SO Thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving! I have been blessed with an amazing family and I am so thankful to have them in my life. Every year on Thanksgiving weekend, I am traveling to compete in the Midwest Championships for Irish dance. This is an extremely important competition because this is the qualifying competition for the World Championships. I spend all summer preparing for this weekend and hope all my hard work pays off. Now that I am in college and on a collegiate dance team, I didn't have the time to be fully prepared for this competition. Instead of competing, I have been teaching at my dance studio. I helped other young dancers prepare in hopes to make their dreams come true. It was so nice to finally be home for Thanksgiving day! My whole family went over to my grandpa's, "Pap", and had a delicious feast! I woke up VERY early the next morning and traveled to Columbus to support the dancers I had been training. It was a very different experience going to the competition as an instructor rather than a competitor. I did miss dancing, but I also enjoyed the stress free weekend! I watched my own age group compete and supported all of my friends I made through competing in past years. They all danced amazing and I was very proud of them! I have been working with a 13 year old dancer for the past couple years and I have grown to become very close with her and her family. They are like another family to me! She has worked so hard and she made it her goal to qualify for the World Championship competition which will be held in Glasgow, Scotland in April. After watching her compete, I knew she danced to the best of her ability and I could not have been any more proud of her! I told her it didn't matter what the results were because she gave it her all and that was a huge accomplishment in itself. When it finally came to results that night, I heard the good news that she is now a world qualifier!! It was a very successful weekend and I had a blast! After the competing is all over, there is a dinner dance for all of the dancers, instructors, and judges. This is my favorite part of the weekend because all of the stressing is over and we can all go just relax and have fun dancing with our friends. This year's theme was "A Night in Las Vegas." I was pretty excited to find the perfect dress for the event and I must admit, I think I found it! It was so much fun just getting all dressed up with my friends and taking pictures together before the night began. We danced the night away to an amazing live band and had a delicious dinner too! It was a great way to end such an awesome weekend. Irish dance will always be a major aspect in my life. It truly has made me who I am today and I have a huge passion for it. One of the main reasons I love Irish dance so much is because of my dance teacher, Tim O'Hare. Tim O’Hare has taught me so much not only in dance, but about these true life lessons that I will carry on with me forever. Tim will always be one of my favorite people in this world and he will tell you himself how much I love him! I never leave a practice without telling him! I am so grateful to have him in my life. I am so thrilled that I started to be an assistant teacher with Tim. I have found that I enjoy teaching much like I enjoy dancing myself. When I see my students reach their goals and see the smiles on their faces, I feel I accomplished a goal myself. Tim gave me this amazing opportunity and I could not thank him enough.

My wonderful siblings!
I love Tara and Sean so much! I honestly don't
know what I would do without them in my life. We
joked about how we all matched on Thanksgiving!
We honestly didn't even plan this! We must think
alike :) We thought it was definitely picture worthy!

This is one of my great friend's, Veronica! She
lives in Chicago and I grew up dancing with her.
She is extremely talented and a very accomplished
dancer. This picture was taken after she was all finished
competing! Don't you just love the curly wigs we Irish
dancers get to wear? Haha!

This is the best Irish dance teacher in the world,
Tim O'Hare! This was taken right before the dinner
dance! How do you like my Las Vegas theme dress?
I fell in LOVE with it when I saw it in the store! I also truly love
Tim with all my heart! He was SO excited when he heard I
won Miss Ohio Teen USA! He not only supports me in dance,
but in everything I do. He is even coming to watch me at the
Miss Teen USA pageant this summer! I can't wait! :)