Why, Hello!

Let me formally introduce myself.

[Warning: this is a LONG post of me rambling about my life.]


My name is Rachel Teran. I have no middle name. My maiden name is Russell, and I loved it. I miss signing it, but I decided to not have it be a middle name, and just went with Teran. (I was just so giddy when I got married that I wanted the feeling of dropping the old and embracing the new. Little did I know everyone would mispronounce it....)

This is what I looked like as a baby.

I was 10 lbs 2 oz when I arrived. My mom said that I was adorable, but in all honesty- I think I was just fat. Fat babies are always cute babies. Heavy, but cute.... I know you may not be able to tell from the dress (because it's slimming, you know) but there is many a'rolls under there. I imagine I smiled because I was comfortable and couldn't move even if I wanted to.

Some big achievements in my childhood were being the LEAD dinosaur in my second grade play, a spelling bee contestant in fourth (I misspelled synonym. Who knows that in fourth grade?), I was in the Mustang Area Chorus in 6th grade (the video footage is classic), and I memorized all 13 articles of faith by 8 years old. (I'm a little rusty, but I bet I can still recite them.) I know what you're thinking... with a rap-sheet like that, this girl was destined for greatness.When I got to be in 9th grade, I decided that dressing like a boy would be preferable- popular even! I found out later, in hindsight, that it wasn't. It really, really wasn't. A personal low in that time period was when I wore dickie pants cut at the mid calf, and a hurley shirt, thick skater shoes (I didn't skate. Jus' throwin that in there) and my infamous thick framed glasses. Oh, can't forget an occasional backwards hat. (!!) I remember waking up at the beginning of 10th grade thinking, "I want to be a girl again. This is ridiculous." And so it was. (Also during this time, I came up with cool "different" outfits like this little number:
You are seeing correctly. That is a taxi cab hat I got from a thriftstore. Not much more to say than that... I guess pictures speak much louder than words.

In the middle of 10th grade, I moved to Stillwater. I lived with my sister and brother-in-law and their little one at the time, Anna. I love that town. Much more exciting than Mustang, though Mustang will always have a feeling of "home." I didn't have a car all through high school. At the time, it felt like one of the hardest and just "most embarrassing things like, ever".. but one day you're out of high school, and everything gets put into perspective. It's an interesting feeling when you realise that high school really does. not. matter. I was in such a hurry to get a car. So I got one. And it looked like this:

I still have this thing. It is a 98 Chevy Metro. With no air-conditioning. And no power steering. And the headlights barely work. And there are only two hubcaps. And it sounds like a racecar when you accelerate it past 15 mph. And the doors don't lock. And it's been broken into more than once. And it was stolen. And when it was stolen, they (the culprits who were never found) ran it into a telephone pole. And it was fixed. And I still have this thing. It was $1200.00.
After graduation, I was living with a friend, and not really happy with my life. I wasn't going anywhere, doing anything. I was working at an icecream shop (which, by the way, if you're ever in TX, OK, KS, AR, or MO, you have to go to Braums. It's a delight.) for which I had been working for three years. Not my dream job, believe it or not. So my mom called me, said she was moving to UT in 2 weeks, and asked if I wanted to come along. I considered declining due to the fact that 1. It was August and I would have to drive the Metro all the way to UT with no airconditiong and 2. Well, really that was the only reason. But I did it. Evan and I squeezed in the little wind-up car and shook all the way to UT.

This is what we probably looked like the entire way:
(Except a lot grumpier.)

We did, however, listen to a lot of Queen on the way. And that was quite enjoyable.

So I came here. I got a job at Jordan Credit Union. I saw a handsome man enter the building on my second or third day. He ignored me. I decided that he was probably just shy. I was right. I tried to get to know this hunky stranger. I asked him open-ended questions like, "So, you went a mission to Taiwan huh?" And he would answer, "Yep." Silence. Determined, I continued. "That's cool! You speak Chinese, then huh?" "Yah." Silence. I thought about giving up. But I decided to press on, but go about it differently. I pretended to be in love with him. I would always talk about "when Alex and I get married" and mutter "I love you" under my breath just to get a reaction out of him. He would just usually stare at me in silence. I'm not sure if he knew how to react.
(I realise that I got very, very lucky with this)

After about a month of me saying things, he loosened up and even joined in my marriage talk. I remember saying something about not liking swimming and he said, "Well, that's going to be a problem on our honeymoon because we're going to a beach." :) That makes me smile. I think it was from that moment that I knew I liked him. This whole time I pretended to love him, and now I'm interested. So I casually asked him to hang out on Halloween. He said he had plans. I was embarrassed and sad. The next day he called me homie. I thought it was over for good even before it began. Yet on that Saturday, he brought me a fortune he had receieved from a fortune cookie that previous night. It said, "A new relationship is about to blossom. You will be blessed." He asked me out, and the rest is history.

When we dated, we took a lot of pictures. Mostly of cheesy make out pictures like this:

Then we were engaged, and then we were married for time and all eternity.

Alex and my relationship has been strong from the get-go. I think that since we went through hard times during the dating/engagement period (My fault. I had fears and insecurities), it made us go through the hard part first and then just enjoy marriage. We compliment eachother. He supports me. I support him. He's understands my needs, as I do his. We can look through home decor stores for hours and dream of the future. We listen to The Beatles together and get excited for Christmas. We say "I love you" every single day. We go to church together and we go to the temple. We're dedicated to eachother and I know that when we expand our little family, things will only get better. We have common goals. We love our Heavenly Father. We love Jesus Christ. We love the Gospel, and we love our families. He's a great man. I'm a lucky gal.

I hope by reading this you not only know me, but you may want to be just like me. No, in all honesty-- it's been quite the journey and there were hard times, but they've all lead me here.

And here is where I want to be.