Friday, February 15, 2008

Circus Sarasota 2008

Earlier in the week we drove south to Sarasota and Venice, Florida. We had two reasons. One was to see our friends Sue & Rudi and the other was to see Circus Sarasota.

It was a long drive with terrible weather but it was wonderful to see our friends and the circus.

Circus Sarasota was founded eleven years ago by Dolly Jacobs, shown here on the cover of this year's program book, and her husband Pedro Reis. It is a not-for-profit organization. Each season they bring outstanding circus artists from all over the world to perform in Circus Sarasota. This year the show will go on tour for engagements in southern Florida as well. During the rest of the year they present eductional and entertainment projects for school children and people in retirement homes around central Florida.

You can see what the weather looked like on the lot earlier that day. By show time the weather improved, the tornado warning was canceled and the show went on -- with a big, enthusiastic audience of all ages.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Ashley Brown In Concert

Everyone in the Pensacola area was thrilled two years ago when 22 year old Ashley Brown from Pensacola suburb, Gulf Breeze, debuted on Broadway as Belle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. A year later she was still on Broadway, but now creating the title role in Mary Poppins, for Disney. Last night she came home to sing, backed by the Pensacola Symphony. It was a smash hit. She was wonderful.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Pensacola's Weather Alert

Pensacola Weather Map
This is what our weather map looked like on Wednesday morning. The line of storms is moving from west to east. The white dot above the word "Pensacola" is where we live. The night before there were predictions of heavy weather overnight (didn't happen) and worse weather in the morning.

The weather system pictured above hit us about 30 minutes after I saved the image. We heard two distant claps of thunder and we got half an inch of rain. That's all. We were lucky to miss the deadly tornadoes and violent thunderstorms they had north of us. But it sure looked dire there for a few minutes.