as expected.  I couldn’t do all of the obstacles, as expected.  But I did hella better running up and down stairs than I thought I would.  Plus I didn’t fall once which is always a major win for me. Of course I did run into a stadium chair twice, leaving my hand looking kind of like I punched someone and a bruise on my leg the size of a saucer.  Not bad for me, I’ll take it.

This wasn’t a mud run at all, though we did go through some mud a couple of times.  So I guess not at all is a bit strong and untrue. Whatever.

It was a stadium run, which I didn’t really think about when I signed up (good thing) but which meant about a thousand miles of running up and down stairs.  Up got a wee bit painful after a while, down I was just terrified I’d trip and fall. Not that I would.

The funniest thing about the race (you know there are funny things about everything) is that just to get to the start line you had to get over a pretty high wall. Of course I needed a boost, but up and over is what matters, not how you get there.

The most FUN thing was they had jump ropes out of that really thick rope that cross fitters use and you had to jump with this huge rubber band around your ankles. And jumping over the fire at the end, but that’s a given.

So why does size matter? Because from the top of the ladder thing I could not reach the (curse word) monkey bars.  Yes, I tried on my tip toes. Anything I had to get over or reach up to was harder than it had to be for me.  However, crawling under the barb wire? Cake. I would not have wanted to be any bigger for that one, or for running between the stadium chairs! I guess it all evens out in the end. At least this run didn’t have the mud / water that some people walked through while I had to swim.  🙂

Here’s the course as they mapped it, but I am pretty certain there was a whole lot more weaving up and down the stairs than this map shows.

So what did I actually think of the race? I would do it again, for sure.  I’d even like to try the longer distance next time. But I will say this run is (fun but) less about having fun than most of the runs I’ve done in the past and more about proving something to yourself. There was nothing fun AT ALL about lugging a huge @$$ jug of water that seriously maybe weighed almost as much as me. I had to stop and set it down a few times. Didn’t really know how much I hated stairs till going up them with that thing.  But I did it and I did it without help.  There is something to be said for completing a task that you are seriously certain you can not do when you start it.

Maybe that’s why they say you’ll know at the finish line.

Guess what time it is if you’re in the Tampa area?  5K Zombie Run time! (every time I use the word time without numbers Hammer Time comes unbidden into my mind, which is both sad and awesome.)

I did this run last year and the year before, and both times the only thing I had to complain about was that I immediately wanted to do it again. Badly. February 28th the zombies will be coming back to the Tampa area, and you know I will be there!

This time is a little different, because this time I was given an entry to run and an entry to give away for the run.  Lucky me, lucky you! If you’re in the Tampa area anyways.

Enter to win a race giveaway here: Rafflecopter giveaway

Have you ever run a zombie run? Long story short, you can run as a human OR as a zombie, either way you know it’ll be fun.  Even if you DON’T live. Which I haven’t yet.

If you are a runner you get 3 flags (like in flag football) on a belt and the goal is to get to the end of the 5K with at least one flag left.  Lost all your flags? You can pick up extras in the safe zones. Even if you lose those too you go home with a t-shirt and an awesome medal so really it’s a win/win situation!

They’re also having a costume contest, spectators are free, and there will be free photos after the race as well. Yay! They even have free gear check, which I think ALL runs should have, but they don’t always. Oh, and don’t forget the “post-race Apocalypse party complete with music, food, great vendors and a fun atmosphere.”

Check out their web page for more info, and don’t forget to like their Facebook page for updates.

If you aren’t feeling particularly lucky or you need more than one ticket sign up on Active.com and be sure to use code 5ZEN for $5 off your run!

The Color Run’s kaleidoscope tour is wrapping up.  The year 2015 will bring a whole new thing.  What thing? I don’t know but I bet it will be great.

The point is, you can still get in on the 2014 Kaleidoscope Tour in Clearwater, they will be here December 7th! Truth be told, I already ran in The Color Run Kaleidoscope Tour back in January.  But I had so much fun I’m doing it again.  In January I ran with my kids, this year I’m going to do a little more running and a little less fooling around (that last part was a was a lie) and run it with my sister. This is the same sister I talked in to doing a spontaneous mud run with me, I’m thinking we’ll have a blast.

The Color Run is still the only run I’ve ever done that was on actual roads.  It was pretty neat just because it was different.  Yes, I know most races are probably done on streets but not the ones I do.  🙂

So the question of the day is should you run The Color Run too? Well obviously I think so because I only write about things I like.  But do YOU think so?

From the Color Run’s site:

“Less about your 10-minute-mile and more about having the time of your life, The Color Run is a five-kilometer, un-timed race in which thousands of participants, or “Color Runners”, are doused from head to toe in different colors at each kilometer. With only two rules, the idea is easy to follow:

1. Wear white at the starting line
2. Finish plastered in color!”

To be serious I’d kill for a 10 minute mile, but whatever.  Even if you have never run before in your life you can wear white and get plastered in color by the end of this run, trust me.  I’ve seen people walk the entire race with a double stroller and I’ve seen people actually race this thing but what I haven’t seen is someone not having a good time at The Color Run.  Oh ya, and I also saw a unicorn guy.  No, I’m not explaining that one.

So, if you are in Tampa come on out and run with me, if you are not in Tampa check out their site to see if The Color Run 2014 Kaleidoscope Tour will be coming your way.  Here is where you can see if they are coming to you and sign up if you’d like.

Don’t tell me this doesn’t look fun!  Come out and play…

Also, check out this DIY t-shirt weaving tutorial they have on their blog. I didn’t even know The Color Run had a blog, there is some pretty cool stuff over there.

Disclosure: I have received two free race entries in exchange for posting about The Color Run. As is the usual all opinions are my own.

Oh, I almost forgot. You can use promo code COLOR5OFF to get $5 off a registration to ANY city. Important: code must be entered at time of registration, cannot be retro-applied. Also please type the code in, do not copy/paste. Not valid with other discounts or promotions.