i miss my puppies.

every semester about this time, i start to really, really miss my dogs. i never really thought iʻd be that kind of person. but there is something wonderful about having a 10 pound furry lap warmer that cuddles with you all the time. or two as the case may be.

and you know, i miss my family too. but i can talk to them on the phone. and they donʻt cuddle.

being landlocked.

some people complain about being on an island, and how they miss being able to drive all over the place. i miss being able to walk to the ocean. but on a happy note, iʻm looking at flights and housing for next semester. and getting my byuh account hold taken off. apparently no one knows that i am an endorsed student. how frustrating.

summertime

yeah, so iʻve been bad about updating my blog. i was home for the summer and that was great. the best part about it was that I got to be an efy counselor at southern virginia university for two weeks. it was amazing, but it was also really really hard. operating under not so much sleep is not something i do well. but i had some amazing experiences nonetheless. i worked with incredible youth and counselors.this is my first group--called "see not." we had three counselors-myself, whitney, and ricky. it was a pretty big group, and ʻll admit, i never really got everyoneʻs names down. All the youth were great--i could sense their testimonies even if they didnʻt share them all the time. i really enjoyed getting to know the eight girls that i was assigned and was so excited to run into heather the ot

her day at jamba juice in the wilk! I had two girls from wv in my group, another girl was the

daughter of one of my momʻs bridesmaids, three were from my old stake in virginia, and then there were two that i had no connection to, but they were so sweet and i love them all! they were so good and patient as i figured out the ropes of being a counselor. i loved seeing them co

me to greater testimonies of their savior. i also got to know some of the other counselors--especially jenn and amy. the three of us became fast friends when we met at the materials table, which we rocked. we were in charge of getting everyone the dvd, handbook, and cd. btw, the efy cd this year is one of my absolute favorites. everyone told me that the first week would be an incredible experience, and it for sure was...and every time they said, just wait for week two, ʻcause youʻll be singing a different tune.

....and i was. week two, while still an incredible experience, was at times excruciatingly difficult. i was struggling with where i was going to end up after fall semester (iʻm an early worrier). the youth that week were also on the whole, much more difficult to deal with than the week before. but, i heard horror stories about earlier in the summer. at least no one hog tied their counselors with duct tape and carried them off, or hung other youth out windows (that seriously happened). thankfully, my group--feast upon-- was again wonderful. this week i worked with the younger age group of 14-15 year olds. i was afraid that i would be with a bunch of silly, squirrelly kids, but ohmygosh they were great. this week i was so much better at names this week. it helped that the group was a lot smaller...one of the smallest that week actually. it was just my group of eight girls and ericʻs twelve boys. they were all amazing. one of the boys was actually from my home ward, which was fun.

i'm no meghan seely, but...

i like to take pictures of flowers. i started my floral photo collection on a gallavant to Europe for in 2007. and ever since, it's just kind of been my thing. honestly i think it is the girliest thing about me

slc, utah. lds conference center. april 08

kona, hawaii. lds temple. june 09

somewhere in europe. summer 07

slc, utah. conference center. may 08.

'oahu. pcc? sometime in 08.

paris, france? summer 07

europe. germany? summer 07.

stresa, italy. hotel regina. summer 07.

ditto.

ohmyohmyohmy

i ate octopus soup for dinner tonight. yes, octopus.

my friend bilgee from mongolia called me up and said he had caught one earlier today and made soup, and invited me over for dinner. i've never had octopus before...in fact the closest i've ever gotten is olive garden's calamari. i was really fascinated with the idea of eating octopus. it was still tentacle-y with suction cups and everything. it was really good...i liked it a lot. i wish i had a picture, but i didn't even think to bring my camera.

another cool discovery today was this cool program that byu has. the bookstore has a service where you can log in and it accesses your class list and then compiles a list of the required texts for all of the classes. a lot of mine for fall are already listed. byuh needs something like that too--it would make the whole book thing so much easier.

i got my efy hiring paperwork signed in honolulu (again). hopefully this time it will work and i can sign a contract soon. the paperwork goes in the mail tomorrow!

and i found out today that the iosepa voyaging canoe leaves tomorrow! hooray! they've been waiting a while for an escort boat, but they got one! they'll be gone until the 29th, which is a week voyage.

last weekend my roommate meghan, her boyfriend adam, and I all went over to hanauma bay to go snorkeling! it was way fun, especially since i love snorkeling. here's the pics!

we got an underwater group shot and everything! the water got murky, but you can make out the masks.

and yes mom, this is in fact what must be the largest edition of skippy john jones in publication. the thing was huge.

spring adventures

I've reached the halfway point of the spring term, and everything is going great. I like my house, even though there have been some...quirks. When we first moved in, the shower didn't drain, and we spent a week or so trying to get it to stop before just getting some superstrong drain-0. We've had some cockroach sightings, as well as various other members of the insect family. While I'm not a huge fan of the bugs being around, I'm one of two of the girls in the house that can actually get close enough to kill the bugs. Usually one of us is home, so we've been able to take care of the problem fairly well.

Two weeks ago I spent several hours on the beach and ending up getting fairly fried. I never burned at home, or basically anywhere but here. But I definitely can burn here. It won't usually be too bad, but I got fried,but basically just on the front of my legs. I stayed away from the beach sincethen, luckily the weather and my homework gave me excellent reasons to do so. But this past Saturday, I went back to the beach and managed to fry the back of my legs. Whoops.

One really good thing about Saturday was that it was the first day to take out my new camera. LAst semester my old one got swept away, then spit back up by the ocean. Needless to say, the camera was toast. This past week, my lovely parents sent me a new, waterproof camera. While I wasn't giving myself skin cancer, I played with the camera in the water.

So basically, I think this camera is the coolest thing ever. It takes good pictures in AND out of water. Props to Rhonda for being a much better underwater model than me. What else could one ask for really? Well, the camera has about a million other features that I haven't quite figured out yet. One I like is the smile shot feature, that takes three really quick pictures to make sure everyone smiles. Whooooah.

Saturday was also foodfest, which is pretty much one of my favorite things ever at BYUH. The clubs all sell food, and since most of our clubs are culture clubs, we get to choose from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Fijian, Kiwi, etc. food. It's much bigger in the Fall/Winter semesters, but I enjoyed this semester's quite a bit. I ran into some of my favorite people!
This is Kat and BJ, my incredible co-workers. Cat is from WV too! BJ is from Singapore, and she's leaving for military training for the summer, so I'm glad I got to see her before she left. We might be able to get together in DC over the summer, which would be great.
This is Rhonda, Tiffany, Treana, and me when it started pouring at Foodfest. Having a camera that works in the rain is so convienient! Treana Ram is the daughter of Rhonda's bishop; we love their family. Tiffany is Tree's friend, we met her at the Ram's.

And last, but not least, Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Hope these pictures last you until you're real present comes!

spring break

on tuesday of this week, i moved into my house! hooray! no more dorm room for me. i love it. my roommate meghan was my neighbor last fall and we got to be good friends then and decided to live together this semester! she is so great. one thing that is not so great is that i lost my phone charger, brown flipflops, and my brush in the moving process. daaaang it. still haven't found any of it yet.

i've been able to make it into the sun this week, which has been wonderful...i finally am closer to the color i was when i went home for sam's baptism. today meghan and i are hoping to go to electric beach on the west side of the island to go snorkeling and maybe make it to target as well.

grades came out, and while it definitely was my weakest academic semester (it was also the hardest semester all around), i still have my 3.8!

my finals week.

monday. group presentation. hawaiian final part 1. four hours of class, two and a half of work.
tuesday. 2 hour group meeting for final project. compose write ups for honors classes. one hour work. start picking quotes/outlining for romeo and juliet paper due tomorrow. no sleep.
wednesday. hawaiian final part 2. three hours class, two hours work. write 10 page research paper in 5 hours. learned to play bass line of ingrid michaelson's the way i am (still excited).
thursday. group presentation. write up handout for tutor class. 3 hours class, 6 hours work. take book of mormon final. study for hawaiian final. finish whc assignment 2. laundry. get bike to borrow for spring semester. pack.
friday. wake up 6:30, ride bike to foodland. have foodland adventure, come back to school. take hawiian final pt 3. class 2 hours, work two hours. write 10 page paper in 4 hours. write 3 page paper in 2-3. loose wallet. pack. find wallet. pack.

that was not fun.

one down on the bucket list.

Last night, I learned to play a song on the guitar. I'm pretty much tickled. My friend Zandria listened to one of my favorite songs my Ingrid Michaelson, "The Way I Am" and wrote out the bass guitar line and then taught it to me on her guitar. Later on she's going to teach me the chords for the guitar part. We're going to try to get a bunch of people together to perform it at an @rtimos concert in Honolulu. @rtimos was founded by a BYUH student, and the concerts are to promote peace through sharing art and music. It's pretty awesome.

What's not awesome is finals week. I'm ready for it to be done. On Saturday I'm moving out of the hales so that I can move into my new house on Tuesday! Yay!

i cleaned my room and lost my ipod.

i always told mom that if everything was on the floor, i knew where everything was. i was so right. i tidied up my room last night...nothing major, just reorganized drawers and made sure the floor was cleared. in the process, my ipod disappeared.

i love my ipod. for me, listening to a song on my ipod can completely transform my day. it's my song, and i'm hearing it and no one else around me has any idea what amazing things are going on because they can't hear them. "can't take it in" by imogen heap is one of those songs. can't close my eyes, they're wide awake. every hair on my body has got a thing for this place. when i hear this song, i remember why i'm here and that i really love the moments where i'm walking by physical plant but all i see are the lush green jungle ridges of the hawaiian mountains against a bright blue sky. or when i take a minute to forget i'm in class and just look at my classmates (discreetly, of course) and realize how much it means to have a class of 15 have students of 10 different nationalities. oh, empty my heart, i've got to make room for this feeling. so much bigger than me...i can't take it in...

and i remember, it's all ok.

but now my ipod is lost somewhere in the 8x8 space in my room and i can't find it and for some impossible reason, playing the same music on itunes doesn't have the same affect at all. that's not at all ok.

things that make me happy

I've decided lately to focus on things that make me happy. I've found that I have so many more reasons to be happy, even when it seems as though the unhappy things are so overpowering. So here are a few things that make me happy.

My iPod is definitely one. I love that it's Product(RED) and that I was able to help people with the purchase (even though my parents bought it--thanks ). When I am having a bad day, I can "plug" myself into my iPod and I can feel better! A couple good songs for me are "Can't Take It In" by Imogen Heap, "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga, and awesome acoustic covers. Check out Obadiah Parker's "Hey Ya", and Yael Naim's "Toxic". Another group I love is Vitamin String Quartet--they play string versions of popular "radio hit" songs. They also have really fun album names like "Vitamin Strings Quartet's Emo Anti-Valentine's Day Tribute" that crack me up. Buying a new fun song is one of my best ways to turn a bad day into a good one.


I really do enjoy learning and being at school. Learning cool things makes me really happy. It gives me something to think about and to be able to share with other people! Today in my Hawaiian language class we read the myth about the first 'ulu kumu la'au, or breadfruit tree, in the islands. It was an awesome story that emphasized the importance Hawaiian culture places on expressing love. School in Hawaii isn't too bad. Hawaii makes me happy.

My family are also huge happy influences on my life. I know that I can talk to my family about anything...and I do most of the time. I feel that way about my close friends as well. They have all been huge supports to me, especially when I need a pick-me-up or just to vent. I loved being able to come home for Christmas and spending some time with them! They are super supportive while I'm at school and I always look forward to the weekly phone call with everyone, even though sometimes schedules don't mesh too well. Silly time zones.

Someday we should probably take a good family pic though...

I'm trying not to focus on material things, but Vera Bradley products make me happy too. Luckily I'm tickled with the stuff I already have, since she's an investment. I have a messenger bag and two zip wallets and a small fold wallets in mod floral and purple punch. They make me smile. The zip wallets are nice because I can slip my phone and all my necessary cards inside and have everything together. Plus I've got my mail key on it too. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare everyone a diatribe. :)

because life caught up with me...

Here's some highlights from the rest of the break:


I love the Washington, D.C. temple with the Christmas lights!


The girls and I at the pretzel factory in PA.



This is the spot where Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream Speech"! Washington day trip was way fun!

Outside HersheyWorld! (Obviously!) The whole family (and Kent) went up to PA and did Hershey and Lancaster. It's been a long time since I've done been up there! Way fun!

I'm back to school now and am really looking forward to this semester. My classes are going to be challenging and I'm going to really need to stay on top of things. I've been getting better every semester about not procrastinating my schoolwork and I think this will be the test! I'm taking five classes: Hawaiian Language, Book of Mormon II, Intercultural Communications, Shakespeare, and Western Humanities II. All but the first are Honors classes. I will be writing a lot more than I have previously. I'm still working at the Reading/Writing Center, which I really enjoy. I haven't really had a chance to do anything too fun yet, but have gone to a couple basketball games! I only have one class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I plan on spending some quality time with the beach on those days.

Philadelphia and Boston!

On Thursday Kent and I left for Boston to visit his sister Hillary. We anticipated driving about eight hours and making a two-hour stop in Philadelphia on the way. The Philly part went as planned, but we actually ended up driving for closer to 10 hours, thanks to traffic in Connecticut.

We got to see Independence Hall in Philadelphia--this is the room where the Declaration of Independence was signed! It was amazing to be able to go there and see the site of such an important part of our nation's history. We also got to the see the Liberty Bell!




This flock of birds came over as soon as Kent and I sat down with our lunch of (of course) philly cheese steaks. We had occasionally thrown a few pieces of bread into the throng, but the birds got impatient and began to fly up close to us. I was curious and held out a piece of bread to see one would eat out of my hand and it did! Holy cow!

Our time in Boston was an absolute blast! Hillary and her husband John were incredible hosts! They have a cozy apartment right on the beach outside the city. We got to go shopping with Hillary the next morning before the impending snowstorm and went out to breakfast the a cafe called High Tide. It was soooo good. The snow hit at about 2 that afternoon and didn't really stop. It snowed almost a foot, if not more. Sunday was pretty much the same way. We managed to get to High Tide again on Sunday for another awesome breakfast...and then the snow came again. We spent our snow days playing MarioKart, Guitar Hero, and board games, and watching movies and Arrested Development. Kent and I had never watched it before and we love it! It's one of my new favorites. We only got through about half of season one though, what a bummer.
Even though we couldn't get out on Friday or Sunday, we managed to get to the city on Saturday in between the bouts of snow. It was still snowing, just not as hard. It was a lot colder than Hawaii!


We met up with Hillary's friend Kristen, and then went through the Boston Commons, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Hall, and browsed through some stores before heading to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. We headed over to the North End and went to Mike's Pastries before we saw the movie "Yes Man". The whole day was an absolute blast! John, Hillary, and Kristen were great tour guides. The city's Christmas decorations were amazing, especially when the lights came on after dark. It was well worth braving the cold.

Home for Christmas!

This is what Laie looked looked like the day before I left for home. The highway was closed and there was no going in or out for anyone! The rain just kept coming and it looked like a possibility that going home would have to be postponed a few days. Luckily the rain stopped and the sunshine came back. We ended up renting a car in order to get to the airport--we lucked out and got a free upgrade to a convertible! It was a great way to spend driving around the island on our last day! Thanks to Rhonda for driving and for people uploading flood pics on facebook, since I didn't take any!

Having Kent come home with me was a blast! We arrived on Saturday the 13th, my brother Andrew's birthday! We got to celebrate with him in that evening, which was great. Before we left Oahu, I picked him up an instruction book on folding dollar bills into Hawaiian-themed shapes. He so far has managed to fold his money into a fish. Our Grandma Hoffmann sends us new $1 bills for our birthdays, so he has at least 17 to practice with!

On Monday, Kent and I went to the historic district of Harpers Ferry. Before the Civil War, Harpers Ferry was the site of an attempted slave uprising led by the white abolitionist John Brown. The National Parks Service has a pretty interesting set up with restored houses and displays on the history of the town. Literally right next to the National Park is a cute street with shops owned by local residents. There are several gifts/souvenir shops, a couple jewelry stores, pottery stores, and more! I used to work at Harpers Ferry Books on this street, where I sold new and used books in the lower level of a converted house. We also walked up to Jefferson Rock overlooking the merging of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.


The weather on Monday was incredible! It stayed up in the 60s most of the day. Kent and I took advantage of the warm weather and went to get a Christmas tree! Having a live Christmas tree is one of my favorite things about the season, and I was glad my family had been too busy with concerts, etc. to have gotten one before we got there. We picked out a pretty good one, in my opinion. It smelled AMAZING. Getting the tree home was pretty easy, but I didn't anticipate how difficult the rest of the process would be! Usually Dad and Andrew take care of cutting the stump and getting it into the base while Mom, the girls and I would make hot chocolate inside. None of us are too fond of the cold. I still didn't do any sawing this time, but I watched (and tried to help where I could) as Kent got the stump cut straight and cut to the right height. It was a lot more involved than I had previously believed. Kent did an awesome job! We got the tree into the house and then spent another half hour getting it to stand straight before we could put on the lights. The work is well worth having a live tree!

Tuesday was my birthday, and it was a great one! Kent took me out to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, which was wonderful! The warm weather left quickly--the forecast was calling for freezing rain during the afternoon so school ended early. Our school district is kind of wimpy when it comes to the weather. But it meant that my siblings came home a couple hours early, so I won't complain! The freezing rain didn't really happen, so my family stuck to tradition and went out to dinner wherever I chose (Casa Gonzales for Mexican, whoohoo!).

On Wednesday Kent and I headed to Shepherdstown, the local college town. It's pretty similar to Harpers Ferry, just without as much historical significance. I still love it though! We walked around and looked around in the different stores and got some delicious pastries at the bakery. This is us at the Rumsey monument and then the interior of one of the stores in Shepherdstown.

After leaving Shepherdstown, we picked up a bunch ingredients for Thai Chicken Wraps, a Carollo family fav. Kent did most of the work, but everyone (that wanted to) was able to help make them. They were super easy to make and made the house smell awesome! They went over pretty well with everyone here.