Golly, what a day!

First off - here's the gang, complete with Piper! Yes, all of these crazy dogs live at our house. But as the saying goes, "Dogs are like potato chips - you can't have just one." (Although personally, I think I could). :)

Last weekend we had our 6th annual Irish Dance Idaho recital "Celtic Holiday" in Nampa. (Check out the sweet poster created by a couple of the awesome dance moms!)

 St.Patrick's Day is our busiest time of year, but the recital is a HUGE deal for the school. We work up to it for months and it always turns out so fun. We had an afternoon matinee, and then "the big show" at 7:00 so we got to dance on the amazing Nampa Civic Center stage twice - woo hoo!!
  While I was backstage waiting for one of my dances to come up, I noticed this sign taped to the wall. The backstage moms cross out the dances as we go so we know they've been done (mostly for the tiny dancers' sake), but I had to laugh when I saw the one about halfway down. The dance is called "Fairy Reel", but when they wrote it, I guess they heard "Fairy Wheel". I loved how it was crossed out, corrected, and then had a smiley face drawn next to it.
  It kind of me think of performing. Sometimes it feels a little like that - you get most of the dance/step right, but occasionally there's a small mis-translation. But rather than let it get you down, just add a big smile and keep on going! I don't think I've ever had a flawless performance, but it's those moments when you finish and it feels good that make you want to keep on going.

   Here's a little backstage view. There's something so exciting about looking at the stage from behind the curtains - right before you get to go on and you know that anything is possible!

  David came and hung out with us for the day. Even though he's not still dancing, he comes along and keeps us entertained. This is a classic picture of David and Spencer. Whenever they get together you know something funny is coming. This year we decided at the very last minute to use flashlights for part of our

A Cappella piece. So in between the matinee and main show, David and Spencer took a little excursion to Fred Meyer and bought TONS of mini-flashlights and batteries (and a tie for Spencer -who forgot his for the performance). When they came back the the Civic Center they started putting batteries in the flashlights and doing all kinds of crazy things. It's a little crazy how much these two "little" brothers are alike about some things, but they're definitely good for a laugh.

  The shows were a blast and despite all the stress and nerves that come with the territory, it was another great year and seemed to be over so quickly. We hit up TCBY with Ingrams (and co.) afterwords and re-lived all the crazy/funny things that had happened throughout the day. The guy working at TCBY was nice enough to come take a picture for us before we left. There will probably be several group pictures for the next little while, because as I've mentioned about other things we do together - this was Spencer's last recital to dance in, and David's last recital to hang out with us at, for the next two years!! So we're just living it up hard core until then!