Violin Recital

This is a video of my violin recital Saturday. I played Minuet No. 2 by Bach. My wonderful teacher ( and "hired big sister") Kaitlin was the one who got me in the recital. I'm her only student and so we weren't going to get to do a recital, but her teacher was having a recital for her students and she said it was okay for me to be in it. I was nervous, but it was really fun.

Memorial Day 2011

Happy Memorial Day!

Josh's Preschool Graduation

Today was Josh's preschool graduation. He was too cool for words throughout. He did almost the entire program with his hands in his pockets. Each kid did a little thing for one of the songs. Josh was in charge of doing the puppets for Five Little Monkeys. He was very focused on his little puppets. His teacher was Miss Tammy, the same lady who taught Matt for preschool. The entire program was very cute. One little boy throughout the entire thing was jumping up and saying something like, "Awesome!" or, "Thank you!" Matt was just about ready to strangle him!

Josh and Miss Tammy

Josh in his graduation cap

Josh doing Five Little Monkeys

More Five Little Monkeys

Part of the program

Old Yeller

As our last class book for the year Mrs. Payne read us Old Yeller. The last book we read was Where the Red Fern Grows. Today we finished reading Old Yeller. It is one of my favorite books ever, even if I do always cry at the end. We will be watching the movie soon, which I hate. I hate the movie because they screwed up the already sad ending and made it even sadder. Either way, Old Yeller is a great book.

The Latest Dance Craze Is...

THE PUPPY DANCE! It is also the cutest dance EVER! This is what happens at home while I'm at school. The puppy in question is named Chocolate and has not been questioned on the matter.

Josh's friends

This is Josh and his little friends Gage and Beck. Beck moved away a while ago, but Gage is still here. Gage is the one on the far left, then Beck, then Josh. CUTENESS ATTACK!

More videos!

Yet another elusive dig it play video! This is the Greek scene, and it has me in the Greek Chorus and Tailor as Herodotus. Tah dah!

Books

These are the latest two books I've read. They are both some of my favorites.

First up is The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester. The main character is Piper McCloud who has, at random moments, floated around since birth. One day she decides to teach herself to fly instead of just float by jumping off the roof of her house. Many complications in the plot result from this, and she ends up going to I.N.S.A.N.E. which stands for Institute of Normalcy, Stability, And NonExceptionality. I.N.S.A.N.E. is a secret school for children with unusual gifts like Piper's. Piper's new friends can do things like make their own weather and shrink to the size of a leaf. This is one of my favorite books of all time, and I read it at least once a year.


The other book is our Mother/daughter book club book, Fairest by Gail Carson Levine. This is one of my FAVORITE books! It is about Aza, who thinks she is ugly but is an extraordinary singer. She gets a chance to go to the king's wedding, but after the wedding the king is injured and the new queen blackmails Aza. LOVE this book!

And thats all for now.

Dig it video

My mom got one of the elusive Dig it play videos to load. This is us singing the first half of "The land Between Two Rivers," the song for Mesopotamia. At the very end you can hear a boy talking really fast, he IS actually saying something, but the only people who actually know what it is are the teachers.

The 6th Grade Dig It Play

This is a picture of me , Tailor, and Morgan dressed up for our sixth grade dig it play. It is about two young explorers named Taki (girl) and Tut (boy) who find a talking skeleton named Lucy(Lucy was an actual skeleton found by archaeologists, but she didn't talk). Lucy takes them on a journey to ancient cultures: Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Asia, Ancient Greece, and Rome. I was originally trying for Lucy, but I ended up in the Greek chorus, and Morgan and Tailor both tried for Taki. Morgan got Romulus and Tailor got Herodotus, who was in the Greek scene with me. Both of their parts were boy characters, but there were only two who were actually girl characters, and they were the parts we tried out for. We weren't all in the same scene together, but we had matching costumes. A girl in my class, Sabrina, was a skeleton dancer and before the play went around saying "Brains...BRAINS!" Too funny! I have video that my mom took but can't upload it yet. I will as soon as I can!

Vacation Part 2

Okay, time for vacation part 2. On the day we arrived we swam at the hotel's pool. If you go to the Disneyland in California, you should totally stay at the Candy Cane Inn. It had great breakfast and a fantastic pool area. But anyway, once we got there we swam until it was time for Dad to bring Grandma and Grandpa from the airport. The day after that was our first Disney day. Some of our favorite things were Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Aladdin show at California Adventure, the Alice in Wonderland ride, the design of the bathroom by the Alice in Wonderland ride, Soarin' Over California, and the Monster's Inc. ride. Sully during the Monster's Inc. ride.

Mr. Incredible in the street show.

Me meeting Minnie Mouse

Some of the decorations in the queue for Alice in Wonderland

One of the flowers outside of the Alice in Wonderland ride.

The trim in the "Queens'" bathroom outside of the Alice in Wonderland ride.

The stall door in the restroom by the Alice in Wonderland ride.

The Primeval world diorama in the tunnel that the Disneyland railroad goes through.

The top of Big Thunder Mountain

A canyon we went through in Arizona.

Vacation Part 1

This is the first part of the coverage of our vacation. On Saturday we left to drive down to Saint George in southern Utah. After about 5 or 6 hours we made it to Bryce Canyon.

These are some of the beautiful rock formations we saw:

We saw this lone little tree at the bottom of one of the canyons. Mom thinks the picture should be titled Persistence.

We stopped for the night at the Hampton Inn in Saint George. This was our least favorite hotel because it didn't have Disney Channel.

And that's part 1 of our vacation.

HOME!

WE ARE HOME!!! We have made it home from our vacation! It was fun, but I'm glad to be home. Disneyland was great, and so were the hotels. The worst thing about the vacation was the fact that the last hotel used a detergent that gave me some sort of rash. ICK! At least it was the at the end so it didn't screw me up at Disneyland.

While we were there shopping for souvenier, we discovered it is nearly impossible to find ANYTHING with Daisy Duck on it, and she's my favorite character. After four days of looking, all we found was a small plush, a pin, and a keychain. I did find some really cute plushes of Donald Duck and Alice in Wonderland.

All in all, it was an awesome vacation, and I'll be posting my pictures of the trip once I get them all sorted out and edited.

End of Levels and Disneyland

At the end of each year we have big end of level tests to gaauge whether or not we have learned what we need to for each grade. Most of my class is a little over halfway done, with the two tests each for Language Arts and Math finished. But, the really great part about this years end of levels?

I AM FINISHED!!!

I am finished because when the rest of my class is finishing up tests WE WILL BE IN DISNEYLAND!!! OUR FAMILY IS SKIPPING A WHOLE WEEK OF SCHOOL TO GO TO CALIFORNIA!!!

7 Things to do When Your Bored

Here are seven things to do when your bored, as I am now:

1.Keep your daughter from taking your picture by putting a pack of gum in front of your face.




2. Dress up in random things from your closet.


3.Make a cute fabric flower wreath to hang on the door.


4. Make won tons!!!

5.Plant tulips.


6.Take apart a computer.

7. Blog!

The Monster Concert

I play violin in my school's 6th grade orchestra. In our orchestra we have three basses, three cellos, three violas, and about fifteen violins. Go figure. I have no idea why all the sections have three except for violin. Today we had our Monster Concert. For the Monster Concert, all of the 6th grade orchestras in northern Davis County get together (which amounts to about 400 kids+their instruments) and play several songs at a local high school. We all got together about 2 1/2 hours early, so none of us got dinner. It was so much fun! I was one of the many violins, which outnumbered all the other instruments put together. I got to sit with a group of girls from my orchestra, which is a pretty impressive feat when your talking about that many kids. The only girl bass player in my school turned out to also be the only 6th grade girl bass player in northern Davis county. We all had a ton of fun and learned a lot about playing together in a big orchestra.!

WonTons

This is one of my favorite foods. Won tons! They are Sooooo good. We made them for Chinese New Year. All you do is buy the little squares, put cubes of cheese inside, and use your finger and some water to pat around the outside edge, then fold them into the right shape, which is in half, then dab water on the corners and attach them. Then you boil them in oil. They are so good!

Favorite New Website

Okay, so I've been posting a lot today, but I'm in the mood.
Anyway, this is my new favorite website. Its called http://nameberry.com and I love it. It may seem weird for an 11-year-old to like a name website, but its got all sorts of features. It has a blog, a discussion page, and a huge list of names, their, origins, and what they mean. I LOVE it!!!

Pouty Face

This is the face we are constantly seeing at our house. whenever the slightest thing doesn't go how Josh wants it, he,"quits...FOREVER!" When he doesn't get to play the Wii, or he wants candy but can't have it until he finishes dinner, which he refuses to eat, he bursts into tears.

Now its out of my system.

Favorite TV Shows

These are some of our family's all-time favorite TV shows. The first one is The Dick Van Dyke Show. Its an old show from like, the 60's and its in black-and-white, but even Josh likes watching it. Its about Robert Petrie, a comedy writer who writes for "The Allan Brady Show" Its about the misadventures he has with his wife, Laura, his son, Ritchie, and his co-workers, Buddy Sorrel, Sally Rogers, and Mel Cooley. Soooooo funny!

Left to right: Robert Petrie, Sally Rogers, and Buddy Sorrel

Our other favorite TV show is more current. It is Phineas and Ferb. Its about two brothers, Phineas and Ferb, and all of the amazing inventions they make every day over their summer vacation, which drives their sister Candace crazy. My mom likes that they don't try to make Candace crazy. Nothing they do is meant to be malicious. The only problem she has with it is that the parents are totally and completely oblivious to all of the things they build. The sub-plot is about their pet platypus, Perry, who leads a double life as a mindless house pet and Agent P, a secret agent whose nemesis is the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz. We love this show and have watched all of the episodes available twice.

Left to right: Perry the Platypus, Phineas, Ferb, Candace

And those are our favorite shows!

Tailor

This is my good friend Tailor. We met when my family moved back from California and I met Tailor's younger sister, Mykayla, in my primary class. Mykayla then introduced me to Tailor, and we became friends. Tailor then in turn introduced me to my other close friend, Morgan. Note: These pictures were taken when we were dressing up in random items from my closet.

Tailor the rock star
Both of us as Parisian girls

Me as a movie star and Tailor as a rock star

Me as another movie star, and Tailor as an Oriental princess

Spring In Utah

This is spring in Utah. One minute the sun is out and you have these beautiful flowers, and the next minute its snowing. Why can't it just stay one temperature? When will summer come? My class has gone over to the computer lab while its nice outside (We're in a portable) and when we come back its snowing!

Our family's tulips just came out and its already their prime week for blooming. That means they'll be gone and ugly soon! At least that means that I'll be able to plant my garden soon. WHY CAN'T IT JUST STAY NICE OUTSIDE?!?!

Well, now that's OUT of my system. End of angry rant.

Brothers

I have two brothers. Their names are Matthew, who is 8 going on 9, and Joshua, who is almost 5.

These are some of the few good pictures of Matt available:

Matt likes Nerf, and shooting things in general. He starts 4th grade in the fall.

Josh, as you can see from the pictures, loves puppies. You know the poem, "snips and snails and puppy dog tails, thats what little boys are made of?" Well, this little boy got a surplus of puppy dog tails.

I have some really cute video of the two of them playing with Matt's Nerf guns, but I can't get it to upload. I'll try to post it some other time.