This month..

...will be an interesting one.


Alex and I have done some lifestyle changes during the past month... and those lifestyle changes consist of our diet and our exercise! Over the past couple weeks, we've stopped eating out- started working out- and have been so pumped about losing some weight!


It seemed to be fate when my sister, Heather, called me and asked us if we wanted to do a free month of personal training via e-mail with a friend of hers. We jumped on the bandwagon, and starting Monday- we'll be on a strict diet and working out schedule! We're SOOO excited!


Our diet for the next month will include: egg whites, chicken/tuna, oatmeal, natural peanut butter, apples, green veggies, brown rice/sweet potatoes, and protein shakes. Nothing more, nothing less.


It will kick our butts... but many members of mi familia are doing it too, so we'll have a great support system.


I would put before pictures on here, but I am not going to. ;)


I'm probably not going to be on the computer much this next month so I can fully focus on whats ahead of me. Plus, I'm just on the dang thing too much anyway. :)


And they're off...

A Perfect Week

A couple weeks ago, my beloved and I both had about a week and a half off from work to do whatever we want. I will let you know that we took FULL advantage of this opportunity. Our week included:

• Browsing the mall and eating goodies from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
• Going to home decor stores (lots of them)
• A zoo trip (I haven't been since being in UT.) It was fun! I haven't been to the zoo in ages....
• Went on a hike. (Our new passion...)
• Went camping (It was wonderful!!)
• Celebrating our two year anniversary!!!
• Eating at Macaroni Grill (we went there on our honeymoon)
• Eating at Nauvoo Cafe (we just really love their sandwiches)
• Eating at Cafe Rio (we just eat there all the time)
• And probably a bunch of other eateries.... we like to eat. A lot.
• We stayed at the same bed and breakfast from our honeymoon. Same room. It was just fantastic!!
• Our bed and breakfast is right in the middle of SLC, so we did nothing but walk all weekend. We did all the typical touristy mormons do... tour of the conference center, church history museum, browsed temple square and on Sunday morning, saw Music and the Spoken Word. It was an extremely spiritually uplifting weekend.
• We made out. We held hands. We hugged. Even more than usual!!!
• We spent a night with Alex's sister, Marlene and her lovely family.
• Went to This is the Place heritage park, where I had a not-so-wonderful headache. I did manage to buy a bottled rootbeer though. This made me happy.
• We talked about things we loved about being married, and things we could work on. I LOVE having conversations about how we can improve as a couple, or as individuals. Believe it or not, I like to hear what he would like me to improve on. It's weird...

Well, I suppose I should post some pictures from our week of bliss. I'm not going to post too many, but here are some of the highlights!

Everytime I see anything of President Hinckley I have to take a picture :) He's just wonderful and I miss him dearly!

This was at This is the Place Heritage park. They had a petting zoo. Cute!

Alex and I taking a breather. We walked soooo much that weekend.

Our adorable bed and breakfast!!!

This was on top of the Conference Center. It was such a neat tour. I had never been so it was extra special for me. A must do for everyone!!

Alex at the zoo pretending to be a monkey.

There aren't too many pictures on this, solely because it takes a bloody lifetime to upload each picture onto blogger. And it's getting late as it is. And I'm starting to feel a cold coming on... which means it's probably time for me to sign off. Adios!

Thanks, Mom...

Alex and I were given the opportunity to speak in church today (something I truly enjoy!) and the topic was either a General Conference talk from last session, or on Preach my Gospel. Talk about choices!! After a little searching, I chose L. Tom Perry's talk, "Mothers Teaching in the Home." I'm sure you know by now that my mother is absolutely fabulous- and everytime I even bring her name up in a talk, I cry. And I cry a lot.


I talked about several things that my mom did for us growing up, and all the subtle- yet sometimes not so subtle- principles she taught us. From the first story I told, the tears started.... there was a family that my sister, Jill, was babysitting when she was a teenager. (Note: this family was having a difficult time, single mother with I think 5 kids.) Jill went to make them food and noticed they hardly had a thing in their cupboards or refridgerator. She called my mom, who was the Relief Society president at the time, and she immediately, without question, called her counselors and went grocery shopping for this sweet family. I think my mom was surprised that I knew this story... because she never told it to me. I'm glad Jill did.


After that, I went into how she taught us to have high self-esteem by complimenting us, talking to us, and being affectionate with us. On our birthdays, she implemented a rule where we went around the table and every member of the family had to say a few things they like about the birthday person. It was difficult sometimes (especially if you were in a fight with that particular person as a child....) but I think it helped shape all of the children's relationships with eachother now. We all get along and compliment eachother easily.


She also would have us on various Sundays write a letter to someone in our ward telling them what we appreciate and admire about them. I absolutely LOVE that she did this, and I plan on doing it for our future little ones. I have since talked to various adults that we sent letters to, and they say they still have the the notes the "Russell kids" would write. What an amazing example my mother is. Truly....


So anyway, thanks Mom for being a good mother and making me cry. (The whole tear-up easily whilst speaking comes from her, too.)


Oh, and P.S. The Paul McCartney tickets sold out in 3 hours. Thanks to Alex's brother, Paul, we were able to get them. It was a close one.....

Can I Just Tell You..

that Alex and I will be purchasing tickets to see Sir Paul McCartney in the flesh?

(I loooooove Mr. McCartney with a beard and the long hair. I'm a hippie lover at heart, it's true... plus, as you may or may not have noticed, I have a thing for beards.)

Alex and I are SO THRILLED. We're kind-of obsessed with The Beatles, so this is going to be a delight. He still is a fantastic performer, and I'll admit it- I still think he's extremely attractive. Don't judge.

It is absolutely okay to be jealous.

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.