Last weekends saga, the story begins...

So, last weekend was absolutely amazing and incredible, it took me a while to take it all in enough to be able to process all of what happened! Saturday had a wonderful start as I had the great pleasure to meet my friend Barbara's littlest new wonder named Madeline, who has the best disposition and a wonderful warm smile and sparkly spirit... such a joy, and her little Tommy was such a charmer. Next up on the festivities, after a wonderful visit with my sister, whom I had not caught up with in far too long, and then off to the ICONs Irish fest where I met up with another Madeleine, a woman that I work with. I was enjoying some Irish Step dance demos and loving these amazing Irish Wolf Hounds when she called to say she had arrived at the festival. I asked her what she liked to do, and she said shop, so off we went to explore the vendors. We passed by many booths, and the first one I said I want to go in and check out, wouldn't you know that my good friend Athonwy, whom I met it Eugene, Oregon at Faerieworlds, was helping out the vendor there. What a treat to get to see this amazing soul again, and wonderful to meet his booth mates, Joseph Keane of Celtic Revival and Nancy who was also there helping out. Well a pleasure it was to meet this merry band, and what times we had later on that evening... But, the shopping continued, and I ended up spending all of my cash on books about Irish Folklore and Mythology, which I was very excited to find, except for the fact that now I had these books to lug around (though they did let me keep them at the booth for a time) and now all my cash was gone, and if I had one complaint, it would be those f*#$ing ATM machines at the site were awful and never could read my card, I ended up leaving the festival later just to get some cash! Well Madeleine and I went and had an amazing time listening to the Clancy Legacy, with Robbie O'Connell. Madeleine was particularly pleased as she had gone on a tour of Ireland with Robbie, and he played one of the songs she had been hoping to hear. A wonderful set indeed. After that, I bid Madeleine goodbye, as she was done for the evening, and heading home. I took my leave to be able to put the books in my car and head out to get some food and some cash... So I quickly returned to the Festival and met up with Athonwy, and Joseph Keane took me to see his amazing Ancient Landscapes exhibit while he looked through to see what "tree" I was, because much like the every birthday has an astrological sign, every one has a tree it is associated with in the Irish tradition. Turns out my tree was the reed, and it seemed very fitting, what it said, but I will have to do more research on that as it is something I know nothing about just yet, I do know that right now we are in the time of the Vine, and I have vines trained to climb up my spiral stairs out my door... but that is neither here nor there. So Joseph and I wandered off in the moonlight sampling bits of music here and there, and what a wonderful and intoxicating time it was. I did set dancing for the very first time, and we danced our hearts out in the field by the Compass Point Stage while Lunasa played their set. I must say, I thought I was in fairly decent shape, but man, that set dancing is fast and I found myself getting very winded, I will need to practice more... well the evenings festivities will continue in my next installment, I am still recovering from the late nights this past week and right now I am exhausted!!!