Guzowski Family Blog: Worlds 2026

We went right from St. Patrick's Day into high gear preparing for our trip for Evie to compete at the Irish Dancing World Championships in Chicago on March 31. She had a few final training sessions, and then was sent off with a beautiful surprise party from her dance friends, followed by a dress rehearsal a few days later filled with family, friends, and our local news station! (You can watch the news story here). The outpouring of support meant so much to Evie, and she felt all that love behind her when she took the stage.

McFadden Party

Dance friends

Evie is finally taller than Grandpa with her wig!

Miss Beth made it to the dress rehearsal, just one week after having her baby!

The dress rehearsal audience

Amos and Evie did a little dance together, just for fun

Evie's besties

The most beautiful good luck delivery from the Mullen family

I'll take a moment here to give a shout out to Noah, because he stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa during this trip. He doesn't like it when we have to be out of town without him, but he got through it, and Evie appreciated having our full attention to herself at the competition. Grandma and Grandpa totally spoiled him with all his favorite meals and one-on-one time while we were gone.

Someone is on the countdown to baseball season!

We also had Fine Arts Night before we left for Chicago, and both kids participated in this district-wide concert. It made my musical heart very happy to see over 1300 students participating in the arts that night!

Evie's legs were pre-tanned for competition, and we thought it was funny that they were the same color as Noah's pants!

We were lucky that our flight to Chicago went smoothly, and we landed at 7:45am - a perfect time to check out the world's largest Starbucks since we had woken up at 3:15am! We walked through all 5 floors before placing an order on Floor 3 for some coffees and gourmet breakfast sandwiches. From there, we went to Palm Sunday mass in Little Italy where a priest-friend from St. Mike's was presiding. We visited the iconic Chicago Bean (aka Cloudgate) and took some pictures before heading to our hotel out in the suburbs.

Over-packing is our motto

World's largest Starbucks!

Once we were settled in our hotel, we went over to check out the convention center and get a glimpse of the world stages for the first time. It was pretty emotional to actually be there after all the preparations!

Monday was another day of sightseeing, and we chose to do an architectural boat tour so that we could see a lot of the incredible buildings in Chicago without Evie being on her feet too much before dancing. The 80 degree, sunny weather was icing on the cake!

Good luck clothespins to clip on other dancer's bags - I love this tradition!

Evie did one final practice at the convention center that evening, and then we headed to bed for a 3:30am wakeup. Except...Evie's alarm didn't go off!! Thankfully Matt woke up at 4:30 and got Evie up quickly. She does her own hair and makeup, and after a momentary panic about oversleeping, she focused in and got ready. We arrived at the convention center around 6:45, and her group began dancing at 8:00. Evie danced two beautiful rounds, and she came off stage and told us how much fun she had had! That alone is the best we could have hoped for. Evie didn't recall (finish in the top 50), but she was very happy with how her dancing went, and she finished in a respectable 100th place out of about 140 dancers. We are incredibly proud of Evie's hard work and dedication, and she exudes joy when she is up there on stage dancing!

This is what's under the wig!

Waiting for results!

The whole experience was made even more special because we were able to share it with Evie's cousin Aristea, who is an experienced dancer at the world level. Aunt Katie, Uncle DJ and Aristea were all there to support Evie, and then we were able to watch Aristea compete the next day. She is an absolute rock star (and the sweetest human you could meet), earning a world medal with her 16th place finish!

We ran into fellow Vermont dancer Anna, who was a teaching assistant at Evie's first dance class

Two exhausted girls after two long days of competition!

We flew home Thursday and changed gears into Holy Week and Easter. We had a great day at Grandpa Tom and Sharon's Easter Egg hunt on Saturday with cousins from MA, and then we celebrated Easter on Sunday with the Zehnacker family, with the bonus of Stefan visiting for the weekend from college in Maine! Our hearts are full from all the excitement and family time. And holy moly, do we need a nap! We're looking forward to a few quieter weeks before baseball season takes over.