Kansas City Feis

This is our third year to go to the Kansas City Feis.

In the past we've stayed at the Hyatt at the Crown Center, which is attached to the Westin which is where the feis is held. This year we stayed at a Holiday Inn a couple of miles south, mostly because we had done the "stay any 2 nights, get 1 night free", and this was our free night. Plus the Holiday Inn had a really pretty pool:



That was the view from our room. Notice how wet that pavement is? It was in the 60s and raining, so no pool time.

Instead, we headed to the Crown Center to check out what was going on there. We shopped at Gatos for our cat-related needs, then headed downstairs where we discovered



a Nathan Sawaya exhibit. We took some quick snapshots, figuring Trish could go on Saturday and take really cool pictures, since that's what Trish does. Except Trish didn't come.


It's a really cool exhibit. We highly recommend it.


Sorry some of these are blurry. We just got a new camera, and we're figuring out which settings work for what, like taking pictures of sculptures through plexiglass, for instance.

Then over to the Westin to check into the feis and check which stage was where. Also, here's the bathroom:


(We took lots and lots of pictures this trip.)

And stopped by the Sheridan's there in the Crown Center on the way out:


Back at the Holiday Inn, we hung out in the lobby/library watching tennis on the big screen television and playing Battleship. Annabeth is stretching out, getting ready for the competition.





The next morning we arrived bright and early. But the Birthday Girl was already there!


Then on to the serious business of getting ready for the feis. I put wigs on heads:


Kids put on makeup, warmed up, got dressed, generally geared up for the cut-throat competition ahead of them. Look at these two competitors, for example -- they're about to compete against each other and about 20 other girls. Can't you see the tension on their faces? Intense, isn't it.



By some miracle, Annabeth's stage WHIPPED through the competitions. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. Really. They zipped through everything and were finished by about 11:30. By which time Thalia was through about half of her dances.

So Annabeth had time to wander around Crown Center with friends (and the camera):



And still had time to get back to Thalia's stage and play around with the camera some more ....



It's against the rules to take pictures or videos of the dancers on stage


but we still manage to amuse ourselves with the camera


We didn't visit the Irish Fest this year even though the weather was absolutely perfect for it. There were performers inside the Crown Center, though. Have they done this before? I can't remember. But that was enough for us.



Overall, a great feis. Annabeth's stage ran very well. Thalia's stage was slow, and at one point they lost track of the judge (okay, really the rumor was that the judge wandered off to have a smoke or something). The organizers switched competitions to other stages as they became open, allowing competitors to finish more quickly. Most of the results for our competitions were posted almost instantaneously. We had the impression there were fewer people attending than in previous years, but maybe they were just spread out differently.

We came away with a first place and some thirds and fourths. And they gave out medals for fourth! Woohoo! Overall, I think our school did quite well. Headed home Saturday afternoon, already making plans for returning next year.