Tampa Mom

Celebrate Oktoberfest all month long in Tampa! Each weekend, checkout a different festival, and if you are longing for a mid-week bit of Bavaria, have lunch at the Schnitzelhaus! All of these events have family-friendly components to them, so bring the kids! The highlight of the month will be the big Oktoberfest in Oldsmar at Tampa Bay Downs during the last weekend. Attendance was 20,000+ last year.

If you have other events to add, please leave a comment and link at the end of this post! Enjoy!

• Schnitzelhaus German Restaurant
  • Oktoberfest will be from Sept 19th to Nov 1st
  • Live Music with Inga
    Fri and Sat 5pm – 9pm and Sun 4pm – 8pm
  • Fri and Sat Special, Four Course Dinner
    $21.95 – $25.50, reservations required
  • Open Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-9pm and Sunday, noon-8pm
  • Closed Monday and Tuesday
• Dunedin Brewery OktoBEERfest 2008
  • October 2nd-4th, starts at 4pm daily
• The St. Petersburg Clay Company OktoberBest & Brew HaHa II
  • October 11, noon-7pm
  • The event will include food, beverages, music, kids activities, and best of all work from our talented artists!
• World of Beer (Westchase) WOBtoberfest 2008, 2nd Annual Beer and Music
  • October 17th, 3pm till, October 18th, noon till
  • Live music featuring Chris Nathan
  • German and American Food
  • Authentic Oktoberfest Liter Mugs
  • Family Friendly
  • $5 admission (free for 12 and under)
  • All ages welcome, 21+ to drink
• Oktoberfest on the Beach – 7th Annual Celebration Activity Schedule
  • October 18, 11am-7pm, Kinderfest 11am-3pm
  • Held at Kolb Park, Indian Rocks Beach
  • Live music, German Band “Lorelei” performs at 1pm until 7pm
  • Adult activities include: Food Court, Beer Wagon, Vendors, Art Exhibit, Antique Show, Boat Show, Silent Auction
  • Championship Competitions include: Stein-carrying, Wife-carrying, Keg-throwing, and Polka-dancing!
  • “Kinderfest” (11am-3pm) activities include: Dodgeball, Children’s Dunk Tank, Shuttle Race, Capture the Flag, Spider Web, Red Light—Green Light, Hula Hoop Contest, Water Balloon Contest, Jelly Bean Relay, Inflatable Experiences, Tattoo Booth, Balloon Artist & Magician, Kiddie Olympics, Children’s Arts & Crafts Booth
• Top O’ the Bay Oktoberfest, Tampa Bay Downs in Oldsmar
  • October 24, 25, 26 – Friday 5pm to 11pm / Saturday 11am to 11pm / Sunday 12pm to 7 pm
  • Schedule of events (pdf)
  • Traditionally held the last weekend of October, Oktoberfest brings the best of Old Bavaria and New Florida together for three full days of authentic German food, drink, music and dancing… along with a spectacular carnival & Midway, a great arts & crafts show, and the wildest array of audience participation contests that the Tampa Bay area has ever seen!
  • New this year… VolksMarch (5 & 10K Family Fun Walks) and Kinder Zone!
  • Oldsmar’s version of the 198 year-old German tradition is both the largest and longest-running  Oktoberfest in West Central Florida, attracting between 20,000 and 25,000 attendees.

If you are looking for a really excellent musical experience for your child, I recommend checking out Gulf Coast Youth Choirs. GCYC offers a number of graded choirs led by professional choral directors. The founder of the organization, Dr. Lynn Gackle, has wealth of experience and is internationally-recognized as a leader in the choral world. She has assembled a staff of highly qualified professionals who carry her vision through to each choir under their direction.

Singing in a choir is like no other musical experience. It’s like a team sport with aesthetics. You are all working together towards a common goal – communicating to an audience – and the combination of musical language and the poetry of the lyrics speaks like no other. Directors set high expectations and the choristers continually excel. GCYC is a great place to be.

Our Experience – We are in our second year with GCYC, and have great hopes for it being even better than the first. I am thoroughly impressed with the quality of the organization in many areas. As a professional musician myself, I was concerned with the rigor and depth of the program and am sufficiently pleased. The literature selection, coaching, management, care of young voices, attention to detail is all there. Our child enjoys singing and is encouraged week after week to improve and get deeper into the music. Her choir performed at Disney’s Magic Music Days last Spring and they are planning another tour for Spring 2009. As a chaperone for that trip, I was impressed with not only the organization, but the quality kids in this program. They are top notch. It was an absolute pleasure to accompany them on a trip.

If you are not sure if this is something your child would be interested in, I suggest taking them to a concert this year and consider it for next year. You can get more information on their website at http://gulfcoastchoir.com/

In the second installment of this season’s The Met’s Live in HD broadcasts to movie theaters worldwide, the entire company rose to the holiday occasion with a feast for the eyes as well as the ears! The artistic direction behind this new production of Hansel and Gretel was nothing short of miraculous. The re-interpretation of classic images such as the witch’s gingerbread house compels the viewer to look upon childhood fantasies with a new appreciation of the darkest qualities juxtaposed with the lightness and levity of childish reality. Here is a synopsis of the story.

I took my 8-year old daughter with me this time since it’s one of the few operas appropriate for kids. She enjoyed it tremendously. This was the ideal place for her to try out opera, as well, since there were snacks and a little more informality than at a live theater environment. I chatted with a gentleman in line who had driven 90 miles with his two granddaughters to see it. His theater and the next closest one were both sold out! I really am not kidding when I say “Buy your tickets early!”

Overall, this was another tremendous experience and I am looking forward to the next one on Saturday, January 12, 2008, at 1:30pm Eastern. It will be a new production of Verdi’s MacBeth! I’m ready!

Today, I enjoyed a Mommy’s Day Out (by myself!) and saw the Metropolitan Opera’s Live HD Broadcast of Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. I am a huge opera fan and am absolutely thrilled that the Met has this series so people around the world can enjoy 8 of their operas this year. I host a group on Facebook for this series and posted the following commentary there. Enjoy!

“I thought I’d share a few observations about today’s opera experience.
The actual opera was fantastic! Staging and costumes were superb,
camera work was very well done, and well planned for the opera, and the
singing was amazing. The sound was mostly very good, but there were a
couple of spots where it could’ve been better. It is my opinion that
this is due to the incredible live acoustics in the hall, the
particular planes of sound reflection, and ultimately microphone
placement. Due to the dynamic nature of opera and the integration of
movement with singing (dueling, lovemaking, dancing, etc.), the singers
are not always face forward in a static position. The orchestra sounded
consistently brilliant, but the singers sometimes were unbalanced, and
I found this to be most noticeable during some duet moments. Even then,
it did not bother me at all. It gave me an opportunity to think about
how difficult it must be to get great sound on a live broadcast! The
audio engineers are most impressive!

There are a couple of bonus
features I should talk about that I really enjoyed. As soon as the
curtains close, there are live cameras following people around
backstage, eavesdropping, catching glimpses of the complexity of the
backstage “goings on.” You could see the set changes (and this was a
totally cool set!), singers warming up, slugging down bottled water,
stretching, rehearsing fight scene choreography… I could go on and
on! And Renee Fleming interviewed the leads and Placido Domingo during
intermission! Fantastique!

The movie theater atmosphere was a
little odd. I was thrilled that I could eat popcorn at the opera,
however, during the Prologue, which is quite serious, I felt odd with
my popcorn and put it off until Act I and the Masked Ball. There were
other moments that it just seemed so inappropriate for me to be eating
popcorn! I was a little saddened that I was one of the youngest people
there, and I’m 40!!! I know so many people who would’ve really enjoyed
this experience and I want to encourage everyone to go to the next one,
Hansel and Gretel, on Jan. 1, 1pm. This opera is suitable for “children
8 and up, and some 7 year olds who aren’t afraid of the dark!”

One more note… buy your tickets early!!! Do not wait until the day of the show.”

The only theater in the Tampa Bay area to show this is the Regal 20 Cinema at Citrus Park Westfield mall. It is located on Gunn Hwy, just off the Veteran’s Expressway in NW Tampa. Tickets are $22 for adults on Fandango, with a $2 convenience fee. We could argue all day about whether or not it’s reasonable, but with Christmas shoppers taking a break at the movies today, I thought it was a bargain! Also, this event was sold out on line 2 days before, and they opened up an overflow theater. Do NOT wait to get your tickets.

This was a first-rate event. You will want to bring interested and well-behaved children, ages 8 and up, to see Hansel and Gretel on New Year’s Day! It’s going to be a great start to a wonderful year!