win a first, or bust

Who says you can't look
stylish in a boot?

In early May we headed to Milwaukee for a full weekend of Irish dancing competitions (called 'feis' - pronounced 'fesh').  Both girls were supposed to dance.  Curly was registered to dance in her open championship competition, but for the second consecutive spring Curly landed in a boot with a stress ‘reaction’.  Translation:  almost a stress fracture, but not quite.  It was her body’s way of telling her to slow down.  Really?  Asking Curly NOT to dance is like asking a leprechaun not to look for gold.  

Because Irish dancing is so economical, eating Curly's competition fees was no big deal.  Sigh.  

There were two days of competitions in Milwaukee (which is less than an hour and a half from our house):  one Saturday and one Sunday.  The competitions were unrelated to one another.  Organizers often piggy back on one another in order to split the set up/take down energy.  I suspect that they get a break on the venue rental space, but I can’t confirm.  

I always like to sign the girls up for back to back competitions when we don’t have a conflict, because it makes me feel like we are getting more bang for our buck.  With 2 sets of registration fees PLUS the often added hotel cost, I guess the ‘bang/buck’ theory is a pretty bad analogy.  To put it another way:  as long as I pack up all the stuff and put forth the energy, I am all about the two birds one stone concept.  

Honestly the best thing about back to back feises:  being done on Sunday with back to back feises.  

Mini, non-dancing Curly, and I left early on Saturday morning for round one. Curly had been on the fence about whether or not to tag along to Milwaukee.  Should she attend the Milwaukee feis in her boot, or should she stay home with Coach?  She wanted to sleep in and chill out at home instead of coming to the feis on Saturday morning.

To complicate the weekend, we hoped to attend my nephew's 1st communion party after Saturday's dancing.  His fam lives in a northern suburb of Chicago, so I figured I would drive to his house - halfway to our house from Milwaukee -and then head back up to the hotel in order to dance on Sunday.  Sound fun?

Curly didn’t want to arrive late to the first communion party.  I was happy to haul one less body out of bed early Saturday, but I had to point out a few things to Curly.

1.  What if Mini finally won first?  Would Curly be OK if she missed it?

2.  Daddy had to work on Saturday, so there was a chance that Curly’s fastest route to the 1st Communion party might be via Milwaukee.

Curly opted to wake up early and sit and watch dancing.  What's a dancer to do if she can't dance?  Watch dancing, I guess.

Mini danced beautifully on Saturday.  I have learned not to get my hopes up for that illusive first place, so I hoped for the best but tried to keep my expectations low.