One week! One week, one week one week!
Or.. as I like to say, " Una semana, una semana, una semana!"
In una semana I will be on a plane flying from Vegas to Miami anxiously awaiting my reunion with Abigail and Brittany where we will then leave the continent and arrive in South America all together (thank goodness for that).
My passport is here. The shots have been injected (didn't even hurt really, huzzah!) and my bags have been packed for days. Reality is just barely beginning to set in... but only a teensy, tiny bit. It's still kind of surreal.
For instance. I can't believe that BYU-I school starts today! Woah! Good luck to all of you!
Bittersweet.
Also, I have a great big fatty announcement! Are you ready for this?
After much contemplation and internal debate, I have decided to start a brand new blog dedicated to my time in Peru. You can find a link to it here. Or if you look to the left side bar portion of my blog you will find a permalink to my new Peruvian blog. Simply click on the picture that looks like this:
If you'd like to follow our adventures, feel free to do so! Although I will probably set that blog to private (for safety reasons) for the duration of our time in Peru. But you're more than welcome to follow it, so if you'd like, simply click on the orange button at the top that says follow and you will become one of my readers and have full access to the blog.
As for this "Love, Noelle" Blog of mine.... I believe that I will still update it on occasion. Because I'll still be thinking and remembering and planning and that sort of stuff goes here. So keep an eye on both!
Guess what!?!? This is my 100th blog post on my Love, Noelle blog!
How do I feel?
Ehhh... like I've probably spent a bit too much time blogging and not enough time studying :) (although thank goodness my grades this semester don't reflect that, straight A's!)
Either way...
I don't mean to toot my own horn....but I adore my blog. I love being able to write my thoughts, and being able to look back whenever I want and be reminded of them.
Have I improved?
Immensely. I think I've come to find my own writing style and have become much more comfortable with collecting my thoughts and spilling them onto the screen. I also wish I had a screen shot of what my blog looked like when I first started... 'twas a visual-media-major's nightmare I assure you. It's come a long way, that is for sure.
The following short clips also have absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just love them and love mis hermanas.... so they had to go up. Happy 100th!
HELP!
Now it's your turn to help me celebrate this 100th post! Has there been a post in particular that you have enjoyed a bit more than the others? Have any made you laugh, cry or think about life? I hope so :) Let me know what you think! I'd love your feed back!
You can find some of my favorite posts here, here,here, here, here,here,here, annnnnnd here. Pick one, any one and you'll find a post that I either enjoyed writing or enjoy reading.
Also, I'd love to come-up with a new name for my blog. Something classy, catchy and totally fit for my new 21-year-old adventures. Or should I stick with the "Love, Noelle"?? Decisions, decisions. Tell me what you think!
Thank-you dear readers,
P.S. A special shout-out to my Russian readers (the country only second to the U.S. who views my blog most often) It makes me smile every time I see you check in :)
This will be my 3rd Fall semester. Can I just say that have adored my Fall semesters thus far. Seriously they both were top notch. TOP NOTCH. And I'm pretty certain that this one will be as well.
Daniel. Travis. Noelle. Natalie: ALLL in Rexburg attending school this semester. How cool is that? Very cool. I'm loving it. I saw each and everyone of them today!
Love. Love. LOVE my newjob. Seriously. Ok I've only worked two days so far, but it's perfect for me. More on that later.
I volunteered to be a devotional usherthis semester. I dropped most of my volunteer competitive sports positions due to my busy schedule, but I still want to give back to the school that has given me SO much, in any way that I can possibly fit into my schedule. So I usher in students and faculty for devotional. Super easy, get to see tons of friends and meet lots of new students with lots of questions. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
Love my new roommates. There's an atmosphere in our apartment that I've never really had before. I can't really explain it, but it's nice!
My classesare incredible. I know I should drop one more to keep the workload under control, but I can't bring myself to pick one! Ahh I just love them all!
Speaking of classes, guess what! I started and kept this blog up as a class assignment last semester, and I just found out that for myFamily Relations class this semester we will be required to keep up a blog as well. Woooo!!! Been there, done that, this will be a piece of cake. So look forward to various blog posts concerning how to better our family relations :) Should be good.
Today somebody said, "Hey I added you onFacebooklast week, but you never accepted" It reminded me that a week or so ago I decided to give up facebook for a few days so that I could focus on getting ready for school and lo and behold I had almost forgotten I even had a facebook page. Needless to say I don't really miss it that much and can't really bring myself to go check it now anyways, no time!
Last but not least, I maimed myself the other day while at the sandbar with about a million people that I love. It was so fun. However, I jumped off a dam when I really shouldn't have jumped and took a huge chunk out of my knee... literally. I couldn't walk on it for a few days, and it was terribly swollen and painful and wouldn't stop bleeding. Yuck!
Because of my fabulous job, I have to dress up for school everyday. Lucky for me James and Talmage have been helping me pick out and document first week of school outfits.
This will most definitely be my busiest semester to date, with 17 credits, a job (which I am addicted to, gosh I love it!), as well as a calling and my various volunteer committees, but I wouldn't have it any other way! Have an awesome day!
Love, Noelle
About a year ago, when I found out my new roommate was going to be some girl named Claire Ruth Salmon.We became facebook friends and that day I wrote the following on her wall:
So it looks like you'll be living with me...
Uhhh, we're going to have to go over some ground rules so that no toes are stepped on and no lines are crossed.
No music will be aloud in my apartment. ...No talk of marriage or small children.
No laughing too loud, and no chick flicks.
NO baking any thing that contains more than 45 calories per serving.
Message me if you have any questions.
OH MY GOSH Claire, I am SO Just kidding! Hahaha I hope I didn't scare you too bad, but I'm totally curious as to what your reaction to that was :) I promise I'm not an evil, grumpy psycho! I'm so excited to live with ya, I absolutely love the name Claire and have planned on naming my first daughter that for as long as I can remember, but we can say I named her after you :) And I adore Salmon! And Hannah Salmon! I have a feeling we'll get along beautifully!
I seriously knew that we were going to be great friends even before I had even met this girl. Lo and behold: We are the greatest of friends!!
So when I first started this blog, I told Claire that my number one goal for this blog is to mention Claire in every single post. I did pretty good with this for the first couple posts, but as the posts kept coming I kept forgetting and Claire would nonchalantly remind me that I was FAILING at my goal. And indeed, I have ultimately failed at that goal. So to make up for it, here is an entire post dedicated to mine and Claire's relationship. We haven't even known each other a whole year, but I swear we've been best friends for life. Take a gander at the following pictures and judge for yourself :)
Night on the Town for Shae's Bachelorette Party
Craigo's in December
Noelle turns 20
Any phrase that starts "I'll race you to..." Always Turns into a hallway disaster
Cross Country Skiing at 7 am on a Saturday. Crazy fun.
Harry Potter 7 Part one Midnight Premier
D.I Dress Shopping
"Hovering" at tennis
Home made Pie Shakes and Homemade Pie-staches
Reading and Journal writing outside before Devo
Homemade Lasagna
Rollerblading
Walking to Church
HALLOWEEN and caramel apples!
Banana Muffins and Sunday afternoons at Southgate
Crashing on Couches
Sledding. All day Every day.
Being harassed by the boys
Having a blast with these boys
Rocking out with Ila and our other Homestead-ers
Attending Culture Night
Water Fights!
Cooking Up Sunday Dinners
Watching Baseball Games
Dancing in the streets on a volunteer basis
Eating Ahmish Bread with Cheese
Going out to Woo the Fine Gentleman of Rexburg
Whipping up scrumptious desserts the likes of which you've only glimpsed here
Running and blogging go hand in hand with me. When I run I think about lots and lots of things, and I usually blog about those things that I think about. And then it comes full circle because I usually work on my blog right before I go out on another run where I think about more things to blog about. It's a beautiful cycle :)
Here's a question I was asked a couple of days ago:
Since I end each post like a letter, "Love, Noelle" I've been asked who the letter's/posts would be addressed to. Or in other words:
"Who do you blog for?"
That's the question that I contemplated on my run today, and now I'm back and have it all figured out, so I thought I'd share.
1. I blog for Bro. Embree: As many of you know, this blog is an assignment for one of my Communication classes. Without it, I would fail miserably, which would be sad because this is my favorite class ever!
Is it creepy that I have a picture of my professor on my blog? Kind of! Oh well..
2. I blog for myself: I just spent a good chunk of my free time this morning reading over every single post in my blog. I'm so glad I've kept it, I've been slacking a smidgen on writing in my journal and this has definitely helped to fill in the blanks. I blog so that I can look back and remember the little things like oatmeal and Aldean :) It's also nice to have a place to sort out my thoughts and feelings about things. It's an outlet for sure.
3. I blog for Claire Ruth Salmons: From day one she's been the 2nd main reason (aside from the fact that it's an assignment) that kept this up. She's constantly asking, "Have you updated your blog yet? No? Update it!!!" It's encouraging :)
4. I blog for my family: They like to stay updated on my happenings, I know they appreciate a good, jam-packed blog post.
Anddd that's all the specifics I can think of for now. But while I was running, I realized that while I'm writing each post, I keep in mind certain people who could possibly be reading it. This greatly determines the content that goes into each post.
My Stats tab shows me how many times each post is viewed and then it tells me what kind of device it was viewed on and what country it was viewed in. I have no idea who exactly reads it, but this tells me I have some faithful German and Puerto Rican friends :)
I always think, "Do I feel comfortable knowing that so and so is possibly going to read this?" These include people like my parents, the lovely ladies I'm over in relief society, my grandma, friends from home etc. And then I thought to myself, I wonder if my future husband is reading this blog post! So if you are, here's a shout out just for you, and when we're old and married we can talk about how I blogged for you even before I knew you... how romantic! Oh gosh haha I hope you can sense the sarcasm. Either way, I definitely keep all these people in mind while I'm writing, and I hope I haven't let them down thus far.
So is that weird or do you do the same thing while writing your blog posts, your facebook status' or whatever it might be?
This is a blog post simply to say that I am too busy to blog! The end of the semester chaos is upon us already I'm afraid. The fact that I had a jam packed 4-day weekend does not help the situation either (Had lots of fun and got NO homework done) Alas, enjoy the following pictures from my lovely 4th of July weekend:
My mom and dad and sisters came up on Friday afternoon
After they arrived, they quickly scoured my closet and each picked out one of my shirts to wear for the day, not bad eh?
We attempted rollerblading around town, and saw much of this :)
And my dear ol dad was able to save my bike and got it up and working again. Thanks for the tools Kyle!!
We finished off the night at Sammy's where I introduced the rest of the Rust's to my favorite dessert Pie-shakes (actually, i decided I don't really like them anymore, go figure) and we enjoyed our favorite band, Harper's Harping, rock out.
We were all about Rigby lake on Saturday, the weather was perfect!
Glenn Beck paid us a visit... no big deal
We watched the fireworks in Driggs that night. Best. show. EVER!!!
Sunday was the GREATEST! I had the possession of the car :) Something I haven't had in AGES
After some incredible meetings, we headed off to Grandma Foster's in Ashton where we reunited with our beloved Boltons.
And ate the most delicious food!
We brought along Abigail, Blake and Colleen
Photo courtesy of Ally Bolton :)
I couldn't believe how big Daniel had gotten!
We all had a great time... some perhaps a little more so than the others ;)
After stuffing ourselves in Ashton, we came back to Uncle Kevin's in Sugar City and bee lined to the freezer
And there was much rejoicing
Monday morning started off with the parade, a walk in the park and duck feeding at Nature park
I don't have pictures from the next part of the day, but we went to Uncle Kevins and had the most amazing bbq ever. Brats (sp?) with mushrooms onions and peppers, hamburgers the size of my face, watermelon, dutch oven bean deliciousness and much more. Oh. my. goodness. SO Good. And then we (or at least I) fell asleep (or perhaps a food coma) on Uncle Kevin's floor and slept until the family left. They dropped me off in Idaho Falls while they continued to home.
I met up with these lovelies at the temple
And this lovely as well. We also went to ANOTHER BBQ in Idaho Falls and had more yummy food!
And then it was firework time. Look close and you can see the cutest construction worker couple that sat in front of us. I love them!
After the firework show we sat on the street corner and played with sparklers!
And then we got really tired and slept while the boys got the other fireworks ready.. ok this is totally staged, we didn't sleep :)
And then we enjoyed fireworks round two. We got home at about 2 am due to traffic.
Pretty much it was a great weekend and holy cow, the Fourth of July is my new favorite holiday. Seriously BBQ's and Fireworks (I have a new found LOVELOVELOVE for fireworks!(Katy Perry may or may not have soemthing to do with this)) and Family and America, does it get any better than that? Probably not. Except for the fact that I probably consumed enough calories to last me ... oh at least the rest of my life... but it was worth it, and running starts back up.. right now!
Hope you all had a happy 4th as well!
Love, Noelle
P.S. This post took me way longer than I expected, oh well :)
