With the wedding in the rear view mirror and the wedding reception coming up this weekend then being over, it is time for me to look at my next project and start planning and working on it, namely the Utah Scottish Festival   in June. The story goes like this, when I got engaged in October of last year, my bride-to-be not only accepted me wearing a kilt to the ceremony, she encouraged it. There was only one problem with that, in all of my years of searching for my clan, I had never found where I belonged, at least completely. The truth is, that though I knew some family names, it was hard to choose one over another in order to call one my clan. After a lot of thought and research I finally found an answer that seemed to work for the wedding and from that more. After talking with my bride about it she suggested that at least for the wedding that I look at possible tartans and from there choose what I liked the best since I am from them all equally. When looking over it all and reviewing what I had online about my family history I found a little known family name that I was directly related to through my moms side, Leslie. Clan Leslie is a little known Clan whose history goes back as far as many others do, but is not as large as some others that are well known.
With a little review, and talking with the clan Chieftain I found that there was no one in the state representing us, and that if I was interested, I could do so.  As a result of all of that along with studying mummies for school, planning a wedding and reception, I have been studying the history of my clan as well as learning some of the history of Scotland herself, and the ways in which to use and practice the weapons that were used there. A lot of it was for fun, I learned some of the technique for the dirk for example, because I was wearing one to my wedding and believe that if I am to wear a blade I should understand its use or else let it become a hindrance to me. (Not that I plan on fighting anyone, anywhere, ever,  other than in class. ) As well as learning the history of the land my ancestors came from so that if asked I have a leg to stand on at a booth or the like. Now that the wedding is over it is time to pull all of that together and begin looking at how it goes from that to a booth representing my clan. On one hand it is exciting. on the other it is something new, but the cool part is that I have a new appreciation of my history, and the way in which it matches and comes in line with the history of Europe and that is awesome. Not only that I have found in all of it, a pride in who I am that goes much deeper than any I had before as well as pushing me to learn some basic skills with weapons that I don't use in class, but whose technique can be very much similar.
It will definitely be an exciting June for me, First the booth, then the Kirkin of the Tartans, then the next week I turn 31. Life is good.