St. Patrick's Day

We made it!! Another awesome St.Patty's Day to look back on and enjoy. One of the things that was great about this year was that we stayed together for the majority of the performances. Last year we split into several groups to sort of "divide and conquer" but by the end of the day we realized it was kind of sad that we hadn't all been together for everything. But this time we only split up a couple times and were able to join up again soon and be with everyone.

One of our teachers was sick and couldn't make it to any of the performances and it was so weird not to have her there!! Luckily her two siblings (also being the other teachers) were able to handle things really well and it all worked out, even though we missed Becca not being there.

Another thing about the schedule that made this a pretty easy going year was that most of the performances were spread out over the first couple weeks of March, and because of that, IDI still had about 22 performances but only about six or seven at the most on one day. The 16th and 17th were the fullest days and some of the most fun! It's awesome to get to a performance and then go flying from that one to the next one - all day! Seriously, it's a marathon but it's a blast!!

We went to schools and nursing homes all over the area, along with a few other places like the Linen Building, where we performed with a live band, "The Giant Leprechauns", as well as The VFW, Ha Penny, and the Knitting Factory (way different crowd there than there was for David Archuleta :).

Everyone gathering around Heidi to find out what our performance line-up will be.

  On Friday night we performed for a school called, "Arts West" and as we left we saw this cool little barn. It had been raining on and off that day and seeing the barn out there in the fog and rain made things feel a little like what I'd imagine Ireland might be like. Love it!!

  So performing with a live band is a bit of a love/hate thing for me (but hate is too strong a word). It's awesome to have the musicians play something and you can just pop out and dance whatever step you feel like doing. But at the same time - I'm a huge chicken when it comes to "freestyling" or solos and things like that, so it tends to scare me as much as anything. On the other hand (or foot...), Heidi and Spencer get out there and make steps up as they go and it's totally awesome!!!! So I love watching to see what they'll come up with. My favorite way to go about dancing with a live band is to find a dancer who also prefers not to solo and then we both go out and dance a step together - safety in numbers, I tell you!!

I had to laugh because at the Linen Building while we waited for the band, I was sitting on some stairs and this extremely hyper little girl from our group (probably 5 or 6 years old) came over to me and said, "Do you have a quarter?" I told her I didn't and then wondered what she planned on doing with one since I didn't see any kind of vending machines anywhere, so when I asked her, "Why do you need a quarter?" She looked at me like, "Duh!" and answered, "To keep!" Ha! Can't beat that.

On Saturday night we went to perform for one of our favorite crowds, the VFW! These guys are easy to please and so happy and loud and it's awesome! One of the highlights from that place was when a small group of us went back to the bar area (and that's not why it was a highlight :) while another group did the same dance over in the main area.

  As we were dancing it was apparent that these people had probably had a few drinks by how excited they were at every little thing. But the best part was when one of them yelled out, "Opa!" You know, Greek - Irish, it's pretty much the same, right?

Some of the dancers like to get all decked out for the holiday, too.

  All in all we had a great time with all our performing, and all the in between time where we just got to hang out. Mom even put aside some of her fear of performing and danced a few times (and had fun) so that was cool!
  Check out some video that one of the dancers' family got from one of the performances -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2AdvFm2NLs&list=UUVBrpqHMJudBAgYo2eSicnQ&index=2&feature=plcp

This is a new soft shoe dance we have called, "Duncan's Fury". It's a little hard to follow in the video, plus we were missing several people that are usually in the dance. Anyway, see if you can spot Mom and I. :)
  Lucky for us, Irish dancing isn't just for St.Patrick's Day so the fun just keeps going!