Thursday, August 23, 2012

Sweet, Sweet Summer Time

Feast your eyes on this:

Tell me that that doesn't look like the funnest thing in the world... I dare you.

Ok, so last month my ward had quite possibly THEE funnest ward activity ever. I simply had to share.
We had a foam slip n slide. If you look very closely at the topleft corner of this next picture, you can kind of see how this concoction was created. 

 Two Shop vacs, two tubs of water and soap, tightly covered with sheets (to form the bubbles) and some rather long plastic.


 It was seriously SO stinking fun!
These next few pictures display my greatest idea to date.

Slip n Slide Bowling!

I was the bowling ball, and some kind, innocent by-standards eagerly agreed to be my pins.




Not too shabby, eh?
Now don't you all try and recruit me to your bowling teams all at once.


We took a quick break from foam slip n slide (when a tear was discovered) and played some ice cream football. It's your basic touch football rules with only one slight change... the football is a box carton of ice cream!

We got so messy and the boys had quite a good time rubbing fist-fulls of half melted ice cream into our hair :(



Good thing the slip n slide was repaired before long and we had all that nice, foamy soap and water to slip, slide and clean up with.


I loved every minute of it and vowed that my kids will not be foreign to foam slip n slides. It will be a regular occurrence at our house I assure you.

Love, Noelle

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

TBTBTBTBTBTBTB


Everytime I login to "mybyui" student page, I am rudely interrupted and informed with a ginormous blaring sign that says something along the lines of: 

Dear Noelle, 
The very second you so much as step foot in Rexburg, you had better beeline your little patootie over to the Health Center for a TB test. This is due to the fact that you left the continent and exposed yourself to all sorts of foreign diseases.



I get light-headed even just thinking about TB tests. :(

As terribly unhappy as I am about this…. You were worth it Peru!


After a brisk morning run to Llancanora waterfalls



 So worth it.

Love, Noelle
  

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Dear Diary,

When I was 14, I had a little pink journal that I got from Young Women's with a jar full of strips of paper that had questions on it. Everyday, I would pick out a question, tape it to a page in my pink journal and answer the question. Here are a few of the entries I read today.

Keep in mind, this is 14-year-old Noelle.... Brace yourself

Friday, January 21, 2005

Question: Who am I closest to in my family? How did our relationship grow?

Answer: It changes from time to time. Right now I think it's, believe it or not, Daniel. Even though I hated his guts last year. It's not close, close, but we seem to get a long. I think it's because we're alike in some odd crazy ways. And Travis, I know you're reading this, so close it now. You too Natalie.

Thursday 8/4/05

Question: Who are some of my favorite people and why?

Not in any specific order-
1. Heather Humes - YW President and her kids
2. My Mom
3. Bolton Family
4. Taryn Leavitt and Chelsi McConnell and Grace Turner (My best buds)
5. Oprah Winfrey   **What the??

Friday February 3, 2005

Question: What are my goals and dreams?

 1. Be valedictorian                                                **Check
2. Recieve a full ride scholarship to BYU-I             **Check
3 Get a job and a licence at age 16                         **Check 
4. Get married and live in Utah                             **Half Check
5. Never go into debt                                                **Check
6. Have $1000 in the bank by the time I graduate     **Check
7. Get straight A's 'til college                                    ** Check
8. Marry in the temple            
9. Get a green bug                                              
10. Be laurels president                                         ** Check
11. Work with animals
12. Marry an animal accepter
13. Live until I'm 90+
14. Be on the tennis team for 4 years                       **Check
15. Be the best I can be!


There you have it. A glimpse into the life of 14-year-old Noelle. Oh my.... For the record, I'm totally ok with never owning a green bug and I'll live if my husband is not an "animal accepter".

Right now..

I love the color combination of coral and navy. I also like "Coral" and "Navy" as little girl names.
Photos courtesy of Pinterest
I randomly started reading Harry Potter 4 yesterday. I love the Weasely family.

After noticing that neither Kristee Bills, nor Tara Mendenhall (two stunningly gorgeous girls in my ward) wear mascara on their bottom lashes, I decided to try it. I'm on day two and it's kind of weird... but I like it!

I am the ward-prayer co-chair. Those of you who tried endlessly to get me to come to ward prayer when I graduated high school know how comical this is :)

My brother gets married this Saturday to a Saint. She is truly incredible and I could learn so much from this woman. I'm so excited for her to join the family.
Sorry it's so fuzzy, I stole it off of facebook

My summer has been packed with adventures and the outdoors. It's all coming to a close in a matter of days.


I love country music and Andy Grammar. 

LeeAnn Riggs owns an edited version of Hitch. I covet this.
I listened to this song, before watching this movie. I can't even imagine. What a woman. Such an elect lady. My heart breaks and rejoices for her. How much can one heart take?

I feel as though I am the only living being in the world who 1. Doesn't have Timeline AND 2. Doesn't have a smart phone. 

I'm ok with the above statement.

My eyes have recently been reopened to the greatness of Preach My Gospel. I absolutely love going to my Preach My Gospel Sunday school class. What an amazing resource that we have available to us.

My ward softball team made it to region! How cool is that?! We play this week for the championship!
I love these people!
I move back up to Rexburg for school in less than a month. Bittersweet. I'm ready for a new adventure, but kind of feel like going back to Rexburg is a step backwards. I've already conquered that one. Let's go to Ghana.

I turn 22 in 4 months. I'm going to start praying tonight for snow so that I can finally go birthday sledding this year. Last year was quite the disappointment. 

I miss playing tennis so much. I've only played twice this entire summer. Oh how I love that sport.
7 years later- Still using a pink Wilson, same outfit color combo, and same hairstyle. 

I can't bear to switch my FB profile picture to anything non-Peru related. (Abigail caught onto that ;) I think about that place and those kids every single day.  They have changed me for the better.

I am so excited to be a mom.

I have recently changed my minor.

I love having a paycheck.

I want pockets and pearls on my wedding gown.


Friday, August 10, 2012

LoveButton | Chelsi McConnell Stratton


Me and sweet little Ashton
Oh where do I begin with Chelsi? Of all the best friends that I have acquired throughout the years, Chelsi  (along with Taryn) remains the longest running one. Best friends since 4th grade we've been. We've had our ups and downs, our power struggles (AKA: Who gets to be Taryn's BESTbest friend ;), and our paths after high school ended up going different directions. But... our friendship remains alive and well, and I cherish the times I get to come visit her and her gorgeous little baby. That's right, she has a baby! And you will never find a better momma or a cuter little bundle of joy than Chelsi and Ashton.


That being said… The lessons I've learned from Chelsi are  innumerable. She's affected me so much and from such a young age!

Back in fourth grade, she taught me that it was ok to be goofy! It was ok to laugh and make jokes and not worry about what you look like. Chelsi is a natural beauty and didn't wear an ounce of make-up for a long time.

Our "Yarn Bridge" we made using nothing but yarn and ourselves
Chelsi showed me how to root for the underdog. It's not about titles or stereotypes, it's about the person. She's not ashamed to be associated with "the little people". On the contrary, she champions them and gives them a voice and a friend.

Chelsi is such a people person. She'll make you feel at ease when talking to her, whether you've known her for ten years or two minutes. She'll talk to you, she'll ask you questions and truly listen to you, and she'll love you.

Chels is a deep thinker too. I remember our late night doctrinal discussions at 14 year olds. She'd pose questions about the future. She has such a curiosity and passion to learn about the Second coming and was always willing to learn more. She has a true, pure love for the gospel.  I know without a doubt that SHE knows without a doubt that it is true, and she loves it. 


In a nutshell, her little Ashton and the several other little munchkins that come after are not only getting a mom. They are without a doubt getting a best friend. Someone that they will feel comfortable talking to and sharing their feelings. A mom who will play and be silly with her kids while teaching them that it doesn't matter what other people think about you as long as you are being yourself. A mom who will champion her kids in all they do, in their successes and struggles. A  mom who will passionately and powerfully teach the gospel in a way that her kids can understand and apply to their lives. They are getting a mom better than they could have ever dreamed of.


How grateful I am to have been able to learn from and love this lovebutton. She truly is amazing and has such a unique and special purpose.

Love you Freckle Ear!





LoveButtons | The Start of a Series

So, any of my near and dear friends, know that when I love someone, I call them "Love-button". I don't know where it came from. . . Actually I think I do.

I think it was because in Winter 2010 semester, I roomed with a Janessa Orme who was dating her now-husband Ben, and they called each other, "Love". I think that is totally adorable, and I just started calling everybody love (well my close friends at least...) and then in evolved into "LoveButton".

Either way, it's a made up word that I'm going to define now, because I hope to have a whole series of LoveButton posts.

LoveButton: A truly lovely individual, who, through their quiet example, has taught Noelle Celeste Rust invaluable life lessons and has been a joy to know and associate with. This individual is somebody that makes Noelle often consider, "Wow, out of all the billions of people in this world, I was one who was lucky enough to be able to know and love this LoveButton."


I'm excited about this, because quite frankly, I have met some incredibly people and I am very excited to share why I love them with you!

Stay tuned!

Love, Noelle

Reality Check

So the other night I went to the movies. Since it was an almost 3 hour long movie, and because I have way too strong a relationship with my waterbottle... I knew that I needed to use the bathroom before I permanently took my seat for the movie.

So I use the bathroom, and I go to put my hands under the faucet to wash my hands.. and guess what happened!?!??!

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

What the!? Do you mean to tell me that there was still a public bathroom on this earth that didn't have automatic sinks??

"How very peculiar", I thought to myself. So I turned on the faucet and lo and behold, water came out and I rinsed my hands.

Forgetting the little lesson I had learned not even two seconds earlier, I placed my palm under the soap dispenser, expecting a perfectly measured little squirt of foam soap to land delicately into my hand.

Nothing.

I won't even begin to explain how silly I felt upon realizing that I also had to pull the little lever up and down and up and down if I wanted to have paper towels to dry my hands.

Now, please don't think me lazy or high maitenence, I was perfectly fine with performing these teeny, tiny unsanitary tasks that are usually automated at public restrooms, I was just taken off guard!

And then I remembered...

Just over three months ago, I was on a floating island in Puno, Peru. Here on this little island there was one bathroom. When I say bathroom, I mean there were makeshift walls surrounding an area smaller than your average porter potty, where visitors stood in line to use it one at a time. After each use, a young Peruvian boy would take a bucket of water and pour it down the "toilet" to clear it out for the next user.

No flushing, so seats, no sinks, and don't even think about asking for soap.

I couldn't find a picture of the aforementioned bathroom, but it was on a floating island like this one.
That was the norm though! When we went to Mauchu Piccu we had to pay one sol for just a few squares of toilet paper. Most just went without.  I can probably count the number of times I used a real (by low, low American standards) bathroom in Peru.

And here I was in the movie theater shocked that everything wasn't automatic?!

Oh man, it was nice to have that little reality check.

How grateful I am for American bathrooms!

Love, Noelle

First the Worst, Second the Best

I had a lot going for me last Fall semester. Because of that ... I was confident. I think that that confidence is one of the main factors that played into my dating life that semester. It was ridiculous. There was one month where I averaged 3 dates a week for the entire month. It was a really busy semester, but the dates were not in short supply.

 I was loving it and annoyed with it at the same time. I was getting ready to leave for Peru, and due to my internship which started right when I returned back to the states, I knew I wouldn't be back at school for a long, long time. So serious dating wasn't really in my game plan. With that stress off my back, I was able to have fun dating.  Now that I'm totally telling all in my blog (ok not ALLLL), I decided I can put in some of those first date stories. So we'll start with one Saturday in November.

This is a Saturday I will never forget because it started with THE WORST date of my life, and ended with one of the funnest first dates of my entire dating career (yup, two dates in one day... I told you it was getting out of control).

So I won't go into detail with that first date, I couldn't talk about it for a long time without cringing .... eeeeek. But I'll leave you with a little picture so that those of you who do remember can have a good laugh.

Anyways... later that night, I went on a date with a boy named Dan. Here's how I met said Dan.


I am a devotional usher. This means that I get to stand in the aisle ways an hour before devotional begins and reverently welcome  students and staff alike to devotional. That's literally all I do and I absolutely love it. Well one Tuesday afternoon, I was in my post, welcoming people into devotional when a group of three young men came my way. The first was a boy named Matt whom I had recently met at one of my brother's Classy  parties. I said hi to Matt and he introduced me to his two friends, Dan and Daniel.  About eight minutes after my encounter with Matt and his two Dan's, I hear a "Noelle?" and I turn to find that one of those Dan's had come back to find me.

"Hey Dan, what can I do for ya?"

He then proceeded to ask me on a date for that following Saturday.  (See I told you devotional ushering pays off!)

Anyways so off on a date we went and it was so fun!
  
First off, beforehand, Dan told me that I needed to wear an ugly sweater and long socks (it was winter time, so this was not an unusual request… ok it's kind of unusual). Since I didn't really know this boy, and I didn't know what to expect  in a date with him, this request was comforting. It showed me that he wasn't "too cool" to be silly and that he was fun and outgoing, so I played right along.

So he picks me up and we mash into a car with two other couples. (I loooove group dates!) and we meet up with another couple at the Benson building on campus.  For the date, they had PVC pipes that were maybe 3 feet long. They also had nerf gun bullets (some of which had velcro on the ends). They told us that we were going to use them like blow dart guns and shoot at each other.

We split up into teams, and loaded up with bullets and ran throughout the halls looking for a place to hide. This was war! Dan and I hid in a little foyer that had a section of large plants. We waited for our unsuspecting prey to come into sight. As soon as they did, we were ready with our PVC pipe and bullets. Crouched in the bushes, we'd load up our pvc pipes with the nerf bullets and use them like blow darts as our prey would approach. It was like we were in the jungle.

Once our location was compromised, we'd up and run through the hallways, risking our lives and our liberty as open fire broke out all around us. 

Oh my goodness, it was so much fun. I didn't know any of the people that I was there with, but we had SO much fun. We got caught by a security guard (of course) but he was super chill and didn't kick us out! He just laughed at us and let us keep playing.

We then went to the MC and played around some more. Seriously it was so much fun. Because of that first date, Dan was one of the few men that semester that I actually agreed to go on a second date with.

Guess what guys, it was a totally free date too! No dinner was needed, we didn't need to go get ice cream after wards. It was just straight up, reusable, clever fun. 

Now that I think about it, I'm going to have to make my own pvc blow dart guns... those paired up with all those sets of rollerblades I have... oh yes.

Love, Noelle

Sunday, August 5, 2012

A World Without Sundays

My love for the Sabbath was magnified today as for a few moments I considered what my life would be like if I didn't have Sunday. More specifically, if I didn't attend my church meetings.

What a horrible thought!

One of my favorite things about this gospel that I love so very much, is that we can wake up each morning and start over. We can try harder to be a little better than we were yesterday. We can put forth more of an effort to do the things that we didn't make time for the day before. We have a new day to be kinder, more charitable. Another chance to start our day with a heartfelt conversation with our Father in Heaven. It's a gospel of second chances. And thirds and fourths and fifths and sixths. Then on that seventh day, we get to go to sacrament meeting and renew the covenants we made at baptism. We can constantly repent of the shortcomings we make through the week. It's a great time to reflect and point out the areas we need to improve.

It gets better...

 On top of that, each Sunday we are edified and taught by speakers and teachers who have spent the past week or so prayerfully considering and putting together lessons and talks to share with us. Three hours of it! I've walked out of church every Sunday for the past three months with a huge smile on my face and an even greater resolve to start clean this next week and be better. There is always hope. I can always start again.


There are some things that I feel like I have  been working on for years and years. It can be so frustrating to think that even after all those years, I still haven't even come close to mastering what I want to change. During church each Sabbath, I find so much strength and desire to keep working on it. I come home feeling so full of hope, love and determination. A glimpse of my potential is realized and I want more than anything to course correct, yet again, so that I can reach it. I know that the Lord has invested so much into me, and I want to make it worth it


“The invitation to repent is rarely a voice of chastisement but rather a loving appeal to turn around and to ‘re-turn’ toward God. It is the beckoning of a loving Father and His Only Begotten Son to be more than we are, to reach up to a higher way of life, to change, and to feel the happiness of keeping the commandments.”
Oh how grateful I am that I do not live in a world without Sundays. I dearly need that pick-me-up/come-on-noelle-you-can-do-this! that I feel while attending my meetings each week.
Love, Noelle
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