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

There's Gotta be Something in the Water

Or perhaps the boys just really took Sister Dalton's counsel to heart.

"Let’s just focus on getting dates. Dates for the purpose, of course, of finding an eternal companion, but let’s do first things first! Because you certainly can’t marry, and become parents of a beautiful family, unless you actually go on a date (probably a lot of dates). So let’s start there. I am going to suggest a structure change."

This is where that fabulous woman peeled a potato. A REAL IDAHO potato. Right there at the podium. I adore that woman. Apparently it had an affect on the gentleman of BYU-Idaho.

Good work boys, good work. I am thoroughly impressed. And thank you Sister Dalton!

Life is so good,

Love, Noelle

Guilty as Charged

The other night I was driving home from Idaho Falls with some girls that I didn't know very well. So we all talked about our love lives...naturally :)
It was actually quite sad, all the girls in the car were experiencing what we termed as "forbidden love".

 One girl had her papers in and was excited to serve.. until her best friend of two years announced his love for her. Now she's faced with a huge decision that is giving her quite some grief.

Another girl adored a boy who had broken her heart but was convinced that there was no one better for her out there, but the boy doesn't want anything to do with her.

The other girl loved a boy who had previously asked her to be his girlfriend, but she was scared and said no. Then, when she realized how silly she was being and how much she really like him, she went to him and apologized...but the boy had moved on and didn't want a relationship.

All forbidden loves.

Personally, I was eating all this up. I love hearing love stories (although, I desperately wished that the stories that were told had happier endings) During the car ride, one of the girls looked me in the eye and said, "Noelle, you are a hopeless romantic". Now I had no idea what what being a hopeless romantic entails, but you know what? I probably am one.

After consulting a friend or two, I've been told that a hopeless romantic is: Someone who is in love with love. I think I'm ok with that definition. I love, love, LOVE hearing people's love stories or watching cute love story movies or even just seeing people walking down the street all cute and in love...smitten if you will :)

So if a hopeless romantic is someone who loves things like these...

 

 Then I am guilty as charged :)

Love, Noelle

50 First Dates

I have a first date shirt, a shirt that I have worn on just about every first date this year. It all started when Claire and I were both asked on the same group date. We were rushing to get ready and decided that we had absolutely nothing to wear. So we decided to swap closets and go through each other's clothes. She wore my zebra shirt and black cardigan, and I wore a black shirt of hers. A black shirt that has since been dubbed the first-date-shirt. (Wow, we definitely need to come up with a classier title)

The following picture displays the varying undershirt colors worn on three different first date occasions:

January 2011                                      September 2011                              October 2011

Why is it a good first date shirt?
-It's simple, nothing too jazzed up, but it still looks nice
-It's black, so if I spill, no biggie.
-It's very comfortable

Rules of the First Date Shirt:
-It can only be worn on first dates. not second, not thirds etc. So if I start dating someone, the shirt goes to the back of the closet.
-You can't wear the same colored undershirt twice in a row. Gotta mix it up a bit.
-Always ask Claire's permission to wear it, it is her shirt afterall!


One shirt. Three Rules. Tons of memories.

Love, Noelle
-

Smit·ten

–adjective

1.struck, as with a hard blow.

2.grievously or disastrously stricken or afflicted.

3.very much in love.

(How funny is it that it has two negative, awful meanings and then it also means something so lovely? Which definition do you think of first?)

Once upon a time I was at a boy's apartment in which most of the boys who lived there were home and in the living room. Enter roommate named ... for the sake of the story,and to protect his identity, though I doubt he will ever see this, we'll call him Henry.

This is said "Henry", with a knife...thinking about the movie Charly...don't ask :)

So Henry walks in, and I believe this was the day that everybody was coming home from various places after General Conference weekend. I don't really remember exactly what happened, what I do remember is that Henry had met a girl that weekend and he had fallen for her. His exact words were, "Guys, I'm smitten!"

I think I died that day. It was so funny and so sweet to hear him go on and on to his roommates about how he was completely smitten by this girl. Smitten! Of all words! It's not one you hear very often anymore.

Here's one website's definition of Smitten:

More than like, but not quite love yet, its that feeling in between the two. That feeling of butterflies in your tummy. Its that feeling that makes you smile whenever you think about that special person.

I remember telling my roommates this story and we all sat there and thought, "Wow, I can't wait til I find a boy who meets me and can't help but go home to his roommates and express enthusiastically how smitten he is with me!"

Now I have no idea what, if anything,  happened between Henry and this girl. But I don't think I will ever forget that "smitten moment".  And to make sure I never forget it, I had to publish it in the blog of course.

You know how when you see a couple that's dating, you can get a good feel for their relationship just by watching them for a few minutes. You can tell whether or not the couple likes each other, or if their SMITTEN with each other.

Smitten? I think yes.

It also makes me think of my relief society adviser and her husband. Brother and Sister Herbert. They are both  in their... 60's maybe? And you can just tell that they are still so smitten with each other. You can see it in the way they act around each other, in the way they talk about each other, in the way they talk to each other and in just about everything. They are SO SMITTEN. And it is soooo cute. We just love them. They are a great example of how a husband and a wife should treat each other.

Brother and Sister Herbert:Smitten
Photo Courtesy of Anna Freeby

Smitten. Good word Henry, good word. I'm putting it on the list.

Are you smitten? Do tell :)

Love, Noelle

Last First Kiss

This morning, while I was running, Last Kiss by Taylor Swift came onto my ipod. I have mixed feelings about this song, but we won't go into that right now :)  Look it up. You probably won't love it, but you probably won't hate it. It is Taylor Swift after all.

Anyways, it got me thinking about first kisses. A quote from the movie Hitch came to mind. "Eight out of ten women believe that the first kiss will tell them everything they need to know about the relationship." I'm sure that that statistic was probably made up for the sake of the movie, but I decided that I am probably not one of those eight women. A whole relationship based on one (very potentially awkward) kiss? I don't think so.

QuickSideNote:  I do however love to hear stories of couples first kisses. It's one of my favorite questions to ask aside from, "What is your absolute favorite thing about him/her?" I've heard some pretty gosh darn adorable answers. Claire can testify of this.

Anyways.....

I remembered a time when my dear friend and roommate Emily got engaged, about a year ago. At that time I had just gotten out of a relationship and was back in the dating world, starting from scratch. I remember being so envious of the fact that Emily had gotten her last first kiss. Never again would she be on a date with a boy wondering whether or not they were going to try and kiss her goodnight. Never again would she be in that awkward situation, waiting for an even more awkward kiss. Awwww how fortunate for her. The idea of a last first kiss just sounded so.... blissful to me. Still does.


Ok, so those of you who made it down to the end of this post, congratulations. You have succeeded in my study.  Normally, I probably wouldn't blog about something like kissing,  but this was purely for the research' sake.  Allow me to explain.


Being at BYU-I, all we ever talk about is dating and relationships and what not right? Ok maybe that's not ALL we talk about, but for the most part. It's even integrated into our homework and assignments. So we're doing a little experiment to see if people are more apt to read something about relationships/dating/romance etc. vs a normal blog post. For those of you who are blogger-literate, you know that you have a stats tool on here. This shows you how many people view each of your posts each day/week/month etc. So we'll compare the stats and voila, our research will be complete.

So in the meantime, try not to judge me for writing a post of this sort, it probably won't happen again. Well... maybe. We'll see about when I get my last first kiss. That might just be something to blog about... but probably not :)

Claire, Cider and Celebrations!!

One day last semester, Claire brought home a little bottle of sparkling cider. She put it under her bed and told me that when we had something really good to celebrate, we would run back to our bedroom, grab the bottle, open it up and celebrate like crazy with our sparkling cider.  This was at a time when we were both single and jobless, so at least in my mind, some possible celebratory moments would be that of acquiring a job, or a boyfriend .... something a long those lines. Well since that time, neither of us got a job. We both however were in steady relationships, yet even in that process we never once broke out the celebratory cider.

In that time, where we seemed to have had nothing great enough to celebrate, Claire came across a second bottle of cider. So now we had two, and we knew that when we did have something to celebrate, it had to be good. So the bottles sat in our room. And sat. And sat. And sat. For a really long time. Until....

Wahoo for sparkling cider and $1.50 D.I. MuMu's :)

Last Sunday, Claire and I celebrated. We broke out the bottles, opened them up, and each guzzled down our own as we laughed and cried and talked the night away on Claire's bed.

Probably not the most flattering pictures, but since I had them, I figured they should go up.

What did we finally decide was worth our celebration you ask? Well, we were both still jobless. Neither of us were still in a relationship, and nothing really new and exciting was going on in our lives. But we celebrated anyways.
At first it was kind of depressing as we thought about how we had nothing to celebrate. However, as I sat in my room with my Claire I felt so grateful to have such a fabulous girl for a roommate. That right there was worth celebrating, and things only went up from there. I realized how silly I was being for thinking that I had nothing to be happy about. I have SO much to be happy and grateful for. And SO much to celebrate. I once read This Post  where I found the suggestion to make a list of ten things you're grateful for on days where things aren't going so well, or anyday for that matter.

So here's my ten for today.
1. The sun. I saw it today. I basked in it today. It made me happy today.
2. My aerobics class. I seriously can't get enough of it.
3. Brandon Michael Rust. He sent me a new battery for my laptop and now it can actually be portable, wahoo!
4. Daniel and Travis Rust. I'm really, really grateful to have brothers up here at school with me. REALLY grateful.
5. My health. I am blessed.
6. My calling. It has been the highlight of my semester. I love the things I have learned and experience because of it.
7. Water Bottles. I just bought one, and I totally wouldn't ever drink water if I didn't have it handy. It keeps me hydrated.
8. FAFSA. Enough said.
9. Tennis. My front yard consists of nothing but tennis courts. Gonzaga!
10. Push ups. I just think it's a fabulous exercise. And it's exciting when you can get your numbers up!

And pretty much life is just way too good to me, but I like it that way :)

Another old post

Here's another post from my old and no longer running blog, enjoy!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Prelude: Something that serves as an introduction to an even more important work of art

So I figured I'd take a second and explain the title of my blog (A Prelude to My Own Fairytale)(because quite frankly I think it's clever and adorable and I love it very much). It is the very first line of a song called "Hot Air Balloon" by the band Owl City. I think it perfectly describes the stage of life I am in right now.
All around me, at this notorious "BYU-I DO" people are getting engaged and married right and left. It's spring time too. Let the twitterpation begin. Love<3 is in the air and it shows by the flocks of beaming, hand-holding couples that stroll up and down the pathways, whispering sweet nothings into each others ears and gazing into each others eyes. Kind of sickening right? No. It's adorable and I love it. These people are all living their fairytales.
I look at my lovely dear roommate and best friend Emily, who truly is a princess who has already found her knight in shining armor and is just counting down the days until she can be sealed for eternity to him in a glorious, white castle.

Now, as everyone around me has gotten engaged and married during this beautiful spring season, what stage of my fairytale am I in you ask? Ummm... my boyfriend and I just broke up actually...awkward. Most would look at it as a step back, but it really is a step forward in finding my true love. So no, I don't have any love interests or solid prospects at this point. I am not living a fairytale, not right now at least. In this blog, I am sharing with you (well with myself I suppose, seeing as I still have nary a "friend" on here) the prelude to my fairytale.
The adventures, experiences, and awkward happenings that occur to me that will mold me and shape me to become a princess fit for a happily-ever-after fairytale. This time right now, this "prelude" if you will, is my time to become excellent. It is my time to master the things that I want to work on and chisel away at my flaws. It is my time to make myself a princess worthy of the most righteous, noble, loving and of course gorgeous Prince Charming in all the land.
However, do not be mistaken, I don't want this to be a time where I sckower (I have no idea how to spell that) every nook and cranny of this little Rexburg wonderland for a man who's last name I would like to share.
This is a time where I will grow so close to my Savior and Father in Heaven as I strive to become more and more like them, that I will be able to rely on them to guide me to the man I am to marry. I just must be living worthily so that I might have that guidance in my life.
So thus my story begins. Not my fairytale. Not quite yet at least. But here is the prelude, let it be lovely.