What Fun This Was......

Not only fun, but inspiring and very entertaining too. My mom, my daughter Paige, my son Gabriel, and I drove to Columbus, Ohio last weekend to The Arnold Sports Festival. I had seen this festival advertised in fitness magazines and online and thought it sounded like a fun event to go to for a weekend getaway.

On Thursday evening we arrived at Easton Town Center which is not far from downtown where the convention was. Easton is a really neat and different kind of place. I loved it! It's like a nice shopping town with almost any store you can think of, a few hotels, and lots of restaurants. Not many homes or neighborhoods around, just shopping. Actually there were some beautiful apartments right across the street. The building was beautiful. How fun to live right across the street from Trader Joe's, Cheesecake Factory, Barnes and Noble, PF Chang's, and a whole bunch of other great places. The Easton Commons Luxury Apartments are the picture on the bottom right ~

 After checking into our hotel we wandered around Easton a bit and had dinner at Abuelo's.

 Mexican is my favorite and it was pretty yummy. I had three enchiladas... one beef, one avocado, and one spinach with cilantro rice and beans. So good!

 Our second night at Easton we ate at PF Chang's. Yum again! On our last night we found this Mediterranean restaurant called Cafe Istanbul. I forgot what the dish was called that I ordered, but it was delicious with bell peppers, onion, beef, lamb, and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil. The coffee was very good too! This restaurant was very pretty inside. I loved that awesome chandelier with all the little glass holders hanging from the black iron base. Beautiful!

On Friday morning we drove downtown to the Convention Center. Boy was it crowded! Had to drive around a bit to find parking. The parking garage we found looked like it was crumbling, but oh well, at least we found a place to park. We just hoped it was still standing when we came back for our car. :-)

Inside the convention center there were soooo many people! This was an awesome people watching place for sure! There were super muscled people, beautiful people, overtanned wrinkly people, skinny people, fat people, large fake boobed people, six pack abs and big biceps, people in all kinds of clothes, some with just sports bras and little shorts, lots of tank tops and yoga pants, tattoos, cool hair, just a little bit of everything. Just sitting on the side of the center hallway watching all the people was very entertaining. Inspiring as well. There were so many fit people that must work very hard to stay in such great shape. It was definitely a great crowd of people attending this event.

The Expo was full of fitness celebrities, bodybuilders, crazy characters, free samples, t-shirts and clothing for sale, neat products for sale, contests to enter, martial arts, boxing, and figure competitions. There were aisles and aisles lined with booths, people, and products. The crowd was exhausting though. At times through the aisles it was crammed with people inching along. Still so much fun and once again very entertaining.

 Body Building.com was one of the booths I knew I want to go to because I knew Jamie Eason was going to be there at some point. We walked up to the booth and there she was greeting fans in the line. The super long, long line that I was not willing to wait hours standing in to meet her much to Paige's disappointment. I thought a couple of pictures would be good enough! She is a beautiful lady and seems so nice. She has a great 12 week program on Body Building.com called Live Fit Trainer for anyone looking for a guided workout program and nutrition tips.

 WE also ran into a few other celebrities. Right when we first walked into the Expo, Tosca Reno was standing at her Eat Clean booth with no line there at all! We went right up and had our picture taken with her. Then a couple of booths down we saw Lou Ferrigno ( The Incredible Hulk), and later in the afternoon we came to Jennifer Nicole Lee's booth where we bought her Believe tank top and her book The Mind, Body, and Soul Diet. Looks like a great book. I have just started reading it. She is another beautiful lady!

 

 The Expo was the main attraction, but there were many great events and competitions going on all weekend in the Convention Center. Paige did an hour of TurboKick in the ballroom while we rested, watched her, and ate some yummy turkey jerkey that we bought in the Expo. Paige was so good doing the Turbo Kick that the instructor pointed her out and asked if she teaches and told her that she should. Go Paige! They also had Zumba classes going through the day.

We watched gymnastics, cheerleading, boxing, martial arts, Crossfit, power lifting Olympic trials, fencing, Figure and Bodybuilding competitions, and ballroom dancing. The ballroom dancing was wonderful to watch and the dresses were gorgeous! I could have watched it all day. Here are some event pictures~

I loved watching the figure competitors. I was rooting for my three favorites, Nicole Wilkins, Erin Stern, and Alicia Harris. Nicole Wilkins won for the 3rd year in a row with Erin Stern coming in 2nd. Alicia Harris came in 16th. I think they are all such beautiful strong women! So glad we got to watch them compete.

 These were just a few of the people we saw in the Expo. I love this girl on the right. She looks like a super hero! I want to look like that!

This was such a fun, fun, fun, weekend for us and we already have hotel reservations to go next year over the weekend of Mar. 1.  Next year will be the 25th Anniversary of the Arnold Sports Festival so it is sure to be an extra special year to go. I can't wait!