Spring in Germany

Tomorrow is beginning of spring. My mom is from Germany and I love German spring.
German winters are cold and frosty, but spring is always a joy and lets all snow melt.

Winter

Spring!

The trees and bushes in spring explode with blossoms in beautiful colors.

Flowers emerge from ground that had just been covered with snow.

My aunt's outdoor is trampoline is ready for use again and my favorite thing to do is jump into spring with my brother! 

Dogs can nap outside in the warm spring sun and gnomes come out to make front yards pretty.

Many people on my grandma's and aunt's street are decorating their bushes to get ready for the holidays. 
I am really looking forward to celebrate spring and Easter with my family but wished I could see my German family and friends this year too!

What is your favorite part about spring?
What is your favorite season?

                             HAPPY SPRING!

A visit to the La Brea Tar Pits

Two days ago my girl scout troop took an overnight trip to the La Brea Tar Pits. We
camped inside of the George C. Page Museum right next to a Wooly Mammoth!

Setting up our sleeping space next to the Wooly Mammoth

The La Brea Tar Pits are located right in the middle of Los Angeles, surrounded by big buildings
and busy streets. It is a very smelly, but fun place. The smell comes from a gas called methane gas. We saw it bubble up in the tar and it's actually passed by living, oil  eating bacteria.

'La Brea" means 'The Tar' in Spanish, so the name really means: the The tar Tar Pits. :0)

Tar (or Aspalt) is made of oil and has been seeping up from the ground for ten thousands of years. It has trapped thousand of animals. The pits were camouflaged with dust, leaves or water.
Imagine a plant eater looking for food getting trapped in the sticky tar. Calling for help it would attract
hungry predators like saber toothed cats or a pack of dire wolves, who ended up stuck too. Even birds, trying to feed on caucuses could not fly out and died along with the other animals.

All the bones from trapped animals were preserved by the tar and covered up by more dirt and tar. This happened again and again over the years. Over 5 million bones have been found up so far!

Tar pit with bones stuck in rock, surrounded by water and tar

We saw the skeletons of many species in the museum, like dire wolves, mammoths, saber toothed cat, ground sloths and even ancient horses.

Saber toothed cat (above) and
dire wolf skulls (below)

The bone fossils are stuck in a hard, rocky material called 'matrix'.  

Our troop examined and sorted out matrix dust to find micro (small) fossils. We found bone fragments (little splinters), wood and if you were lucky, you found little shell piecees!

Examining and sorting micro fossils

We also put together a sabertooth cat bone puzzle. We looked at a real skeleton to find out where the bones belonged. I had a rib bone to match.

Saber toothed cat rib bone

Matching bones

Our museum sleepover was a blast and I hope that I can come back soon!




Have you ever  been to the La Brea Tar Pits?
If so, what is your favorite thing to look at?

Visiting my big brother!

My brother Leon is almost 21 years old and lives on the campus of his school, USC (University of Southern California). He is very sweet and lovable.

Leon always tells me to work hard, so I can attend a great university just like him!
His grades were so good that he received a full scholarship after high school. That means that my parents do not have to pay for his classes. I sure hope that I will get a scholarship too!
I was very sad when Leon moved away from home, but I love when he picks me up and takes me on a tour of his university.

His school, USC, was founded in 1880 and is the oldest private research university in California.
It has many traditions.
For example, on their way to a football game and back, the students will kick a flagpole for good luck.
Another important tradition are the school colors, cardinal red and gold.

My daddy and brother in cardinal and gold!

I really liked the statue of George Tirebiter, the dog who was USC's unofficial mascot for a while. He wandered onto the campus in the 1940's and always chased cars to bite their tires! He was brought to football games in a limousine and led the marching band to the field. The students loved him even more when he bit the nose of a rival mascot!

George Tirebiter and I

The most important statue on campus is a life size Trojan warrior called Tommy Trojan. All  USC teams are called Trojans. My brother told me that a newspaper wrote that USC athletes fought and took losses bravely like Trojans ( warriors from ancient Greece) . The name stuck like glue.
During football games against USC's biggest rival UCLA, Tommy gets wrapped up in duct tape to protect him from vandalism.

Tommy and I

Tommy before a game :0)
Photo by Wikipedia

My favorite building was the library. It is a reader's dream! There is even a basement with lots of
books!

Part of the library

Lastly, we visited my brother's fraternity house, where he shares a room with another student. Only boys can be members of a student fraternity. There is a sorority house across the street. Only female students can join a sorority.  I hope, I can be part of a sorority at USC one time!

Spending time with my brother was fun and exciting. I wished I could see him more!

Having fun with my big brother

Do you have siblings?
Have you been to a University?

Aerial Silk!

Last year, my family and I watched a Cirque du Soleil show  and I was in awe of the aerial acrobats  swinging high above us. It looked like a mixture of gymnastics and ballet in the air. 

Cirque du soleil arial performer

Aerial silk is aerial (in the air) acrobatics performed on a special fabric
that is suspended from the ceiling. It is very long and not made out of silk, but of polyester lycra. It is also extremely strong and a little stretchy.

Aerial silk

The performers use the silk to wrap, climb, swing, suspend, twirl and drop into lots of different positions without a net under them for safety.

Lexi, my aerial teacher. She is amazing!

As soon as my dance studio offered a class, I talked my mom into signing me up. It's lots of fun!

Before we work with the silk, we bring out mats and do lots of warm up exercises to avoid injury. 

Warm up!

Firstly, Lexi ties two strands of silk into a knot. We learn positions like the
straddle and froggy.

Straddle

Froggy

The first techniques we learned are called wraps. We wrap the silk around our arms and legs, so we don't fall when we go into different positions.

Single foot lock (wrap)

One pose held by the single foot lock is called 'candy cane'.   :0)

Practicing a candy cane

We also learn to climb the fabric, which is mostly done by pushing up 
from a wrapped foot over and over again. I can't climb up very high yet, and 
I think my mom is happy about that!

Trying to climb high!

Aerial is FANTASTIC fun. It makes me feel calm and confident.

Have you seen an arial show?

Would you like to learn?

Winter fun in Big Bear

Living in Southern California is great fun.
We live only 30 minutes away from the ocean and our summers are very long.
Unfortunately, during winter time, it is too warm for snow in my area.
My mom and I love the snow and this winter break my family drove up to Big Bear
for some snowtastic fun!

We stayed in one of these mansions! Not...but our log
cabin was very cosy and comfortable :0)

The car ride was 3 hours, which is not too bad at all.

We made it up some seriously steep and twisty roads and finally the elevation 

was high enough to see the first snow! We stopped, got out of the car and had a little snow ball fight.

 Have I mentioned, that I adore snow? :0)

Arriving on the mountain

This was our second time in Big Bear, but last time, we just went sledding. Now it was time to learn how

 to ski. We rented skies, shoes and helmet and got up early next day for my first ski school lesson.

It was such amazing, tremendous, ultimate fun! The weather was sunny and not cold at all. 

My instructor told me, that she had graduated from high school 2 years early! She was very smart

and sweet and I missed her a lot when we had to leave.

My ski teacher and I

Sometimes there is not enough snow even in the mountains and snow has to be made from water 

and blown onto the slopes with big cannons.

After skiing we cooked dinner in our cabin kitchen and I had a big mug of hot chocolate every

night. Hot chocolate on a cold night is sensational.

I hope we drive into the snow again soon!

Half frozen Big Bear lake at sunset

Have you been skiing? 

Do you like the snow? 

Have you been to Big Bear? 

Dancing The Nutcracker with the Moscow Classical Ballet

In December, I was lucky enough to dance with the Moscow Classical Ballet!

The Moscow Classical Ballet is a ballet company from Russia. They have won 15 Gold medals for their performances and come to the US every year with "The Nutcracker".

"The Nutcracker" Ballet is based on a German fairy tale and is written by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky lived from 1840 to 1893 and followed a musical carrer against the will of his parents. I am very happy he did, because I really like his music!

He composed symphonies, operas, chamber music and famous ballets like "Sleeping Beauty", "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker".

Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky






 The Moscow Ballet  needed girls for a Christmas scene and 12 girls from my dance school were picked to dance with them. I was so excited to be one of them!

   Eight of us played little girls in fancy dresses and 4 of us played mice. I was picked as a little girl.

   We did not have a lot of practice time and needed a translator, because everyone spoke Russian.

  There were Russian signs everywhere, so the dancers would know where to go backstage.

I  adored the ballerina who was assigned to be my mom on stage. She spoke English and helped to ease the butterflies in my stomach.

My stage mom and I

Our parts were small, but performing with world class dancers was thrilling! I don't even remember seeing the audience!

My real mom helped us girls to get ready for the show and watched from backstage.

View from backstage

Some people say that ballet is easy, but everything in ballet is supposed to hurt!

I started two years ago, it is hard work, but I really love it. My ballet teacher is always sweet and patient and makes me want to practice all the time. She says the more you work on becoming a better dancer, the less it hurts.
My dream is to be "en pointe" ( dancing on the tip of your toes wearing special pointe shoes), but it will take me another three years to earn this special privilege.

En Pointe

Maybe I can be a prima ballerina one day!

Ballet Barre Practice

First Testing

What's your passion?

Welcome to Kelly's Connection!

Hello everyone,

My name is Kelly.  This is my first blog and I am so excited about it!

I am eight years old and I'm in third grade. I live in Southern California with my mom, dad, big brother and our dog Diesel. Diesel is a greyhound and we rescued him after his racing career was over. He is the gentlest dog in the world!

Diesel

My mom is  German and my dad is American. One of my favorite things to do is visit Germany!

My hobbies are ballet, piano, soccer, drawing and skiing. My newest hobby is blogging :0)  In my opinion, blogging is so much fun! I love it because you get to share your story and connect with people from all over the world. Sometimes you can even find blogging buddies!

I am looking forward to sharing my hobbies, interests and exciting stories with you!

I'm thankful to Mrs.Yollis, my teacher, for teaching us how to comment and post. I am really happy that I am in her class.

Me in Big Bear

What is your favorite part about blogging?
What are your hobbies?

Love,

Kelly