Tallyn's Bard

Okay so California!

 Well for those of you who didn’t know we spent the last week in California.

My Mom’s brother lives in California and we were going to my Cousins Bar Mitzvah slash family get togher. He lives outside of LA.

Okay so from the beging of our trip. We stopped at Beth’s house and I borrowed the Circle trilogy from her. I’ve’ finished Black and I’m now reading Red.  Anyway then we drove to the airport got on a bus went into the airport  and sat around for an hour (during which I read Black ) Then we went on our plane. We stopped in Denver. THe airport is really weird there it’s like a tent. I’d never been to Colorado ( Idk if airports count!   before so that was cool. We had a twenty minute lay over in the middle of the night and then they pushed the fligh ten minutes earlier! That was scary!

    It was really weird, because as we were taking off from the airport I was reading the part when Tom was taking off from Denver airport in the story! That was cool

So basically we got there at about 2:00 AM our time, 11:00 PM there time we went back to the hotel where our Grandma and Grandpa were staying and we slept.     

I woke up in the hotel Saturday morning and went outside. All around us were mountains. I was amazing. Like… so cool! I guess I’ve never seen mountains, or not since I was little. I just wasn’t expecting them (don’t ask why) It was SO cool! LIke a fortress surronding us…

 We went to the Bar Mitzvah ( A Bar Mitzvah is a coming of age ceromony for a Jewish boy when he turns thirteen and there’s a service and a celebration, A Bat mitzvah is for a thirteen year old girl) which was in the rabbi’s house. I hadn’t seen my Aunt and Uncle since I was a little, little, kiddo.

My cousin Brooke I hadn’t seen since she was a baby and she’s six now. She looked so much like my little brother Andrew they looked like twins. =) Then there’s Ross he’s thirteen, and then  my aunt and uncle!

So the service was about an hour long.

Then afterwards there was a big meal. Then we went back to my aunt and uncle’s house. Then my Aunt and Uncle took everyone out to  a barbecue place that was really, really, good!

The Next day was my Aunt and Uncle’s last day before they left (okay the other Aunt and Uncle, the one we visited in Florida    We hung around the house and played soccor outside. They have a really small backyard but it’s really high up and you can see all the houses below, its pretty cool.  We were riding scooters around in the street and then Alex and I went down a hill right off there street whcih ended in a big road. IT was amazing! Okay I have to slow down!   So I was coming down the hill and this view just opened up. I was flying down a hill there were mountains all around me, Palm trees were towering high and bright green grass and brightly colored flowers all interlaced with big fancy houses with Spanish tiled rooofs. It was just the image of CALIFORNIA. Just sort of the whole thing put into one second of time (minus the ocean) I don’t know if I got that across but I hope so because it was so cool that I just started to laugh because it made me so happy!

So later that day we went hiking along a nature trail that was behind there development through the mountains. We came to this one part where you could see over the whole valley below it was pretty cool.

Brooke said “I can see very, very far from here”

And Andrew said “I can see the whole world because, I have perfect vision”

Katherine sweet, dreamy, little, voice, “I  can see Jesus”

Continuing on  our walk I decided to run down a hill and I did it was awesom, so awesome that I laughed, and I had enough momemntum to go up the next hill! So I ran down the next hill and Uncle David decided to run down too, and then Uncle Dean ran down too but he fell and broke his finger. We had to go back to the house, so he could put ice on it. So we walked all the way back and we caught up wiht my Mom and Aunt who had were wlking back to the house with Katherine and Malina. So we went back to the house. Uncle Dean fixed his finger up. After dinner we had a chocolate cake that they had got for grandma and grandpa’s anniversary. uncle Dean wrote happy anniversary with frosting on a chocolate bar and stuck it on the cake. He messed up the first one so he gave it to me and Ross.

So those were the first two days in California and I’ll write more later.

                                            ~Ness

So here we go with the Chamber music festival. It was AWESOME!!!

     So you get put in a group with some other people who play music and are somewhere around you level and then you get handed a stack of music and then you walk into the big ballet room and you go and perform the piece of music in front of everyone before you get a chance to practice it together!

Yay!!!!!!!!

Well that was not the yay part the rest of it is the yay part… Am I being confusing?

okay let me be less confusing:

 My group consisted of: Hannah     piano                         Our music was:

                                           Katherine  violin                          The double violin concerto in d minor     by Vivaldi

                                           Laura         violin                           Hungarian suite     by Bela Bartok

                                           Katy            violin                           InChrist Alone/Come thou fount     arranged by us

                                           Me              violin                            Star Spangled banner                    arranged by me

In the morning you go to Harmony and you eat donuts.

At nine you go to master class where you play some pieces and then mrs. Fletcher critiques you and everyone else comments and then the next person goes on stage and plays there song… We were always the first or the last.

Then you go down to Sonic and if your me you order a sonic drink and onion rings because you don’t like sonic hamburgers. Either that or you go to Wendys an get a frosty and french fries. Either that or Mom put lunch together and you get to sit and talk to other people.

Then we go into our own rooms and practice until four o clock and people from the The Blue Rose Trio came and helped us. There’s Audrey and Rose, and Ira. Last year Lars was here but he couldn’t come this year so Ira came instead. There was also another group that came for the begining of the week, Michelle played piano and the Joel played cello. So they help you with your music. Then you go home.

At 7:00 you go to a concert.  Friday the Blue Rose trio played and that was an awesome concert.

Then on Saturday 4th of July, we had our concert.

It was really, really fun!  Hannah sang come thou fount and it was really good. The name of our group was Fortissimo five. We wore black and different color sashes. I had red, Katy had yellow, Laura had green, and Hannah had pink.

Anyway there it is more orderly

After our concert on Saturday there was a pizza party at Harmony. Here are some pictures. We played  a LOT of musical chairs

okay pictures: 

pizza party

 Okay, no more pictures.

                 ~Ness

P.S. sorry I was having trouble uploading pictures so that’s why you don’t get anymore

I just wrote a very nice long entry about California and it deleted itself, I didn’t even touch the computer and i’m very very mad and I want to throw computer aganst the wall till breaks into a thousand pieces

I wll post at some point I just thought I’d let everyone know my current frustration =) and why there isn’t any post right now :-/