A Week in the Caribbean? Don't Mind if I Do.

For our honeymoon, we had the amazing opportunity to go on a seven-day Caribbean cruise. The ports we stopped in were Jamaica, The Grand Cayman and Cozumel. It was my first time in the Caribbean and I couldn't believe how beautiful and different the beaches and ocean were from my beloved California beaches. 

Unfortunately, 2/3 of the pictures we took were on my phone (My phone died completely the day we got back, so the pictures are lost forever!) but we did remember to snap a few on Eric's camera, enjoy!

The food was incredible! We each ordered at least 6-7 courses for each meal! I think this was our escargo. We also enjoyed sushi, frog legs, alligator, shark and much more!

The Pool and Poolside theatre

Rockin' out in Jamaica!

Man on Stilts. But he wasn't much taller than Eric, so I wasn't too impressed.

Cozumel!

We went parasailing in Cozumel! 

I thought that it'd be scary, but we loved it. It was so much fun!

We were so high up! And I couldn't believe how crystal blue the water was. Gorgeous!

We also went jet skiing on the ocean in Cozumel after parasailing. I'll admit it wasn't my favorite. Mainly because there was a $5000+ fine if you damaged the jet ski and Eric was a very crazy fun driver. We flipped over twice....nobody else out there was driving even close to how we were driving, so I was scared to death that we were going to break something.

Also not pictured... The grand cayman! We had so much fun swimming with stingrays (yes, a little scary at first, but pretty cool once you finally believed that they really weren't going to hurt you) We even go to hold them and let them swim up on our backs and feed them! We went snorkeling after that and saw some cool reef and pretty fishies!

Pretty much our honeymoon was the bomb. We loved it and had so much fun! We ate way more food than I ever thought possible, but that was our reward for doing the Insanity workout for the entire semester before!

We've been back for 3 weeks, and I'm thinking I'm ready to go back :)

Love, Noelle

Family Dinner

Tonight was quite the night.

Daniel, Emily, Travis, Natalie and myself all met up at Daniel's for family dinner! Exciting huh?

1. Dinner

Can I please tell you of the feast we had?

Daniel made rice with onion chunks and Mango/Peach? Teryaki marinated chicken.
Travis brought homemade lentil soup.
I brought cornbread.
Natalie provided strawberry cookies.

It was all so good! The chicken was so tender and had great flavor, and I loooooved Trav's lentils.
The cornbread.... Daniel put it in the oven... and never took it out haha

Yum Yum Yum!

2. Boggle

 Daniel introduced us to the art of boggle. Have you ever played? It gets ya thinkin.

Curse words don't count Emily :)

3. Eggnog

Love the nog, but had to tone it down with some milk.

 4. Skip-Bo and frozen cookies

Skip-Bo with our new friend from Fruitland (also a small Idaho town :)

Cookie straight from the freezer... 

It was such a lovely night as I'm sure you can imagine :)

On a side note, after this, I tried homemade eggnog! Homemade! It was crazy.

Ok time for bed. Big day tomorrow!

Love, Noelle

Help!

I've had the ingredients to make a pistachio pudding pie for the past six months (don't worry, none of which have expired :) The only thing keeping me from making this glorious dessert is the following fact:

I know I'll want to curl up, with the heater on, a good mystery novel, my favorite blanky and sit and eat the entire thing all by myself... in one sitting.

Now, I'm no expert on nutrition, but I'm willing to bet that that would do nothing for my figure. I'd probably feel sicknasty for the next two days straight,  so we can't let this happen, capeesh?

I believe this was National Potato Chip Day as well as National Pie Day AND National Pistachio Day. Not bad eh?

Last time we made it, I'm pretty sure Michael and I ate the entire thing all by ourselves in one day... whoops. We probably offered it to all in shouting distance, but not everyone likes pistachio pudding pie...right? So if you happen to delight in such culinary creations... come. Help me eat and enjoy this beast. Otherwise 'twill never be made. Which would be the shame of the century.

Iiiiiittttttt'sssssss time for pie :)

Love, Noelle

P.S. I'm sitting at work, looking out the MC windows, wondering, "what the heck is going on out there?"  Is that snow? Sleet? Hail? What ever it is, it looks dreadful... and makes me want to eat pistachio pie... and go sledding.

P.S.S Here's how I'm justifying eating pie today: today is 11.12.11 ...which is kind of like a palindrome (well, almost). And palindrome has the word pie in it... kind of. PalIndromE. Justified? I think yes.

Hellooo Mr. Groban

You know that song by Josh Groban, You Are Loved? Yeah, well he sang it to me at work today!
Well... kinda.... ok not really... but listen to at least one verse and one chorus before you continue reading.


This morning I woke up way too late for class, rushed to get ready and left without breakfast (p.s. I love my breakfasts, and missing them makes me... hungry) Then I had two classes in a row and I go straight to work from there where I work from 11:15am- 6:30pm. No lunch break in there anywhere! In my rush to get out the door this morning I did however fill up a small ziplock bag with edamame, hoping that that would hold me over while I was at work all day (who was I kidding!?)


So after my aerobics class, where we worked out like nobody's business, I went straight to work, starving and thinking about how I wouldn't get a chance to eat until 7 that night. Well here's where my Josh Groban moment comes in. Listen carefully.


Claire, my dear, dear roommate, stopped by my work to pick up her water bottle that she had lost. I went to the back to retrieve it and returned only to find a brown paper sack lunch WITH MY NAME written on it sitting on the counter. That's when everything froze and Josh Groban stepped out of the dark right beside me and started in with a gorgeous ballad of "YOU ARE LOOOOVEEEED".

"Hope I got the measurements down for the oatmeal to applesauce. I didn't even know where to start with the cottage cheese" Oh my gosh, this cracked me up!

P.S. I haven't had a PB and J in quite sometime, but I LOVED this one!

Ok, so maybe I just squealed and ran and gave her a hug, but seriously, I felt so loved that Mr. Groban might as well have been there proclaiming it for all of the Manwaring Center to hear! How lucky am I huh? She was soo thoughtful and couldn't have possibly known how hungry I was. She even left me a note on the napkin (which clearly is the best part of the whole thing)!

Thanks CLAIRE, you made my day, and made it 100 times easier to enjoy work today.  Ahh, what a gem!
Love,
Noelle

Can't Get This Off My Mind

Why do they have every single kind of soup available in a can except the oh-so-delicious and pretty popular, Taco Soup? Have you ever seen taco soup in a can? It's unheard of right? WHY is that? I feel like taco soup is just the combination of tons of different canned items, why don't they just have them all mixed up and ready to go in a can? I'm not complaining, I probably wouldn't buy it if they had it, I'm just curious as to why it's so.

Have you ever wondered about that?

Isn't soup so good in the Fall? Yes. Yes it is. We made some sort of chowder the other day, potato cheese or something. Quite delicious.
Speaking of which, what makes chowder a chowder and soup a soup? What about stew? Or a bisque?  Hmmm.... Mmmmmm!

Love, Noelle

Enjoy These Exotic Edibles

Remember when I was so excited about eggs? Or when I absolutely raved about steel cut oats?

Well, I'm still a believer of both, don't you worry, but I have added two new loves to the list. Check this out:

1. Edamame

They come frozen in packages like these. I get mine at Walmart.  $1.88 for a 14 oz pkg.

When you peel them open they look like this.

I discovered this Japanese gem about three weeks ago when my pops brought home a bag of these from the store. They come frozen, you just have to thaw them out a bit and then you're ready to munch. I'm on campus everyday from 8am til 6pm so I bring a little baggie of these to tide me over while I'm at school/work. I simply love them! What are they you ask? Pretty much they're just partially boiled soy beans. Yuck right? Wrong! They are oh so tasty and packed full of protein, fiber and several vitamins and minerals. Give them a try!

2. Quinoa

This has sufficed for my dinner for the past week. It's simply quinoa, bell peppers and onions. Can't get enough of it!

Quinoa is a complete protein. Let me repeat that for you. Quinoa is a COMPLETE PROTEIN! Ok so I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that it has a balanced set of all nine essential amino acids which is pretty unusual for a plant food. Although it kind of appears to be a grain, it's actually a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard. Not bad eh?

Quinoa is extremely new to me and to be honest, I have no idea if I even cooked it right or if it tastes like it's supposed to, but either way... I love it and love the health benefits that come with. This, like steel cut oats, can be bought from those nifty WinCo canisters in the back :) I'm sure they're available elsewhere also.

So those are my two new loves. Edamame and Quinoa. Kind of exotic sounding eh? Have you tried them? How do you cook them? Haha anyone else have problems pronouncing them when you read them? 

Enjoy!

Love, Noelle

The Family That Cooks Together....

Ladies and Gentleman, in just a few short days, the 3rd annual Rusty Whisk competition will be held!

Brief Explanation: Come this Saturday and continuing on til the following Thursday, all 12 Rust's will be back together again! That's right: Dad, Mom, Derrick, Brittney, Molly, Brandon, Daniel, Travis, Me, Natalie, Holly and Hannah, together again under the same roof. The Rusty Whisk, a cooking competition we've held faithfully for the past three years inspired by our friends on Iron Chef America, but suited for a family setting, will be held.

Allow me to explain the process, using pictures from last years event:

1. Food Prep

Each family member picks a dish that they would like to prepare and submit for the competition. Some use their trademark recipes, others venture out to the unknown and make recipes they've never before tried. Needless to say the kitchen is chaotic, but it's a fun chaos. There are ingredients, dishes, bodies... everywhere!

2. Plating

As each family member finishes their dish, they must then carefully plate it onto three different plates (one for each judge) and put it onto the judging table. Presentation is accounted into the final score, so this is important. This year we had (in order of appearance): Sweet and sour pork, pina colada chicken, flurry of curry chicken salad, grilled salmon, lemon chicken, stuffed chili peppers, marshmallow puffs and the infamous Completos! (There are a few other dishes not shown here)

3. Judgement

Enter judges. Three lucky... or perhaps brave... people who were chosen to come and taste each dish prepared in the depths of the Rust kitchen.  As each dish is sampled, Natalie (second picture) served as the emcee and announced each dish along with a brief description of the dish written by the chef themselves. However, no mention is made of who prepared what dish. It must be completely anonymous. The judges then savor the fruits of our labors while the rest of us wait patiently outside.

4. The Waiting Game

So to keep the 12 of us occupied while our hard work was being critiqued, we were all kicked out of the house and onto the front patio. Here, Brittney had a taste test game prepared for us. We each had a spoon and we'd close our eyes as she'd come around and fill each of our spoons with an edible item. When everybody had their spoon filled, we'd put it into our mouths and try to decide what she fed us.

4. The Finale

Finally, the judging has concluded and we are summoned in. The judges then tell us all the things they liked about each dish. And then the winner is announced and awarded with the Rusty Whisk trophy. Last year's winner was our very own Brittney Steele Rust who blew the judges away with her divine Flurry of Curry Chicken Salad  (See plating section, picture 3). By then we are tired and hungry, and of course, dying to taste all the food. So we all grab forks, dig in, and listen as Derrick says, "completos" after every other sentence.

5. Food, Family, Friends

Needless to say, it is a night to be remembered, filled with food, family and friends.
This Saturday we will do it all over again and watch as a new victor is crowned! Wish us luck :)

Love, Noelle

Sisters, Snuggies, Sushi and SUMMER

I've been home in Nevada for a little over a week now. Let's just say that I'm loving it. I love being home! The 6-week summer break is the only time I ever move home during the year, and it's just for a few weeks. I visit for a couple days during Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break, but that's about it.

I'm a Junior in college now, so I'm realizing that my summer-times spent at home are numbered. I'll be graduated and living who knows where doing who knows what in no time!

Enough dwelling on that. I have had a fabulous time at home and it's only been 8 days so far. Here's a few little things that have made it great!

I get to play with these love buttons and all of their awesome siblings!

I get to be apart of moments like these where Lindsey and Hannah can't stop laughing at ordinary things Natalie is doing (ha you had to be there)

I get to have lunch and play with some of the greatest people I know!

I have time to read whatever I want. Bonus points if you can guess the book!

I hardly ever have to drive, Natalie and Taryn have taken care of that for me :)

And soooo much more. Don't even get me started on the food!

SUSHI NIGHT!

Apparently Sunday night is Sushi Night (New family tradition I wasn't fully aware of). Anyways, we all gathered in the kitchen and got to work on rolling dozens of different sushi rolls. The possibilities were endless. Dad would assign us one to make and then we'd give it to him to cut up and set aside so that we could eat them all together.
 When we had made 12 or so different rolls, we tried them out, one roll at a time. Mom would read us off the ingredients in each one and tell us who made it, then we'd discuss whether we liked it and if it was a keeper or if it was a dud. If it was a good one, we'd then name it. Some of the names included The Jazz Combo (in honor of Daniel),  The Valedictorian (in Honor of myself), The Vegas Roll, The Watchdog... ha and many others that I can't quite recall.

(See my newest facebook album for more pictures of our Sushistraveganza!)

It was sooo much fun! Making them and eating them and naming them. I looove Sushi night! We seriously made sooo much and ate way too much, but I loved every minute of it!

So yes, being home has been so, so good so far. It's nice to be with the family again, although I sure do miss having Travis live just around the corner and I dearly miss having Brandon here with us, and I'd give my eye teeth to have Derrick, Brittney and Molly live close by. Lucky for me those missing five will all be here in just a few weeks for our second annual Jared Rust Family Reunion. YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

Love, Noelle

"Baby You're a Firework"

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 :)