Note to Self: Turning a Heel and Attending a Feis Simultaneously Doesn't Work

Because I loose my place in both the heel and the feis.

We stayed at the Hyatt in downtown Kansas City. On the one hand, they goofed up our reservation regarding the roll-away bed and how many people would be staying in the room (hotels always goof up the roll-away, so we had brought our own aerobed). On the other hand, they had ESCALATORS! Right there near the check-in desk! So, like, when Mom is checking in, you can run over and ride up and down them several times!

The feis was at the Westin, which is connected to the Hyatt via a walkway. On Friday night we checked into the feis, rode the Westin escalators a few times, and visited the Irish Festival. We watched The Fuchsia Band, who we enjoyed (we spent most of the weekend singing their song Ceili Band ... except the only words we could remember were "we're a Ceili Band", so it was a bit monotonous). Overall, though, the event served to remind us that we really don't like street fairs that much. Oh well. The Hyatt gave out complimentary tickets to the Festival, so it wasn't as though we had spent out money on it. And the Festival did have a knitting contest -- the kids thought I should enter it. I didn't feel like messing with it, though. Maybe another year.

The feis itself was on Saturday, and was fun. I liked the layout -- it was easy to find everything (except the restrooms). The feis didn't charge for spectators, which was nice since many of us had invited Kansas City relatives to come see our kids compete. We were on stage E and stage F, along with all the other First Feis, Beginner 1, Beginner 2 and Novice. The room for stage E was a bit small, considering the number of spectators. I felt like I barely had room to knit



I was working on transforming August's UFO Resurrection sock into something I might actually finish knitting and perhaps even wear. I'm making up the pattern as I go along. So far this hasn't been the easiest project to carry along -- I seem to have lost one of the needles down the side of Mrs. Piano Teacher's chair last week, and making up a heel whilst simultaneously keeping track of where we are in the feis schedule really did. not. work. Of course, it didn't help that the Slip Jig competition went on forever, partially because one of the dancers threw up at the check-in station (I never did hear whether it was just nerves or what, let alone the answer to the primal question of did it get on her dress?).

Stage F was in a larger room, and blessedly cool. It was also right next to the hotel concessions. Grandma and Grandpa spent most of their time there.

Other thoughts on the feis: My older daughter was mortified that they were to sit in chairs in the waiting area, as she felt it crushed her dress. I liked that they clearly announced when the lunch break would be. I liked how caring the adjudicators were, pausing to publicly congratulate all the First Feis contestants for getting up and dancing (apparently one little boy on stage F was so distraught before dancing that the adjudicator went over to him and spent a few moments soothing him), and generally make sure the Beginners had a chance to have fun and do their best. They still managed to briskly wrap up the competitions we were involved in (in spite of the vomiting incident) by lunch time.

We collected our awards (some of which the sock is wearing in the above picture -- no, the sock didn't win a 2nd and 3rd, but that's part of our collection). I was impressed that the kids placed so well, considering that they had been up late riding escalators rather than practicing and/or getting a good night's sleep.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying downtown Kansas City with some relatives, then swimming in the hotel pool, riding escalators, and watching the Irish Fest fireworks.

Sunday we checked out of the hotel, went to church with relatives, then over to my sister-in-law's house. We headed home later in the afternoon; I spent the ride undoing most of the knitting I'd done at the feis, then re-knitting it.

We were exhausted Monday morning, but had tickets for the Cardinal's game. Well, MrV and I had tickets. The kids went to a relative's house (which has a pool) here in St. Louis. I gotta tell you, these were Amazingly Good Seats, and if I had a camera phone I would've been calling Weaver to show her, since I know she would've been impressed. Mostly, though, I wanted to take a nap, and the game went downhill fast. Gees. You'd think the Cardinals had been up all night riding escalators or something.

So we have now Travelled to a Feis. And we had fun doing it. This puts us in the realm of hardcore Irish Dance families. Or maybe it's just that we like to ride escalators.