ShawneeDispatch.com

There are a few ways to tell Shawnee twins Gigi and Grace Wood apart.

For one, Gigi is most often the one wearing her glasses.

"I have glasses, too," Grace said. "So we kind of decide when to wear them."

Or, as their parents say, Grace just decides she doesn't want to wear hers most of the time.

"I like homework and she doesn't," adds Gigi, whose name is short for Geneva.

Still, both are straight-A students at Good Shepherd Catholic School. They both like Hannah Montana, and both have three favorite colors, though they aren't the same three colors. They both love dance, taking classes at a Shawnee dance studio three nights a week, but Gigi takes an extra hour of ballet, while Grace takes a special jazz class.

Even by the time they were a few months old, there were a few differences - Grace loved her pacifiers and still likes to take her baby blanket on overnights, while Gigi never cared for pacifiers and lost her blanket as a toddler while on a family walk.

But these few differences weren't enough to keep them from getting some recognition at the ultimate test of identicalness, the 33rd Annual Twin Days Festival, which they attended for their fourth year Aug. 2 and 3 in Twinsburg, Ohio.

The theme for this year's festival was "Twins Days All-Stars." The girls dressed as "Crazy Jayhawk Fans," for which they won a first place gold medal in the theme costume contest for girls 12 and under. It was the second year in a row they've placed first in the contest. In previous years, they got second place.

"They've been very lucky in the past few years in the costume contests, and my fear is driving back the year they don't win; they're pretty competitive," their father, John Wood, said. "We've heard people say they've been there 20 years and still haven't won a medal."

The Woods started going to the festival after seeing reports about it on television, though they waited until the girls were old enough to understand what the festival was about before attending. Now it's becoming an annual family vacation.

"I think they want to make this a permanent part of their life," said Laurie Wood, the girls' mother. "You go up there and people say they've been going since the first year of the festival."

Being around other twins isn't new for Grace and Gigi; twins run throughout the family.

But Grace and Gigi say really like the experience at the festival. In addition to the costume theme contest, the girls also participated in the double take parade, the twin talent show and the most alike contest - undoubtedly one of the hardest competitions at the festival, which drew 2,034 sets of twins this year from all over the world.

"Especially in our age group - there are a ton of people in our age group," Grace said.

But they think they may have gotten close to cracking the top three this year; while sitting among the contestants in the judging area, Gigi and Grace were the only ones the judges asked to stand up a second time for review.

"So we think they probably just missed the top three," John Wood said.

Either way, the girls look forward to next year, when they are contemplating entering the contest to join the festival's royalty as the princesses. The requirements are to be at least 10 years old and have attended the festival for four of the past five years.

To be selected as princesses, they will be judged on an essay about what being a twin means to them. Grace says she knows one of the benefits of twindom she'll include in the essay.

"You always have a friend," she said.