Take The Floor - Dublin

Last night Abby had her first Take The Floor performance at the Helix in Dublin, Ireland. They actually streamed the performance live over the Internet which was cool for those of us who couldn't make it all the way over to Ireland. Here are a few clips we video taped from the computer monitor as the performance was streaming live (hopefully they'll stream their next two performances as well in Limerick and Derry). The quality wasn't the greatest, and we missed a couple great segments where Abby danced, including one dance where she did the splits at the very end! I believe she appeared in about 8 dances, but it's hard to tell from this footage where she is at on the stage. Hopefully they'll post a replay on YouTube later. In the meantime, here is part of what we watched.

Cuyahoga Falls Riverfront Irish Festival

This post is a little overdue, but here are some clips of Abby dancing at the Cuyahoga Falls Riverfront Irish Festival a couple weekends ago.

A Weekend in Louisville

This weekend we traveled to Louisville, KY so that Abby could dance in the 17th Annual Louisville Feis competition; and for some family "Father's Day" fun. On the way down on Friday, we stopped at the Tanger Outlet Mall in Jefferson, OH. After that, we proceeded to our hotel in downtown Louisville where we then walked to a cool restaurant located adjacent to the minor league baseball stadium for dinner. On the way back we enjoyed the tail-end (no pun intended) of the annual Gay Pride parade in Louisville. After that, dad enjoyed a quick shot of moonshine at Hillbilly Tea cafe. On Saturday, while Abby and mom waited for the dance competition to start, dad and Andrew went to the Barton 1792 bourbon distillery for a quick tour (and some samples for dad). We even made it back in time to watch Abby dance to a 2nd place finish in her competition. That evening we spent at the Churchill Downs race tracks (we didn't win much), but had a great time nonetheless. On the home on Sunday we stopped a crazy marketplace in Cincinnati called Jungle Jim's International Market - which is more than 200,000 square feet of shopping space and has over 150,000 food and beverage products from around the world. The highlight reel below contains some pictures and a video clips from our weekend.

2013 World Irish Dance Championships

Here are some pictures and brief video clips of Abby's trip to the 2013 World Irish Dance Championships in Boston, MA. Unfortunately, Abby came down with the flu and felt horrible most of the weekend. Although she barely had the strength, she pushed herself to dance in the Ceili competition so as to not let her fellow teammates down. Although they didn't "recall," Abby and Mom seemed to have nice day of bonding and shopping on their last day in Boston.

Irish Dancing for Old Folks

With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, Abby and the O'Hare Irish Dance School performs all across the Northeast Ohio area. One group that Abby is especially fond of performing for are the "old folks" because it always makes them so happy. So, this weekend Abby performed both Saturday and Sunday at two "old folks homes." Here are some of the highlights as videotaped by Mom.

Festival of Nations

As she has done in a number of the past years, Abby and the O'Hare Irish Dance girls performed at the Akron Civic Theatre as part of the 2013Akron Festival of Nations. Dad wasn't able to attend, but Mom shot the following highlight footage ...

First Night Akron 2013

As has been the Hollywood Four tradition the past few years, Abby and the O'Hare School of Irish Dance Ohio performed at the First Night Akron celebration New Year's Eve night. Afterwards, we had our normal Hollywood Four New Year's Eve party at home with hors-d'oeuvres, games, television and sleeping in our basement. The video below contains some pictures and video clips that mom took at First Night Akron.