Haley and Dylan were asked to do three performances throughout the weekend in Wildwood, NJ as part of their Irish Weekend. We drove down late Thursday afternoon to check into our hotel before the kids' first gig on Thursday evening, opening for Derek Warfield and The Young Wolftones.
Haley and Dylan played a great set together then we listened to the rest of the concert. Haley and I walked back after the concert while the boys took the van back. It was a lovely cool evening and I love the atmosphere at the beach so I walked as much as I could all weekend…not hard to do because Tinkerbell went with us and couldn't wait to walk, leave her scent, and smell all the other dogs around the island.
Friday morning Tinks had me up early so I dressed and took her for a long walk along the beach road. We must have walked for an hour. The sun was just coming up and I took some beautiful photos on my phone.
We used to spend a couple weeks camping at the beach every summer back before our trips to Ireland and music camps took up all our funds and vacation time. I forgot how much I enjoy just being at the shore.
The rest of the family woke up when we returned to the room and we all got ready to go out to a pancake house for breakfast. After breakfast we walked up and down the boardwalk. There was an old car show going on so the boys were happy. We took the kids back to the room so they could put on their performance clothing then went down to the festival which was already pretty crowded for a Friday afternoon. We walked around and looked at all the vendors goods, had some food, listened to some music, Haley did some dancing, then it was their turn on stage.
They did another great job. Some friends did a set dance to one of their tune sets and they had a crowd of people talking to them afterward. We escaped as soon as we could because they were hungry and we had plans for dinner at the Lobster House in Cape May…a family tradition at least once a year. We ordered take-out and ate outside on the deck. After dinner we drove back to Wildwood, had some ice cream for dessert, and took a walk in the dark along the beach before retiring for the night.
Our day repeated again on Saturday….early morning walk with Tinks, pancake house breakfast, walk on boardwalk where kids rode a couple rides (weren't running on Friday morning), and festival with performance. There were way more people at the festival on Saturday. Due to a bit of a scheduling issue, the kids were able to perform a little earlier on Saturday so right after they finished their set, we jumped into the car and headed home to drop off the dog. They wanted to try to make it to PA for the CCE-DV Ceili because John Whelan was going to be there to play with the Sligo Six.
I think most people who would normally attend were back in Wildwood where we left them at the festival but it was a nice quite gathering like a house party. The kids danced and played music and we all enjoyed the company. We didn't get back home until the wee hours on Sunday morning but had a quiet day at home planned cleaning, catching up on schoolwork, and, for me, reading. The day didn't quite go as planned though because Haley got a call asking her to come help host the session at the Plough. The regular host had called out and Tom needed someone with a melody instrument. She decided it would be fun so she and I spent our evening there.
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