Happy Halloween??

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. There have been a few times in the past couple of weeks that I have just had huge bouts of love for this holiday. Most of this comes from memories of trick-or-treating, candy sorting/trading and saving up that candy for months and months. I sure did love that.

However, most of my feelings towards this Halloween, I regret to inform you... are negative. Let's just throw this one out there...

I cannot stand to watch "scary movies". I watched my first one a couple of weeks ago, "When a Stranger Calls" and have made a firm and fervent vow to never again give into watching anything of that sort again. I really, truly could not stand it and will have no problem excusing myself from any scary movie situation I am ever in. BLEH!

I guess I kind of like the rush that comes from being scared, when it comes to haunted mills/mazes/houses etc. I am glad that only happens once a year though.

Here are some scenes from my Halloween season this year:

Our Costumes for Janne's pre-halloween party

I dressed up like Cameron for Halloween!

Check out these sweet lego-costumes we found!

On a brighter note, Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner :)

Love, Noelle

Birthday Wishes

I will be twenty-one next week. Woooooo! I've been planning what I want to do for my birthday for the past.... ohhh 365 days or so.

Want to hear what my immpecable plan consists of? Ok :)

5:00 pm-  Roommates and I go out to eat. Costa Vida perhaps?

6:00 pm- Meet up with everyone I know at the Homestead for an hour or so of pure bliss.

Who wouldn't want to spend their birthday here??

7:30 pm- Go to the sled hill with even more people and sled the night away. Followed by hot cocoa and apple cider... and maybe a fireplace, if we can find one.

Oh how I love the snow!!

All of my most favorite things with all of my favorite people!!

I can't even tell you how fantastic this sounds to me!

Unfortunately 'tis just birthday wish-ful thinking.

Here's why:


1. Unfortunately Rexburg doesn't seem to believe in snow this semester. There is no snow on the ground. I can't believe it and have never been so distraught about the weather in my entire life! Where oh where is my beloved snow?? I've been itching to go sledding since our last sledding extravaganza last year, but something tells me that won't be happening. That "something" could possibly be this:

Note the fact that there is NO SNOW in our forecast

2. It's like pulling teeth trying to get people (except dear LeeAnn :) to go to the Homestead (although they always have a lovely time while there). The fact that my birthday is during finals week will not help my plight much I'm afraid. Everyone is very busy, which is understandable, but while going to the Homestead alone is still fun, it's 1000 times funner when I can bring friends... and when I have a ride :)

Sooo while my plan won't work for this year, I had to document it here so as to not forget it. Next year I'll start praying for snow in June. Then perhaps by December we'll have some sled-worthy snow.

Also, it's Friday. Wahoo!

Have a good one,

The First Noelle

'Tis the season of sleigh-bells, Christmas carols, mistletoe and "Noel" jokes :)

One day I'll write a whole post about my name and how my thoughts about it have changed over the years... but for today, just know that come November/December I LOVE being named Noelle.

Trav (7) and I (5) in our Christmas attire December 1995 

• I LOVE walking down the aisles of Broulim's or Walmart and hearing Josh Groban belting out a chorus of "Nooooellllllle, Noellllllllllllleee" (Seriously, I love that. Josh Groban singing right to me.)

• I love sitting in the I-Center, watching the Christmas Devotional only to find out that I'd be enjoying MOTAB beautifully serenade me with "The First Noel"

• I love walking down the halls of the Taylor building right as religion classes are starting and hearing "The First Noel" being sung in various classrooms.

• I love being at work with my "Noelle" name tag and getting asked "Do you like being named Noelle? Do people sing to you all the time?"

• I love walking to class and hearing, "Noelle, Noelleeeee, Nooooeeeeellllle, Noelle" being sung from friends all around trying to get my attention. 

• I love being in a church meeting singing The First Noel and feeling like everyone is looking at me as soon as we hit the chorus of "Noel"'s (When I look around, I found that indeed there are tons of sets of eyes watching me as if to say, "I wonder if she knows we're singing her name over and over again?")

Noelle and Papa Noel

So in case you were wondering.. I love being sung to. I love hearing "You're MY first Noelle" jokes. I love hymn 213. I love Christmas.

So next time you're singing "The First Noel" don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking of me :)

Love, Noelle

P.S. I'm pretty sure that my life would be complete if the bells on campus played "The First Noel" on my birthday as I walked to class. Lets make this happen.

Extreme Home Makeover: Family Edition

For Thanksgiving break this year, the Skousen family loaded up the cars, trucks and SUV’s and headed to Mesa, Arizona.

Our lovely Aunt Dina lives in Mesa and due to some plumbing/flooding/years and years of wear and tear, her house was in desperate need of some TLC.

That’s exactly what we gave it.

We learned to paint, cut-in, spackle, blend, edge, tape, sand, scrape, gut, hammer, mud, scrub, screw, sand, repaint and so much more.

We did it all.
In under four days.

From sun-up til the late hours of the night, the little house was filled to the brim with family.

We had Miyasaki’s, Rust’s, Skousen’s and Horito’s tackling this feat from the inside out.
I believe there was a total of 53 of us. Not bad eh?

We arrived Wednesday night and got to work on ripping out carpet, spackling holes, scrubbing down walls and a million other things.

By Thursday morning we had gutted most of the house and got to work on scrubbing and sanding cupboards. We also started painting all the rooms. 

I love this first picture of Grandma down on the floor scrubbin, what a woman!

Paint. Paint. Pain. Paint.

We were sure to take breathers every so often.

We did take a quick break to enjoy a fabulous traditional thanksgiving dinner complete with my personal favorites: Pomegranate jello and onion casserole. By the end of our feast we were all sprawled out across the entire church passed out on the carpet, face down. Then it was back to work til 10 pm.

Friday morning came and so did a whole nother set of assignments. Again we worked and played and ate all day long.
P.S. We ripped out all the toilets of the house and therefore often heard shouts of "I'm going to Home Depot, who needs to use the bathroom?" What an adventure.
On Friday night, the Mexican Food God's visited us and fed us homemade carnitas. So good. So needed. Then back to work.

By Saturday morning we were worn out. But there was still work to be done. Carpet to be put in, fridges to clean out, cupboards to re-paint, hardware to install, furniture to be cleaned and moved back in and so much more.

My family left at about 6pm that night. The house had been transformed. It was amazing!

I can’t think of a better way to spend Thanksgiving than surrounded by family, immediate and extended, working side by side for a good cause. I got to know my cousins better and meet aunts and uncles I hadn’t seen in years. I learned so much about construction and about my family. Gosh I love them. This week has made me realize how blessed I am to live in the family that I do. I am indeed thankful for them and for this opportunity we had to grow closer together.

Thanks family!

Love, Noelle

Can't We Just Rollerblade to Arizona?

Tuesday: 2pm-2am
Wednesday: 10am-5pm
Saturday: 6pm-2am
Sunday: 1pm-1am

I spent roughly 36 hours in a car this past week.

Have I ever told you how much traveling in a car deeply frightens me? I'm almost certain that I'm destined to be invoved in a gruesome car accident at one point in my life. It's times like these when I wished I lived during the days of horse and buggy. I'm a fan of biking, walking, and rollerblading. Unfortunately, none of those were very realistic means of transportaion from Rexburg to Mesa, AZ.

Either way, I spent way too much time in a car this week.

However, being the Thanksgiving season, this did lead me to two realizations:

1. I am so grateful I don't get carsick.
2. I am grateful for seatbelts.

My "Jellybean", I bought this car before I even got my license and drove it all through high school. How I loved it!

August 2010: I'm surprised I found a picture of me in the drivers seat!

This is Taryn. One fantastic driver that I completely and totally trust my life with! She's the only reason I went anywhere in high school :)

Allow me to expound on realization number 2.

I get frantic when I'm not wearing a seat belt. I assume that in that ten seconds that I'm not buckled up, we will surely get in a wreck and I will surely be ejected from the car and I will surely not be a happy camper after that.

Apparently my love for seat belts is a recent development. This was Thanksgiving break two years ago...

I think that growing up in a small town made me naive to the dangers of the road. Now that I know what can happen, I'm completely paranoid.
 
But for today, I'm grateful to be back in Rexburg after 36 ours of very limited car trouble, no dramatic car ejections, and after having listened to the Sunday morning session of General Conference played on repeat over and over again. (Brandon, for Christmas, I'm putting the other sessions on your i-pod for you :) I'm pretty sure that we have "Love Her Mother" memorized by now)

Stay tuned for a blog post explaining why I spent 36 hours in a car, and what I did this fabulous Thanksgiving break!

Love, Noelle

He-lllooo Holidays!

1. It's October.
2. It has snowed.
3. My name is Noelle.

If those aren't good enough reasons to start celebrating the holidays, I don't know what are!

At the beginning of last year, I was asked, "What's your favorite holiday?" I didn't really have a good answer. So I decided that for the whole next year, I would carefully observe every single holiday and decide which one is truly my favorite.

So far. The 4th of July is WAY, WAY, WAY up there on my list. I don't think it can be beat to be honest. We do however have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years (not to mention the "Eve's" of each of these) coming up just around the corner. Those are all a pretty big deal. I'm pretty certain that none will top my love for the family-food-freedom-firework-filled-fiesta we celebrate on the fourth, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.MJ

What's your favorite holiday to celebrate? Why? Sway me people, this is important business.

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 :)