Sweet, Sweet Summer Time

Feast your eyes on this:

Tell me that that doesn't look like the funnest thing in the world... I dare you.

Ok, so last month my ward had quite possibly THEE funnest ward activity ever. I simply had to share.

We had a foam slip n slide. If you look very closely at the topleft corner of this next picture, you can kind of see how this concoction was created. 

 Two Shop vacs, two tubs of water and soap, tightly covered with sheets (to form the bubbles) and some rather long plastic.

 It was seriously SO stinking fun!

These next few pictures display my greatest idea to date.

Slip n Slide Bowling!

I was the bowling ball, and some kind, innocent by-standards eagerly agreed to be my pins.

Not too shabby, eh?

Now don't you all try and recruit me to your bowling teams all at once.

We took a quick break from foam slip n slide (when a tear was discovered) and played some ice cream football. It's your basic touch football rules with only one slight change... the football is a box carton of ice cream!

We got so messy and the boys had quite a good time rubbing fist-fulls of half melted ice cream into our hair :(

Good thing the slip n slide was repaired before long and we had all that nice, foamy soap and water to slip, slide and clean up with.


I loved every minute of it and vowed that my kids will not be foreign to foam slip n slides. It will be a regular occurrence at our house I assure you.

Love, Noelle

Bucket List: To Do in Peru

I decided to compile a bucket list of things that I want to do or accomplish during my time in Peru. I'll cross them off and probably blog about them as we go. Feel free to add suggestions :)  I'll post this as one of the tabs on my homepage so you can view it whenever you desire and see my new updates on it!

• Milk a goat or llama or something of that sort
• Make homemade ice cream, Peruvian style (do they eat ice cream there??!?!)
• Plant something and watch it grow for three months
• Get to the point where I can read and understand my Spanish BOM without any help from my English one
• Try Guinea Pig
• Make Guinea Pig Bacon
• Learn a new crafty Peruvian skill
• Play soccer
• Get decent at soccer
• Ride a large animal for transportation (donkey, llama, elephant...giant guinea pig?)
• Give away a Spanish BOM
• Bear my testimony in Sacrament meeting
• Try as many different fruits and vegi's as possible
• Take 3,000 pictures :)
• Obtain a Spanish nickname!
• Sing in Spanish
• Go running in Peru
• Soak up as much sun as possible
• Go fishing
• Get sock tan lines
• Make a new friend
• Have a Peruvian follower on my blog
• Visit a temple/temple site
•  Learn a new quinoa recipe, I hear they're genius with that stuff in Peru (it is an Andean grain after all :)

Fun huh?
I have three dear friends on missions in Peru right now (Ryan Whiteside, Wes Wagner and Heather Lindsey) and I wish I could just call them all up and have them help me add to my list. I'm sure they'd be very insightful.

Love, Noelle

P.S. Here's a fun update! Ms. Brittany Meyer will now be joining Abigail and I on this quest!  Wahooooo!

Brittany and I at 6 am right before our Temple to Temple Relay Race!

  Brittany came over tonight and we discussed some of the logistics of this mighty venture. Let's just say that I am SO excited to go!

Operating Heavy Machinery

Does this count as heavy machinery?

This is the beauty I learned to skillfully maneuver today.

Growing up with four big brothers got this girl out of ever learning the necessary art of lawn mowing... until today.

After a brief, "flip this switch, pull this stringy thing, unflip the switch and push" lesson, I was well on my way. I wouldn't exactly say that I find lawn mowing terribly enjoyable, but hey, it wasn't too bad at all. And best of all, I can add "lawn mowing" to my ever-growing (oh so slowly, but surely) list of useful skills.

I quickly grew weary of having straight lines and decided to add some pizazz to mine. Tangent: I just love our cute, little, red chicken coop seen on the right. It is currently chicken-less due to our recent move, but it'll be filled back up before you know it!

I'm actually kind excited for the grass to grow out so that I can practice a bit more and mow some cool design in the yard. That's about as artistic as I get... lines in grass. Oh, and I may have even gotten a little bit tan and been able to bask in the glorious smell of fresh cut grass while accomplishing this task. New favorite chore? Possibly.

On another semi-related-but-not-entirely note, I drove into St. George the other day, woooo!

Truth be told, I greatly disliked driving into St.George.

Sure I like to drive.
I like to drive down Moapa Valley Boulevard, going 55 mph and counting the cows and horses as I pass them.
I like to drive down the back roads in Logandale, discovering new streets and houses back there that I never even knew about.
I like calm Sunday drives and short drives to the store or the high school.

I am not a fan of the freeway.

It could be the fact that I haven't driven on it in over 4 years...whoops. It could be that I'm terrified of being in another car accident, or worse, causing a car accident. It could be that I'm not an aggressive driver and would be more than happy driving in the slow lane the entire duration of the trip. It could be that semis make me want to cry. Whatever it is, I've got to get over it!

If I'm going to get anywhere in life, I've got to know how to drive in the real world. Growing up in a small town and moving to go to school in an even smaller town (with out a car) didn't really help me out too much in that aspect, but I'm pretty determined to get my car driving capabilities up to that of my impeccable lawn mowing skills :) Wish me luck!

Love, Noelle

P.S. Only two more days til Derrick, Brittney and Molly get here! Yeaaaaaaah!

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

None Greater---EFY:Counselor Edition

You guys!!! I had theeee most incredible week of my life last week. I hear I missed out on one heck of a family reunion, which I am really bummed about, but woah baby, I can't imagine having a greater week than the one that I spent as an EFY counselor. If you recall my last post, you'll remember that this was a total last minute descision, meaning I had no training time and no time to physically, spiritually, emotionally or mentally prepare myself.

I did have one thing going for me.... I was BEYOND excited, and the blue polo brought out my eyes :)

Monday came and I was absolutely clueless as to how things were supposed to run and work. Lucky for me, the Lord was SO mindful of me and was constantly putting people and experiences in my way that would help me to catch on and learn the things that I needed to. I seriously can't even begin to express how many times I saw the hand of the Lord in my life that one day alone. INCREDIBLE!

It all started out when I was assigned and introduced to my fabulous (not to mention good looking ;) co-counselors Cole and Nusly. These two are the only reason I made it out alive. Each of us had a group of 8-12 girls (Cole of course had boys) and the three of our groups combined made up our company. We did almost everything all together as a company, so I got to spend a lot of time with these two.

Nusly, Cole and I: Couldn't have asked for better co-counselors

On Monday at exactly 1:35 pm, I got to meet my girls. I was SOOOO excited to meet them! I was put in charge of 8 of the most gorgeous, talented, hilarious, sweet, obedient, kind 14-15 year old girls I have ever met. I was seriously blown away with how incredible each and everyone of them were. Needless to say, I fell in love with them at once!

These are my girlies on the first day. At this point,  I think they still were under the impression that I was crazy, buuuut we fixed that before long... right girls??

By Wednesday Night, pizza night, our true colors were showing for sure. Look how gorgeous all these ladies are! I can't believe it!

So pretty much I had an amazing time. My favorite part hands down was the Tuesday night dance, I think my girls know why that is :)  I learned so much this week about leadership, friendship and love and how all three can go hand in hand. I seriously love all my girls so much and believe it or not, they seem to think I'm pretty alright too :)  It was a really tough week to be honest, it wasn't all smooth sailing, and 4-5 hours of sleep a day really takes its toll on you, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!


With out further ado, here are a couple of pictures I snapped from my week at efy:

There were such darling boys at EFY! I loved to see them being so respectful and sweet towards the girls. They were holding doors, throwing away trash, offering compliments and boosting girls self-esteem right and left. Good work boys, good work!

I got to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with my company everyday (except for when I was on variety show duty) in the crossroads. Tons of good food and even better company!

Pizza Night was so much fun, we pigged out, had girl talk and interpretive danced the night away!

 Pictured below with Brooke on the left and Sarah on the right

I was on variety show duty, meaning that on Tues and Wed tons of kids came to audition in front of me and two other counselors (Russ and Kyle) for a chance to be in the variety show on Thurs. This took a lot of my time! I missed free time and lunches and dinners and part of games night to work on auditions, but it was SOOO much fun! We had over 60 amazing groups/individuals audition. Unfortunately we could only take about half of them, so I got to help in the elimination process. These two boys on the right, were our closing act. They had an amazing, witty, extremely entertaining magic show. I got to be their lovely assistant for the first run. I was BLOWN AWAY!!

Just chilling outside waiting to start our service project.

Cole and the boys in our company. We had two Nathans, three Tanners and two Michaels! Oh and one straight up from Ireland David!

Oh My Goodness, Oh My Goodness, Oh My Goodness

The next few weeks are going to be ... FANTASTIC! Here's why:
On Thursday afternoon I was notified that EFY would like to hire me on to start working as an EFY counselor starting that following Monday (that's today folks). I applied for this job ages ago but never heard back so I completely forgot about it. Most people find out 3-4 months in advance so they have plenty of time to prepare for it, I got 2-3 days. Not to mention those were the days of finals and white glove clean checks.
I was also scheduled to attend a family reunion that very week and then travel home with my family and get started right away on some other things as soon as I got home. It was VERY unlike me to completely drop everything that I had planned and scheduled for something that spontaneously showed up, but I did- and I feel very confident about that descision.

I went to EFY once with my best friend Emily the summer before our Senior year.  However, we had some plane troubles and missed our entire first day and had to spend the rest of the week catching up, but we sure did enjoy ourselves.
I was just reminded of the EFY term "COW" or "Crush Of The Week". I definitely had a Cow, his name was Jon and we were adorable together ;) ask anyone. Annnnyways. Here's some pictures from way back when I was a participant. The next post will hopefully have some pictures of efy from the perspective of a counselor.

Gosh I'm excited. Did you ever go to EFY? Any tips, suggestions?

My two amazing counselors, Michelle and Erica. I ADORED them.

Emily and I went together, best decision ever!

I loved making so many new friends. This is Kelsey, she's married now :) (ha apparently I wasn't big in to make up back then!)

The strapping young men. We got pretty lucky with our guys :)

The ladies!

Our threesome counselors, usually there are only two, but we got three that time, and I'm in a threesome this time around too!

Gosh I liked those boys :)

And the moment you've been waiting for... Jon!!! We hung out and went on a date or two after efy, this was taken at one of them. He's a cutie :) (Currently on a mission in SINGAPORE!)

And that's all I've got time for right now folks, I meet my girls in two hours, and I am seriously SO excited. I love them already.

Love, Noelle

Oh. P.S. I got the job on campus working at the Information desks in the Kimball and MC, super thrilled about that one. Ahhhh how I've missed working. Life is good. Oh yeah and.... Josh Turner. (Just had to throw him in there)

"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 :)