The life of a reporter

Hey everyone! As required by my major, I am writing for the Daily Universe, BYU's newspaper, this semester! I'll be covering technology, business, and employment outside of BYU.

So please, let me know if you have any good ideas for a story; if there's something you'd really like to read about in a paper; or if you know any products, organizations, or issues that should be covered.

Thanks so much!

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays to all of you! We hope that you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's, and that you felt our love, even though we weren't able to be with all of you! We missed going home to California, and seeing our family, but we are grateful to have my parents and siblings here. Our family grew recently, with the addition of Olivia Kae Trebas. She was born on November 16, at around 9:30pm. She weighed 7 and a half pounds and was 21 inches long. We love her, and can't imagine our lives without her. She is a sweet little girl. We are so thankful that she has been happy and healthy.



Her cute little feet!


She has grown so much already! This is right after her bath. Cute bunny ears!

Jordon and I were able to go to the Timpanogas temple right before Christmas.

We were spoiled this year! Santa was very generous!:)

Jordon with his gifts on Christmas Day! Notice our new home security system!

Olivia's first Christmas! I'm sure that it was very memorable for her!:)

Like I said, Jordon spoiled me! We even got the Wii and Wii fit!

Livi, in the socks and hat Grandma Hitchcock gave her. She is darling!


Again, we hope that your holidays were fantastic, that you were able to spend time with family, and that you were able to feel the Savior's love for you! We have been so blessed. Jordon got straight A's again this past semester, and he is starting a new semester today. Olivia is growing, and getting cuter by the day! She is smiling at us constantly, and just a very happy, mellow baby. She slept for 5 hours straight last night! I am loving being a mom, after the initial shock wore off!:) It has been an adjustment for sure, but I wouldn't change a thing! We love you all, and we'll try to update again soon!:)
Love,
Noel and Jordon

Fall in Orem!

Hello everyone! First of all, we hope that you're enjoying this Fall weather! We're both so excited for the holidays and hope that you had a happy Halloween! November is an exciting month for us. We were married on November 22 almost a year ago, and we will be parents this month as well! We are so excited to meet Olivia, and we're hoping that she comes BEFORE her due date on the 20th! We want her to be able to spend Thanksgiving with us, and we know that her grandparents are eager for her to get here as well. :) It's an exciting time and we feel very blessed.
A few weeks ago, my friend Lyra threw me a baby shower, which went really well. I had about 14 friends there (including my mom), and the majority of them were from Fresno, so it was really fun to catch up with them! We appreciate the support and generosity of so many! Lyra's niece, whom I don't even know, decorated this adorable cake for the shower!


Here I am trying to get organized afterward! Check out the awesome diaper cake my mom made!


During the shower, we played a game where we had to melt a little plastic baby out of an ice cube. Later that evening, Jordon and I turned on the garbage disposal and heard an odd grinding sound. This was what Jordon pulled out! :) His leg was ground up, but we took pity on "Baby Howie" as we like to call him, and we've been taking turns hiding him throughout the apartment ever since! We are VERY easily amused!

Can you find Baby Howie in my fruity pebbles? It took me a while to see him!

Baby Howie smelled very fresh and clean after I hid him here!:)

A little over a week ago, we invited several of our friends over for FHE. The activity? Carving pumpkins of course!!

I feel like gutting the pumpkin gets harder and grosser every year!

On Halloween night, we went to a party with several of the same friends, and had a blast! We all dressed up, and we played a game where we could win candy bars. We also played a Psychologist game, which was hilarious! We really are blessed with friends who are not only good people, but are very fun to spend time with! They really got into it!

Here we are! Aren't we...cute?:) We definitely have fun, that's for sure, and I'm so grateful for Jordon. He is so supportive, helpful, and patient, and he keeps me laughing! Again, life is great and we hope that all of you are doing well too! You are all in our thoughts and prayers!

Much love,

Noel and Jordon

Prenatal classes, weddings, Conference, and counting down the weeks!

Does anyone else struggle with keeping up their blog, because we sure do! :) I will try to tell you the highlights of this past month. There were several weddings and engagements that took place last month, and we are so excited to see people we love so happy! First of all, Jordon's mom, who is now Mrs. Julie Hitchcock, was married to Channing on the 18th of September. Jordon was able to fly out to Fresno and be there to walk the beautiful bride down the aisle. I am sad that I wasn't able to be there too, but we are so happy for them, and I am excited to meet my new father-in-law!

The other night, I got a phone call from my best friend, Laurel Flake. She asked if she and Trevor (her boyfriend) could stop by for a little bit, and they came over to our apartment. It took me about a minute to notice the ring on Laurel's left hand! They are engaged, and will be sealed in December sometime! Now we'll be able to double with them as a married couple!

We also recently attended a wedding reception for Kimmy and Garrett, friends we know through Jordon's job. They also go to BYU football games with us! We bought all-sport passes this year, and they are in our group, as is Laurel! The games have been so much fun!

This was our group at last Friday's game. This was also the first night I felt a contraction. :)

Had to get a belly shot on here for you!



We also were able to watch General Conference this past weekend, which was wonderful. We watched one session with my family, and it was nice to spend some time with them.

Here's a recent Shaw/Trebas family shot.



Conference was fantastic, and we both felt a great Spirit as we watched. I'm so grateful for Jordon. I really married a great man, and I know that he'll be a leader in our family and he will help teach our children truth. We both want to make it very clear to our kids that we have a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of the Book of Mormon, and a living prophet. We want to teach them with our words and by living the things we know, and we're excited for that challenge and opportunity, especially with the coming of our little girl!

Livi will be here within a matter of weeks now, and we couldn't be happier about it! We just had our last Prenatal class at the hospital on Tuesday, and we'll now be going to see the doctor weekly. I've already packed what I can of our hospital bag, and gotten her room ready as much as I can. We both feel like she'll come before her due date on November 20th, but hopefully she'll wait at least a few more weeks! Other than that, everything is still going well, and Jordon will find out if he got into the PR program by tomorrow! We're loving the Fall weather and are excited for the holidays! We love you and hope that things are going well for all of you too!

Love,
Noel and Jordon

Back to school!

Summer has officially ended, now that Jordon is back in school! He is taking 5 classes this semester on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and working part-time for CES the rest of the week. I am amazed by the amount of homework he has already had to do during this first week back! He spent over 6 hours studying last night! Some days I really miss being in school, and others...not so much! :)

I do love to learn though, and I recently discovered that BYU offers free personal enrichment courses online. They are obviously not taken for college credit, but right now I am taking a New Testament class, and I plan on taking many more in the future!

Jordon and I were recently called to serve in the nursery of our Ward, and we were able to teach our first lesson this past Sunday. It was entitled, "I will share," and it lasted about two minutes. I have found that the attention span of two-year-olds is limited to about two minutes. We are enjoying it though, and Jordon is a magnet for little girls! They fight over who gets to sit in his lap. He'll make a great dad!

On that note, we were able to purchase a crib and changing table for little Olivia this last week as well! We got them used, but they are in great shape.

I meant to post more pictures from our Idaho trip, so I'll include them here. We were able to spend a day at Yellowstone Park, and it was gorgeous! It's amazing how diverse one area can be!

We were also able to go to Big Judd's and get a HUGE hamburger for Jordon! He and his dad split it.

Life is going great! We love you and hope that you're doing well too!

Road trip time!

We decided this last week that it was a good time to get out of Utah! Things at Jordon's job have been incredibly slow these past few weeks, since all of the EFY sessions he planned this summer have now ended. Things should pick up again this next week though, which he is grateful for.

Anyhow, back to our road trip! Jordon's parents were staying in Idaho Falls with Grandma Grover, and we decided to join them! We left last Saturday afternoon, and got back this past Wednesday, just in time for the finale of So You Think You Can Dance. :)

It was my first time in Idaho, and we had a great time! When we arrived on Saturday evening, we all drove to BYU Idaho for an international dance festival. Some of the dances were great. Others were...well, unique. And as we know, being unique is not the same as being useful. :)

The next day we went to Church as a family. Afterward, we visited the beautiful Idaho Falls temple and Visitor's Center. The weather was perfect, and the grounds were well maintained.

We then had a picnic lunch by the Snake River, and fed the geese before heading back to Grandma's house. The geese were far from timid, that's for sure!

That evening, we went to Aunt Paulette's house for dinner. I felt like we were dining out, the service was so good, and the food was even better! We were able to spend time together, talking, singing, and playing with the animals in Paulette and Drake's beautiful backyard.

More and more I realize how blessed I am to have married into such a wonderful family. I have supportive, loving in-laws, and Jordon's extended family is equally great!

I don't want to put too many pictures in this entry, so I'll let that suffice for now. I will catch you up on our adventures at Yellowstone Park soon! Jordon took some incredible pictures there! We love you, and wish you all a happy week!

Love,

Noel and Jordon

Ugly table, beautiful ward

So, we think we've decided on Olivia for the baby's name. It received the most votes in our poll, and we love it! We're still working on middle names though, so if you have any suggestions let us know!

We decided this week to end our two week experiment with the family ward and try out the student married ward. The diversity we were looking forward to in the family ward ended up being 75% retired people, 20% middle aged couples with older kids, and 5% people our age. We also just weren't really feeling it there! It's amazing how much the people in a ward can affect the way it feels.

We tried out our new ward today, and we loved it! We met three times more people today than we had in our time at the other ward.

About the ugly table thing, here is the beauty!



It's a long story, but we came into possession of this table recently. It's really ugly (hideous actually), but we're selling it and it's actually going to be really helpful. We thought things were going to be a little tight this month, what with utility deposits and rent deposits and student loans not being in yet, but it's actually going to work out really well because of this ugly table and a few other random blessings. It's so cool when things work out that way; the Lord is really mindful of us.

We visited Tammy and Mark today also and had fun with their adorable kids! Here are some pictures:

Jacob: sticky, but cute.

Kayley with her missing tooth.

Moriah is rambunctious!

I showed them how to use the photo editing software on my camera...

...but they used it against me!

Me with Zachary, the newest member of the bunch.



Noel with Zach. So cute! And the baby's not bad either.

We're really excited for our little Livi to come! Why do we have to wait four more months? Oh well. People keep telling us that once they come we'll wish they were back inside! I guess we'll see. Until then, I'll just have to torture other peoples' children:

Proverbs 22:6