Ending 2008!

Wow, what an end to 2008! We were on quite the whirlwind ... the Oireachtas, which seems so long ago, followed by less than two weeks to get ready for our family's first big trip home to Ireland in six years.
I hated not to be able to do a post-O wrap up for 2008, but with only 14 days to do a month's worth of work when we returned from Columbus, plus pack and do all the much-procrastinated-about Christmas shopping, I was seriously behind schedule!
So here's a quick note on the Oireachtas that will never be forgotten ...

McClanahan took more dancers to the MWO in 2008 than ever before. It was a great year. We had 25 qualify, but due to college and an injury, 22 actually travelled to compete. But once we got to Columbus, we were beset by one crazy, unforeseen event after another.
We had one dancer - a first-timer at the O - who was in the group of dancers accidentally left out of the initial recalls on Friday. She had already returned to her hotel and was getting ready to hit the movies with her family when she found out she actually had recalled. What a rush to get back to the venue and onstage to compete!
Also, three of our dancers were in a car wreck the day before their comps. And two dancers were unable to compete after they got there - one because she got a violent stomach virus and was ill all night long before her competition.
After all that chaos, though, there were two great silver linings. We had two World Qualifiers! A first for our school. Lisa Morales, a senior ladies dancer, qualified by placing 9th. And Maria del Rosario (shown at right onstage with other U17 world qualifiers) placed 7th in the Ladies U17. What an inspiration to see these young women do so well amongst such amazing competition!

So, now the O is over once again, and 2009 is here. Many people are talking about how the economy will change feising. How will it change my family's feising? I don't know. I think we're likely skipping King O'Sullivan this year, which has been an annual favorite. But that's as much because I'm tired of traveling as anything. We spent the last two weeks of December in Ireland (here's a pic of the kids at the Cliffs of Moher), and I'm feeling like I haven't had much normal at home time in months!
Our first feis of 2009 will probably be St. Louis Irish Arts and then the new Buckeye Feis in Columbus. But, then again, that's only two feiseanna over the next four months ... can feisheads like us really dial back that much?!