When Change is the Blessing

Isn't it wonderful how we are blessed with just the right people in our lives? My roommate, Lisa, went through the exact thing I had to go through with my best friend and knowing that she knew EXACTLY how I felt led me to be more open with her. She also helped me fill up the empty spaces on my wall with pictures of herself. I love her! My other roommates have been so supportive and know how to put me in a good mood. I came home from dance practice many days just feeling fatigued and wanting to go to sleep but the energy of our apartment led to me making a fool of myself with craziness. I love it and I love them.

What’s going on in my life you say? Just trying to survive my 3^rd semester up at BYU-I. Extravadance is just around the corner so dance practices now consist of costume run throughs and cleaning up numbers. My 2^nd graders are as adorable as ever. There are so many funny things that happen in class each day I’m in there. I love those kids. Anyway, that is what is new in the life of Hil.

Pictures of the semester thus far....

We thought it might be nice to spend 3 hours trying to get Sky's car out of the mud.

No worries. We enjoyed our muddy selves.

The lovely Collegiate World Dance Team

Me and my new bangs with marvelous Lisa!

Supporting the FHE bros at a freezing cold football game.

Never again.

FHE Pumpkin carvin' activity.

The downside of hot frosting.

(It slides when you tilt it.)

Me and Lisa were feeling bold one night.

It resulted in a date and a phone number. ;)

The things I do for my roommates...

Conference Weekend

2 weekends ago I had the opportunity to travel down to Utah to see my family and go to conference. It was such a great weekend. It was ALMOST our entire family. Everyone except Sarah and her family. It was sad not having her there but she was going to Oregon to see my great grandma West so travelling time with the girls was precious.

I got there Friday night and grandma had made tamales. Yum! It was a nice night hanging with my best friends. It's great having friends that you know you can be with forever. I know that a lot of people say "I'm going to be with my family forever anyway, why do I need to be with them now?" But c'mon. Why would you want to be stuck with people you don't want to be around all the time? I am so incredibly thankful that I have been blessed with people that I WANT to be with.

Saturday, the girls went to the morning session of conference. I invited my lovely roommate, Becca, to join us since shew as down for conference as well and so we all went. It was fantastic. President Uchtdorf's talk about "Slowing Down" was music to my ears. I really needed it and I am thankful that I was there, in person, to hear it.

Mom and Grandma Buck

Me and Becca! :) Love her!

The girls minus Sarah

(oh did I mention that Julie is engaged to Joey?

YEAH. I'm so excited for those too!)

Some people call me Mini Mindy. Yeah. I know.

After we went to conference we listened to the 2nd session at home and the boys left for the Priesthood session in the conference center. The girls got to go to Momma Niu's house and enjoy a Girl's Night. Mom treated us to glitter toes and of course there was a delicious chocolate foundation which I took full advantage of. After that, we went to Kohl's and did some shopping. I scored some rockin Keds and a pair of groovy earrings.

Spencer's birthday was the weekend after conference so we celebrated it altogether the week before. Mom and Dad made ribs and Mindy made a yummy cheese sauce with mashed potatoes and broccoli. It was a lot of fun! I had to leave after dinner but going down for the weekend was entirely worth it! I love my family!

Me and Pops

My brothers love me soooo much!

Happy 18th lil bro!

Drinking Foundations

Drinking Foundations. I have noticed two things.

1. People generally don’t use the shorter one and if there is someone using the taller one they will wait. This happened to me earlier in the semester. I’m not too tall… 5’2” and there was no one at the drinking fountains so I went and began to fill up my water bottle from the taller one. While doing so a girl comes up behind me. My height. And waits. I thought it was ridiculous so I moved to the shorter one and what does she say? “I’m sorry.” Girl. You aren’t sorry. It’s shear laziness that led you to waiting and there was no empathy in her eyes. I chuckled all the way to class. So from then on I have been doing just fine using the shorter one every time. Take that other short blonde girl. It is possible to bend down a couple more inches.

2. How do you drink from the foundation? This morning I went to take a drink and found myself making a kissy shape with my mouth. A fine stream of water going into a little passage in your mouth. At first it didn’t make sense to me but then I figured that if you didn’t purse your lips then all the water that goes into your mouth would drop right back out.

Another thing. Do guys want us girls to think they are super sensitive? While walking to class today I saw these two guys sitting on a bench. One of them saw and spider and said, “Smash it!” The other fellow gets his foot up ready to slam the little thing and then looks up, sees me, and says “No, you do it.” I definitely gave in to a chuckle. From my point of view it looked like his response was a reaction to seeing me but hey, I might just be conceited in my thinking.

Days turn into weeks. And weeks turn into Months.

I am back at BYU- Idaho and it’s great! I am taking many classes pertaining to my major in Elementary Education. One class requires me to go off campus and spend 2 hours in a 2^nd grade classroom. I haven’t had an opportunity to official teach but I love it nonetheless! The teacher is awesome and the kids are amazing. Seriously. They are so good! It’s fun seeing the techniques the teacher uses in teaching and in discipline. I think I’m going to enjoy my profession. I am taking Clogging Tech II once again with Gary Larsen. It’s fun of course!! I made it onto the BYUI Collegiate World Dance Team. It has been so much fun! We just finished an Aboriginal number and we moved onto an African/Hip Hop dance. The girls, all 13 of us, are funny, unique and outgoing. There is definitely never a dull moment at rehearsal.

My elementary school!

ROOMMATES! Okay, this semester my beloved Hailey is in China but that didn’t stop me from receiving rad roommates. There are 6 girls in the apartment including me, Lisa, Melissa, Becca, Alyssa, and Steffani. Me and Melissa have been roommates since our first semester up at BYUI. Bec was with us last semester. Lisa was our FHE Mom last semester and is now my room roommate (I’ve never had such a consistently clean room). Alyssa is new to us. She is the sister of one our FHE bro’s last semester and is engaged to a stud in our ward. Steffani is a fresh out of high school freshman. I think it’s safe to say that we all enjoy Steffani with her pink cooking supplies and her serious commitment to football.

Me and the Beccers.

I have found that something I enjoy about many other things is sending and receiving missionary mail. Writing 4 of my missionary friends on a regular basis, I am the unofficial mail checker for the 504 and don’t worry, you won’t see me missing a day checking the mail. I LOVE MISSIONARIES.

I get to visit some of my family next weekend when I go down for conference to Yay!

Well!!! I love my life and when I start to feel sorry for myself then I know I’m not thinkin! I have so many things to be grateful for!

Love, Hil

Goals for July 11 - July 23

I am horrible as keeping the goals I make.

Here are new goals till the end of the semester:

• Exercise Monday - Friday
• Don't leave homework for the morning of

I figure I should start small with two and grow from there.

Good Luck to me!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for... Calzones?

Calzone are delicious,

Calzones are fun,

And when I eat them

I like to say "Yum!"

~

As you can probably tell.. I've made a calzone. For those of you who do not know what a calzone is... It is a "glorified" pizza pocket, or an inside-out pizza.

Yesterday, I was home all alone trying to write an essay for my Book of Mormon class and needed a big time break. So after calling my mommy I made pizza dough (I included the pizza dough recipe below.) and cooked up some chicken, shredded some cheese and put it all on a spreaded out piece of dough. Then rolled the dough over the mixture and folded the sides over to seal it. Dropped a few Tbl. of sauce on top and plopped it into the oven.

Today, I took out some leftover dough I had packed tight in the refrigerator and let it thaw to room temperature. Marinated some chicken in a soy sauce, oil, brown sugar mixture and waited while it soaked in the flavor. After that, I cooked the chicken with some garlic and placed the chicken in the shaped dough with a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella cheese. After baking for 10 minutes, I took it out and glazed the top with some teriyaki sauce and let it continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes. It was very good! I actually liked it better after it had cooled a bit. Anyway, Yum yum yum! I want to try a more desserty type of calzone. I'm thinking marshmallows and chocolate would be a good pair but we shall see... The joys of experimental college cooking!

TTFN, Ta Ta For Now!

Pizza Dough

1 c. very warm water

1 Tbl. yeast

1 tsp. sugar

Mix together and let sit till bubbly

ADD

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbl. vegetable oil

2 1/2 c. flour (less if you use bread flour)

Shape and let rise for 15-45 minutes

Bake 425 degrees for 12-15 minutes

*When I'm making an actual pizza I like to let the pizza cook in the oven without any toppings on for about 7-9 minutes , then add the toppings. This way, the bottom on the pizza has time to cook and you don't have problems with a doughy under side.

HAPPY CUATRO DE JULIO!

What an awesome picture. It looks like Alice stole all my dad's hair.

Last weekend I made another long journey back home to California. The only difference about this time was that I didn't feel like I was going to crash and die while in the car. My friend, Meredith, from my ED 200 class (and who happened to be baptized with Ry when they were 8) told me that she was going down a day earlier than my ride was going and that she had room for another! I jumped on the opportunity and left the next day. We drove down to SLC to meet up with a friend of Meredith's then journeyed home. I got into Elk Grove around 1 am Friday morning safe and sound.

I fell asleep in the guest room my mom had prepared for me and woke up promptly at 6:15. I have no idea why I was so awake after not having slept in the car and receiving about 4 hours of sleep but there I was. Awake and alert. Not wanting to lay in my bed till a more reasonable hour I "frolicked" into my parents' room and crawled in between my mom and dad. I don't think Dad appreciated that too much but Mom talked to me in the bed for about an hour. After chatting, we got up and did Denise Austin's "Boot Camp" workout video. It was a fun, kickin' workout.

I was supposed to meet Ry to go swimming at 10:30 am but I stopped at Arden Fair Mall to buy a pair of cheap sunglasses (I had forgotten mine at college) and a cute little toe ring. I've been eye-ing toe rings for a while and think that they are so adorable. So I waltzed right in to The Icing and purchased a simple three wired toe ring. Yes, I had to stop and put it on right in the mall... Then stop 2 times on my way out to readjust it. I'm still getting the hang of it but it was a good buy.

Around 11:00 I picked up Ry and we went to the clubhouse pool to lay out and swim. I'm grateful that I'm comfortable enough with Ryan to go swimming with him. It makes these activities that we do I a lot more fun. Anyway, we swam a bit (me without getting my face and hair wet) and then laid in the sun on the pool chairs. Ryan is one of the biggest sun babies I know. Any chance he has to get out in the sun he does. ha, ha.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at my sister's watching "New Moon" and getting psyched up for seeing "Eclipse" the next day. We then went to my parents to eat the traditional Friday pizza and called it a day.

Saturday morning, Sarah, Aaron, Ry, and I went to the early bird showing of "Eclipse". Did I love it? YES. Mucho. But I'm a sucker for those kinds of movies. After the movie nap time came for me and Ryan. We sure do love our naps.

That evening, the Hogge clan got together at Gma and Gpa Hogge's house and had dinner, dessert and fireworks. Ry walked onto the patio area where the dinner was set up with the chargers and goblets and fabric napkins and said "Wow, this is nice" (or something to that extent). This doesn't seem humorous but anyone who has ever been to a Hogge dinner at Gma's knows this is a very common scene. That evening was extremely fun. After dinner, Natalie, Josh and Tarzan showed up after driving all the way from Texas. What a fun treat!

A lot of us got to sit around the table and chat, chat, chat! I loved it!

Earlier that day, Mari helped my mom decorate these red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Mari and Kendall loved them!

Ryan thought it would be funny to smash the lovely cupcake into my face just as the picture was being taken.

Ry and Manna had time to react. I, however, did not. Boo.

That night was so much fun!

Sunday, I attended sacrament meeting in my family ward then went to the Sacramento Stake's YSA ward with Ry. I got to see Kelsey with her fiance, Corey, or Elder Rich. ha, ha.

After church we went to my house and I demolished Ryan at Checkers. The only game I can beat him in. ha, ha. After dinner, my family played Quibbler. A cross between phase 10 and scrabble. It was a lot of fun! Even though I placed last... Oh well! You win them, you lose them. After the exciting game, Dad made some Fruit in the Season thereof to-go and Ry and I made our way back to his house. We watched some fireworks and played a game of Sorry! with sister, Ellen.

All in all. It was one of the most fun weekends I've had in a long time. Nothing beats being able to spend a weekend with your family and boyfriend. I know a lot of people don't think family time is the most enjoyable time they have but going away to college has really helped me realize how much I enjoy being home!

Happy Fourth of July!