My Piano Recital

I'm not going to start with "I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while." I've started with that too many times. Today's post is probably going to be a short one. I don't have much to talk about. My grandma really wanted hear about my piano recital so I'm going to talk about that. My dad took a video of me playing my songs. That's something new. I've never had any videos on my blog. They are probably going to appear tiny but you can still hear the music. There isn't much to see except the back of my head anyway. During my piano recital, I played two solos and one duet. I've been taking piano lessons from Travis' friend's mom/mom's friend/primary chorister/neighbor since May 8, 2008. I've just sped on through. I pass off all my songs and practice almost every day. (You've got to give mom credit too. Without her I'd probably never practice.) I can't wait for you to hear my songs. I know you'll be impressed.

The first song I played was a solo. Midnight Dance it was called. It was quick, fast, and pretty easy to memorize. I played it note-to-note perfect. Here it is.

That was Midnight Dance. The next song was also a solo. It was called Sunset on Equinox Pond. I also played it note-to-note perfect. Here it is.

That was Sunset on Equinox Pond. The next song I played (Polka Dot Hop) was a duet. I did mess up a few times on that one and so did my piano teacher. Here it is.

That was Polka Dot Hop. Did you hear it when I messed up? It was my first piano recital. I have to say it was a pretty good experiance. I'm glad I'm done with all those songs. I got so tired of playing them over and over again. I'm glad you get to hear the songs I've been practicing for so long. I hope this was a happy visit with the Happy Halls. I hope you can visit again soon. Bye!

Our Happy Trip to Zion NP

Hi! I just can't believe I'm starting another post with I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. But I am. Don't worry though. I've got a lot of neat things to talk about so I'll probably (I'm not sure) be posting more. I was wondering about what I should talk about on this post. Like I said I have tons of things to talk about. I decided that our family trip to Zion National Park was the top of my list. I mean it was sooo beautiful there and who doesn't want to hear about a happy family that goes on a happy trip to a happy place (all those happys sound kind of dorky). As you know I always have pictures to go along with my posts. When we went to Zion I forgot my camera so most of these pictures my dad took with his camera. Plus the memory on my camera was full. I just learned how to take videos with my camera. I took a ton of home videos (probably next weeks post). Let me tell you that you are about to hear about an awesome trip and see lots of awesome pictures. So here's how it goes. We drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and drive and.....let's speed it up a bit. We get to our hotel which was called Driftwood Lodge. It was a pretty nice hotel. Well after we (more like mom and dad) carried all their (plus Travis' and mine) luggage in and we got settled in. We took shuttle down to the park. They have a super neat shuttle system that goes through the town and through the park too. What's even more great is that it's free! Let me tell you we rode that shuttle a lot! The town shuttle stops at the entrance to the park. After that you have to ride the park shuttle. We looked around the visitor's center first. There wasn't much to see. Our family is a big camping/hiking kind of family. We love going to cool places such as national parks. We decided that we would go on the Emerald Pools Trail hike that day. We were sure glad we chose that one because it was sooooooooo beautiful. It was really pretty but we really only got one picture of the actual pools.

On the Trail

Sitting on a Log on the Trail

The Upper Pool

I actually took that last picture. There are three pools. The Lower Pool, the Middle Pool, and the Upper Pool (that's the one in the picture.). There are three waterfalls. Two at the Lower Pool and one at the Upper Pool. When we got to the Lower Pool I had to hold my dad's hand. We had to be right on time or we would get sprayed by the waterfall. You had to run until you were at least twenty feet away from it. The Emerald Pools Trail was way fun. I could have done it a million times. The next day my dad and I went on a horse ride. It was sooooo fun! My horse's name was Pretty Boy. Dad's horse was Leroy. We saw a wide variety of plants and animals. Why we even saw a wild turkey! It was sad when it was over. And again here are some awesome pictures.

Mounting the Horse: Way Hard!

I Feel Tall!

Hello There!

We stopped at Court of the Patriarchs.
(Court of the Patriarchs are three cliffs named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.)

It got kind of cold when we came back from the horse ride so we swung by the Human History Museum. Travis and I were working on our Junior Ranger badges and to do some of the activities we had to go to the museum. We watched a video and learned some cool things about the park. Like did you know that Zion has over 270 different types of birds? And did you know that there is a snail the size of a pinhead that lives only in Zion? Way cool! The next day we went on a short hike to Weeping Rock. Later we went to the Narrows and did Riverside Walk. Zion was way cool. I just can't tell you everything so I'll show you pictures instead.

One of the Patriarchs

Checkerboard Mesa

View From Weeping Rock

The Narrows

The Zion Sign

Zion was really neat. I hope you get the chance to go there. And thanks for visiting with the Happy Halls!

Travis' B-day

Hi! I'm soooooooooooooo sorry I haven't posted in sooooooooooooooooooo long. Today I'm going to talk about Travis' birthday even though it was like a month ago. Travis' birthday is in February. We wanted to make popovers so Travis could have breakfast in bed but popovers take about 30 minutes to "pop over". Travis is an early bird so of course he was already out of bed. Travis opened his presents from us after his breakfast. Mom and Dad got him a few new R.P.M. power rangers. I'm like the expert on power rangers. It's not that I like them or anything I've just know a lot about them. Besides power rangers Travis really wanted a Webkinz for his birthday. I gave him the clownfish Webkinz. If you don't know what Webkinz are they're stuffed animals that come with a secret code that you use to adopt them at Webkinz.com. Travis had really wanted a Webkinz since I already had four and he only had one. After a while Mom and I went over to my grandma's clubhouse (that's where Travis was going to have his birthday party.) to set up. We were waiting for Travis to show up when a kid came! More and more kids came until finally the kid we'd been waiting for (the birthday boy)showed up. We started the festivities. It was a really fun party. All the kids seemed to like it. We played lots of fun games. There was strawberry cake with chocolate icing. (Travis' request) I have some great pictures.

The birthday king

Musical Parking Spaces

The Travis 600

Pit Stop (dinner)

Opening Presents

The Cake

Thanks again for visiting the Happy Halls. P.S. I'll try to get better at posting.

Girl Scouts

Hi! As I have started my posts many times, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I really try to post every week but it seems like I post every few weeks. Today I'm talking about what's been happening lately in girl scouts. Our troop has done some really fun things lately. Of course it's girl scout cookie time. I've been out selling boxes. So far I've sold 206 boxes. That's a record for me. Not only has our troop been selling girl scout cookies, but we went to winter fest at Trefoil Ranch (that's a girl scout camp). It was so much fun. I have some great pictures.

In the basement of the lodge we did archery.

Here I am getting into position.

Getting a good aim.

We also went snowshoeing. It was so cool. I had never done it before.

Here I am. Do you see the snowshoes?

Here's Troop 354

We also did pottery on the second floor of the lodge. It was really fun. I made a mask for myself and a bowl with a snake in it for Travis. I also made a mouse for Minnie. By the time I got the second ear to stick to the mouse, an eye had rubbed off it.

Here I am. I'm an artist at work.

There were many competitions. There was a snow skulpting competition. There was a snowflake making competition. There was a snow painting competition (that was the only one we got pictures of) and many more we didn't enter.

Here I am with my beautiful picture.

The next picture you are going to see is of something so cool.

Look at the ice skulpture. Isn't it awesome!

The winter fest was so fun. Sadly, there was a little incident and I went home. Another girl went home too because she wasn't feeling too great. Thanks so much for visiting the Happy Halls. I hope you come again soon.

Christmas

Hi! I'm back. Sorry I haven't been posting. Today as you can tell by the title I'm talking about Christmas. Some of these pictures my dad took. I only took a few pictures because my camera kept on having problems. We drove up to my grandparents' house in Idaho on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve dinner

Me playing the piano at our Christmas Eve performance

Christmas was so fun. I got and gave so many wonderful presents.

Look at those stockings!

Look at us!

Look at those presents!

We stayed for a few more days in Idaho. We went to three movies. We had sooo much fun. It was sad when we had to leave. I feel like I should post more this week since I haven't posted in a while. So tomorrow I'm going to try to post again. Thanks for visiting the Happy Halls.

Our Happy Trip to California

Hi! Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I was on vacation to California! It was sooo much fun! I took tons of pictures with my camera. I just can't wait to tell you all about it!

The first night we were there we stayed at my uncle's house. It was much better than a hotel! We went to a pizza place called Gina's Pizza. The food was great! I had a really good picture of everyone eating but my camera broke and we had to take the batteries out. The picture was erased.

The next day was Thanksgiving. We went to my uncle and aunt's house. We had a yummy meal of course. I made a banana cream pie. My cousins have a Wii. Travis and I had a lot of fun playing it. Here are some pictures.

Thanksgiving dinner

Me & Trav playin' the Wii

The next day we went to Torrance. That's where I used to live. It was fun. But it was sad too. We went to our favorite park that was practically across the street from where we used to live. We went to our favorite restaurants. Which were some of the best restaurants ever! I'm not kidding! We went to visit our friends at their new house. While we were walking to the restaurant that we were going to have dinner at we met some friends in their car. Then when we were at the restaurant we met some more friends. We stayed at a Double Tree hotel. The boys teased mom and me because we stayed in the jacuzzi while they went into the cold pool.

The next day we to the American Girl Store at The Grove. It's so cool there. Not only the American Girl Store but The Grove itself. It has a really cool famer's market with lots of yummy food. Here's some pictures.

My mom took this one. I'm in front of the American Girl Store.

Eating at the farmers market

We're in front of a 106 ft. Christmas tree.

We spent the rest of the day in Torrance going to more of our favorite places and restaurants.

The next day we really didn't do anything interesting.

The next day was the best day of all! We went to Disneyland! We used to have passes to Disneyland and went all the time. One of the best parts about going was that we were going to meet my cousins, Connor, Courtney, Owen, and Jack. I took millions of pictures. I'll show them.

We went home on my dad's birthday. It was sad. I hope you can come back and read more adventures of the Happy Halls.

Fall Fun

Hi! I'm back again! This time I'm posting about fall. I have some great pictures of outside. Fall has been pretty fun this year. The trees are pretty bare now but they had some beautiful colors about a week ago. I personally think the best part of fall is jumping into giant leaf piles and taking pictures of the leaves. Here's a picture I took.

That's actually not from our yard. Do you see the fence? The tree belongs to the people who live behind us. Here's another picture I took. This tree is actually in our yard.

It seems like our peach tree always loses all its leaves first. So you've seen some of my pictures. But as I told you my other favorite thing about fall is jumping in the leaves. Here's some pictures.

Look at all those leaves!

Here I come! Weee!

Me & Trav sittin' in the leaves

We're thinking of using this for our Christmas card. So that's how much fun I had this fall. I hope you have this much fun during fall too. And I hope you have this much fun when you visit the Happy Halls.