My daughter competes in her first Irish Feis today. She’s a ballet dancer, but with her eyes to the broader dance world, and recently she got a chance to take an Irish summer camp at EBT and was hooked. After 3 weeks of training, the group she was dancing with invited her to a feis this weekend and she’s been all a blurr - legs kicking, arms stationary - ever since.

The Irish dance world is another beast entirely, and we’ve already had two dance teachers fight over her and our introduction to the crazy world of dance competition is probably going to be more than we can bear. Sometimes parents are just crazy with their kids. I mean, honestly, live your life first and let your kids live theirs - people having proxy childhoods are sure annoying.

So she walks into this contest today like a lamb, hopefully things will go well and she’ll get to compete and dance on her own merits - and for the love of dance.

Last night she put in the curlers - apparently curly hair is a must for Feis competitions - and I’ve heard rumor of completely ridiculous wigs as well. I mean, honestly, does that look natural?

Regardless, my girl has very straight hair, so her chance to keep those curls is low. But they sure are cute for the first 20 minutes. Here she is last night before bed - curlers in and ready.

Update: She took first in the Reel for new competitors, fourth for the Jig and third in the overall category. Not bad for a girl with 3 weeks of training - ballet training really pays off.

Here is what the curls looked like this AM...

Ride Report: Mountain. 10 miles at Tokul Creek. One of our favorite trails there dead-ended half way thru into a new logging road - that really sucks. Ugh. Rode with Brett and had a ball.

Tags:Personal Work