Golden State Feis - San Francisco

This past weekend we traveled to San Fran for an Irish dance competition.  This would be Sarah's 1st time competing as a preliminary champion.  I think we both had a lot of nerves going into this.  Although I knew she could hold her own in the competition, you never know how good everyone else is going to be and you want the whole experience to be a positive one.  Thankfully, she did very well and ended up placing 3rd out of 7.  So we were both very happy and it made for a fun weekend with lots of smiles!  She also placed 3rd in her Treble Reel special.  So very exciting to have completed the 1st prelim and now we look to the future and try to go after that 1st win.  In Irish dancing she needs to win 2 times in prelim in order to move up to open champion.  Open champion is the highest level you can go in Irish dancing. 

San Fran is such a wonderful city and it is even more spectacular when the weather is great.  We had a wonderful weekend and had so much fun seeing the sights!  Here are some pics from the weekend.

 

Pier 39 - They love the carousel and shopping for "junk"!  I love the food.  Crab was had for dinner.

 

Our view of Union Square from the hotel room.

The Golden Gate bridge is my favorite.  We drove across it to get some photos and have lunch at Sam's in Tiburon and then we did a boat cruise to view it from the water.

Boudin Sourdough bread

Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae.  My salty caramel hot cocoa was great too!

St. Patrick's Day 2013

Once again the weekend of St. Patrick's Day was a busy one for us.  We had shows in a few places around the South Bay.  Including here in our own backyard, Hermosa Beach.  The annual parade is always a favorite for my girls.  This year Lauren walked with her musical theater group.  Here are some pics from the weekend.  They include making a leprechaun trap and making cupcakes!

Feis Fun: Early 2013

Going into 2013 Sarah's goal was to get out of prizewinner and the "grades" and into the preliminary champion level of Irish dancing.  Secondly, she wants to dance her best at her first Nationals this summer.  Regardless if she recalls, because the competition will be very tough, she wants to dance well and enjoy the experience.  And finally, she wants to recall at Oireachtas again and hopefully place higher than 15th.  We are happy to say and so proud that she has accomplished goal #1 and will be competing as a preliminary champion at her next feis in April.  Here are some highlights from the feisanna so far this year.

Feis in the Desert, Chandler AZ - January

 1st Place N/PW Slip Jig Special U9

Feis Orange County - February

 1st place N/PW Treble Reel Special U9

Feis Rinnce Conejo Valley, Westlake - March

 5th N/PW U10 Slip Jig Special

5th N/PW U13 Treble Reel Special

8th Junior Tramore U13 Reel Special

14th St. Patrick's Day U13 Special

Western Region Oireachtas 2012

              This is my girl!

I am such a proud mom.  (can you tell?) Sarah began her road to Oireachtas last January by starting to travel to competitions basically once a month.  She would take class 2-3x a week, plus drill classes, plus additional private classes.  She did about 15 competitions this year (that is a lot considering we don't have local competitions but about 6 months out of the year).  We traveled to Texas, Phoenix-3x, San Fransisco and San Diego.  Her goal all year was to become Prizewinner level in all her dances and recall at Oireachtas.

Just to give you a little background on what Oireachtas is...it is a regional Irish dance competition and for kids that compete in U10 and up it is a world qualifying event.  So pretty big deal.  Sort of an Olympic trials of Irish dance if you will.  This year Oireachtas was in Bellevue, WA and kids from all over the western region of the US were there to compete.  There were 39 in Sarah's U8 group, which was actually a pretty small group.  So on the one hand you can look at it as though she didn't have much competition, or you can look at it as a tougher competition because only 1/2 the dancers recall and that means only about 18/19 spots are up for grabs.  When the girls start the competition they do a soft shoe dance (reel) and a hard shoe dance (jig) and those scores are totaled and the top 1/2 recall.  So Sarah's goal was just to make the cut.  Being a non-championship dancer (prizewinner level is just below prelim champion) it was a tall order.  Normally girls that recall are all of the championship level when it gets to Oireachtas.  So here is my girl....

Big smiles because she RECALLED!

Even bigger smiles because she got 15th!

I couldn't be more proud.  She worked hard and she danced well and it was a great time all around.  Here are some pics to prove it!

Ready to dance

 Kelly School U8's

 U8 Finalists

 My girls!  So proud of Lauren for being so good and sitting through long days of competition!

 Sarah with Ronan McCormack.  One of her choreographers.

While in the greater Seattle area we decided to make a vacation out of it.  We had never been up there before and we had friends to see and lots of touristy things to do.  Here are some of the highlights.  It was a great Thanksgiving week and we had much to be thankful for!

Seattle Aquarium

Pike Street Market

Original Starbucks!!

Ferry ride - Skyline at night

Space Needle

EMP- Nirvana

Pacific Science Center

Snoqualmie Falls