happy homeschool room: Back from Ohio

5/29/12
Well we have returned from our big bus trip with Gidget's dance school. We left Friday morning and returned home last night. What a great time we had. Now the dance school did this trip last year for the first time, due to the huge success of the first trip they did it again this year.
What made driving 8 hours on a bus worth taking this trip is the back to back Feis's in Ohio. Saturday we did a Feis in Akron and Sunday in Cleveland. Back to back Feis's don't happen often, and though tiring it is awesome for the dancers.
The Feis's were way bigger than any we have ever attended before. 2000 dancers in them. The biggest we ever attended had 940 dancers. It was soooo intimidating to Gidget, but she ended up FINALLY getting a 1st place not just one 1st place but 2 of them. I can't even begin to tell how excited she was. She has been working so hard, and it was an awesome feeling as a mom to see her hard work pay off.
Now Saturday, which started at getting up at 6:15 am, she had the first of the 2 Feis's in Akron. This was the bigger of the two Feis's, she placed in 3 dances, but not as well as she hoped for. What a long day though. The Feis was on this fairground in an arena used for Rodeo's and animal competitions. (it also sorta smelled like there was recently animals in there.) It was almost 90 degree's that day, and in a big ole' wig and a velvet dress and tights, Gidget was more miserable than I was if ya can believe that. She also had the very last dance of a very long day. At the end of it all on Saturday she walked away with a 3rd, 4th and 5th place. We went back to our hotel, she went to the pool with one of her friends, I ordered pizza, we then ate and crashed by 10pm.
Sunday, up at 5:45 we headed to Cleveland or day 2 of a very long day. I have to say that there were much better conditions for this Feis. It was at the Wolstein Center, which was air conditioned. So both Gidget's mood and mine were so much better. We met some really nice people at this Feis as well. I'm sure that there were lots of nice people at Akron, we just didn't meet them. Now once Gidget was finished with all of her dances, she got changed and we went and checked out the vendors until scores went up. Once her scores finally started going up she was getting so dicouraged because she wasn't placing. This was rather frustrating because she danced amazing and had been working so hard to get ready for this weekend, and she has placed in all her dances at every competition for the last year. Then like a miracle, the last scores, 2 - 1st places. These were especially meaningful because not only did it move her up a level, they qualified her to be able to compete at Regional's. This year Regional's is taking place in New Orleans. (I'm fraking out about it though because I have no idea how we are going to be able to afford it, but I believe God will provide) After the intial excitement of the 1st places and hunting her teachers down to tell them, we watched the Champion dancers and their award ceremonies. Then we were back on the bus to go to dinner, It is now 6:30 pm.
We went to this Irish Pub called PJ McGintry's. What an awesome time we had. They had eaten here on the trip last year, and the owner had invited our school back for this year. The owner and his wife are coming to Charlotte in October when our school has it's Feis. We had a buffet set up for us, we ate and then we had a talent show, and there was no Irish dancing allowed. So it was a rip roaring time. We laughed until we cried. After a few hours of fun we headed back to the Hotel. We got back and packed to leave at 8:30 am promptly, it was 11:30 when we got back, it was 12:30 by the time we went to bed.
Our bus arrived back in town at 5:30 or so pm. We had so much fun, it was a really long tiring weekend, but it was worth it and we can't wait until next year.