between a bob and a hard place

Happy Easter! 


Last Easter found me at my brother Matt's house in Draper. We were lucky enough to be visited by our brother Steve who lives out east, and our brother Dave who lived in Oregon at the time and his wife Kristy. 4 out of 7 siblings is quite a good turnout for us. It was a really fun weekend, we played games, talked, went to a shooting range and shot big guns...a typical Hodgen get together. 

Front L to R: Kristy, Matt, Emily
Back L to R: Dave, Steve

We're not an overwhelmingly photogenic family, but we were all together. It was a lot of fun catching up since we don't reunion much...or ever. 

Let's not forget Jonathan and Jake!

Those are Matt's sons and two of my favorite little guys, who are much bigger now a year later. Also, there is a new little guy in their family who may be my favorite of all (don't tell them!). I don't have a picture on my computer of him but I'll get one. He is 5-month-old Benjamin and I can't get enough of him. I may or may not steal him from his parents every chance I get when I'm there. 

This year I was at Matt's house again, but it was a little more subdued. First of all, the appearance of a new baby in the house tends to make things a little more complicated, no matter how much we love him. Second, we had no other visitors beside myself, and I go there so often I'm not much of a visitor anymore. Third, Terri (Matt's wife) had major surgery a few weeks ago and while she is doing great, she is still recovering. So we had a simple but fun time together and since they had to take a trip up to Idaho today, I came back to Provo Sunday (today) in the morning. Since I left my camera at home, once I get the pictures off of Matt's camera I will post more about my weekend. 

My early return to Provo meant being at an empty house since all my roommates have either moved out or gone home for a while. Not such a bad situation when you have mountains of homework you should be doing, but with the end of finals last week I'm now a free woman!! And while I can't shake the feeling that there is some homework I should be doing and I check my grades every 5 minutes to see if my last few papers have been graded (I mean, come on, It's like my teachers have something better to do or something. Ridiculous.) in truth there is nothing that has to be done before tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. If I had a house full of roommates this would be the best thing that's ever happened to me, but I am aloooooone. Cue the Lord of the Rings marathon (which will be getting it's own post, don't you worry about that!) I have also pulled out the knitting needles and started on a scarf that won't serve a purpose until November when it gets really cold again, so I'm sure it will take me that long to finish it because I can't finish anything unless it's crunch time. 

I bought two books on my Kindle, one that was super cheap: "The Dirty Parts of the Bible," which is supposed to be like "O Brother Where Art Thou?" quirky and adventurous, and came recommended to people who liked "Water for Elephants." I haven't read "Water for Elephants," but I like to consider myself someone who would enjoy it, so I decided "The Dirty Parts of the Bible" was for me. The reviews said it wasn't dirty like the title leads you to believe, and I hope that's the case. Plus I need something to do until I can read the second book...

"City of Fallen Angels," the recently released fourth installment of my current favorite Teen Trash series called "The Mortal Instruments." I'm dying to read it but have made a pact with my friend Bri (http://delynsboutique.blogspot.com/) who is also obsessed that we will wait until we are done with school and she is done taking the Praxis (UVU gets out a week after BYU). But I bought it just to make sure I had it ready when the green light came. 

Mortal Instruments series

I watched a few other movies this weekend that I hadn't seen before:

The King's Speech-Seriously, this movie is so good! the premise sounds like a snoozefest but the actual "Speech" in question takes up only a small portion of the movie. The rest is great characters interacting beautifully with a full and compelling story that moves along quickly. I loved it. And being the good little LDS people that we are, we muted out the scene with the million F words, and the rest of the movie is squeaky clean. I kind of wish we hadn't muted it, because it really is a major plot point and the way it's worked in is in no way offensive (especially with the English accent...always takes things down at least 3 points on the profanity scale). Anyways, highly recommend it!

Country Strong-I do not like country music unless it is sung by Garth Brooks or is played on pop stations and it's just so catchy I can't stop singing it (I'm looking at you, "Need You Now").  I don't always love Gwyneth Paltrow (especially her one-time character that turned into a recurring character that turned into a no-more character on Glee). But I loved this movie. In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about it or talking about it for about 24 hours after I saw it. I felt like the way they depicted various relationships was so fascinating and heart-wrenching, I couldn't get enough of it. And I thought the acting was fabulous, especially Tim McGraw! Who knew! And even though I don't like country music, while it is the premise and the drive for the characters, it is not the focus of the movie, they are. And their voices are all so unique it made for great listening. I want the soundtrack. And this is also the movie I found true love in:

Seriously, how could you pass up a chance to see him?

Last movie I watched: Toy Story 3. I hadn't seen it yet and oh my goodness it's so cute! and I thought it was hilarious, I love it when they can put in inoffensive humor for adults in kids movies. It took everything in me to hold it together at the end when Andy is playing with the little girl and the toys, since I was among other adults while I watched it. It was also kind of scary and the baby doll freaked me out. But all in all a great movie.

Ok well I think that's enough for this post. But before I go, let's do a hair check up:

Yep, it's still short. But it's growing! it's a little messy in this picture, but I've got it under control to the point where I'm not self-conscious about it anymore, thank you mr. roundbrush. It will still be a while before it stops resembling a pixie, but I'm on my way. 

Happy Easter, friends!