My Turn!

Here's the thing. After four years of living and loving the college/single life, I'm an engaged woman! As in... I'm tying the knot, settling down (whatever that means) and gettin' hitched!

Eric and I the night we got engaged. (May 13th, 2013)

Bachelorette Party for Shae!

I know right? Believe me, it's harder for me to believe than it is for any of you I'm sure. I've had at least over 80% of my roommates get married on me. I've been to countless bridal showers and receptions. I've stayed up to all hours of the night on dozens of occasions listening to my roommates fawn (or complain) over their fiances/in-laws/colors/drama etc.

I've had more engaged roommates than not! Because of that, I've seen the good the bad and the ugly. With each of these experiences, I've promised myself over and over again that I would not be the typical "engaged roommate". The one who is stressed, tired, grumpy, snappy and just a time bomb waiting to go off on the closest breathing thing.

Shae and I on date night!

I remember one roommate in particular, Ms. Shae Cox (Hildreth). She was my room roommate when she was engaged and let me tell you, she was a saint. Times were hard for her and there was a ton going on in her life, but she never took it home with her or let it affect her relationship with her roommates. She was never short with us or rude in the slightest. In fact it was  quite the contrary, she was so kind and generous! I'd never seen anything like it and I'm so grateful for the example she set for me.



So folks, I've got a month and a half left of this engaged thing and you know what? So far I am LOVING it. It's so fun, so exciting and I am SO in love. More on the man in my life later. Until then...

Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement from us!


Love, Noelle

Run, Run, Run as Fast as you can!

Year two of the Temple to Temple Relay:

Check!

This great tradition was started when our fearless team captain (Shae Hildreth) put together a stellar team of women who just so happen to be some of my best friends! We had SO much fun and although we hadn't trained, nor were conditioned, we took second place in the women's division! Not bad for not even trying :)

Team Be Somebody: Taylor, Claire, LeeAnn, Shae, Noelle, Brittany, Marquee, Kim

This year, we had to switch things up a bit as half our team got married (not that that makes a difference:) but they were MIA.

So I took up the title of team captain and recruited a few newcomers.

Before: Rexburg Temple

Again, it was SUCH a blast. We had so much fun rocking out to tunes, cheering on the sidelines, pigging out on trail mix and granola bars and running our little hearts out.

 I was so impressed with our team who ran the entire 37+ miles in under 5 hours!

That's an average of a 7:45 minute mile.

CRAZY FAST!

Still looking good in IF

Out of 91 teams, we came in 5th in our division. Not bad!

Team Be Somebody: Greg, Kimithy, Ric, Me, Dallin, Jordan, Abigail and April

It was seriously, SO fun and it felt good to be out there running again. If you ever get a chance to do the Temple-to-Temple. You simply must! You won't regret it :)

Love, Noelle

Fall 2011: Meet The Roommates

Seven Semesters of living with five other women at Royal Crest apartment complex.

SEVEN SEMESTERS!
Can you believe it? Neither can I. I have had seven different sets of amazing roommates.

This semester was no exception. Allow me to introduce you to the five lovely ladies I've had the privelage of living with, learning from and loving this semester.

Pictured from left to right: Michaela, Jenna, Taylor, Hannah, Claire and Myself

Oh my goodness I love these ladies. Top notch in every way possible!  And aren't they cute??
At 20 years old, I was again the oldest in the apartment this semester, although sometimes that was not very obvious (surprise, surprise).

We've had roommate dinners, prayers, nights out on the town, slumber parties, birthday parties, trips to the Homestead, Christmas story readings, gift exchanges, long late night talks, serious "we need to work on this" talks, nights at the gym, and so much more.

They are so, so GOOD! I've learned muchas and muchas from their examples and have grown to love them dearly.

Thanks for giving me a perfect semester as far as roommates are concerned!

Want to meet my roommates for next semester???
Ok :) Meet Margie. We share a passion for brightly colored MuMu's.

Ha just kidding... although Margie is a doll, she won't be accompanying me to Peru next semester. But these lovely ladies will! This picture was taken during a Skype meeting with our adviser.

Meet the Roommates Winter 2012: Brittany Meyer and Abigail Tucker
I'm sure you'll be seeing lots more of these two! Be excited.. I sure am!

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

Autumn: Take Three

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 new job. 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 usher this 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 classes are 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 my Family 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 on Facebook last 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

"I Can Tell That We Are Gonna Be Friends"

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

Roasting Chili Peppers

Looking lovely after work outs

Eating European Chocolate

Considering the Important things in Life

TENNIS AND ROLLERBLADING!

Red Robbining

Being on  a sugar-free diet together and hating it

Cheering at games

Attending FHE at the Herberts