may shenanigans: current starbucks promo + upcoming california strawberry festival!

Go to your local green mermaid and get your frap on! Happening now and lasting through Sunday, May 12, Starbucks is offering half off all frappuccino's every day from 3-5 p.m. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing, placing a large-size venti around $2.50 at the most. Yesterday when I was riproaring thirsty, I picked one up and guzzled it down in 15 minutes in the car. :X

Some flavors you won't see written on the menu but are definitely there. My favorite is the green tea frappuccino, I try to get it lightened with either nonfat or soy milk and I ask for the sugar-free vanilla syrup. I also had their Chai frappuccino recently, which is nice if you want something sweet with a little spice, though to be honest I prefer the one at Coffee Bean. Seems more genuinely flavorful. I've heard a lot of good things about the Vanilla Bean flavor but have yet to try it. Maybe that's what I'll grab today...

 Also, the California Strawberry Festival is taking soon from May 18-19! I went to this back in my senior of high school, and it was a lot of fun.

Okay. I'll be real. I love strawberries, and this was a love even more ardent back in those younger years. So maybe you will not be as into a single fruit-venerating event.

But at the end of the festival day we bought two huge (I'm talking like double Costco-size) flats of these delectable, perfectly ripe, ruby red strawberries for soooooooo cheap. I think they are just giving discounts in full by the end as they try to sell the rest of their produce. That seems to happen at any event, so I don't think it should have changed too much within the past several years.

Every year they have the Berry Blast-Off, their strawberry recipe competition. The nice thing about that is any entrant gets a free complimentary ticket to the festival! Unfortunately the deadline was April 30, so by now you'll probably have to buy a ticket, but it's good to keep in mind for next year.

Here's their Facebook page. They've developed their event every year since I went back in 200something, so there's probably a lot more to do than the goofy pictures we took on bales of hay back in the day. Consider it for a weekend outing!

I wanted to share these events earlier, as the frappuccino deal has been on since May 3, but life has just been crazy. I'll actually be traveling in Europe for a month start next week. This trip totally snuck on me and I'm paying planning-purgatory for it now. Excuse me while I enter back into the whirlpool of continental research.

Have fun, get your frap on and enjoy strawberry season!