The one when I had a bridal shower

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Last week was craziness, but awesomeness. I had two friends (Kathryn and Shannon) come in from out of state, plus my Mother in town visiting me, all so they could be there for my bridal shower. Last week included the Fourth of July, my second wedding dress fitting, and a trip to the dentist as well.

And it looked a little something like this:

Taking Mom to Zupas (or Soupas as she always mistakenly calls it).

Watching Fireworks (my favorite!) at Thanksgiving Point

Spending the 4th at the pool (also favorite).

Fireworks with Mom.

Wedding dress fitting #2. Dress is still unlined, un-hemmed, and in 3 separate pieces, but here's a sneak peek!

A fun and beautiful bridal shower put on by the best roommate of all time, Jayni.

Lots of fun presents!

Yummy yummy food.

Besties.

Like I said, lots of yummy food.

Fun games... this one I won! It was guessing 40 famous on screen kisses. I got 36.

And that game where they ask your fiance questions and film him and then you have to guess his answers. If you guess incorrectly, you have to put a huge piece of the nastiest gum you've ever tasted in your mouth. 

I think I had 6 pieces. But Devon and I actually did really well!

More fun presents!

LOVE my friends.

And as if throwing the bridal shower wasn't gift enough, Jayni also made me this beautiful quilt with a sweet inscription on it for me and Devon. 

Me and my mom with some of my new family.

All that NASTY bubble yum gum.

My mom, me, my sister-in-law Ashley.

I've gotta say, I never used to really think bridal showers were fun. But now I do! Loved it and I am so grateful to everyone who came and/or helped in any way. The best!

Another Spider Story & a New Car

You guys, the spiders, they find me. The smell my fear, and they seek me out and now they are infiltrating my home and preparing themselves for war. I'm serious, they're even building fortresses on our front porch and our balcony. They are literally creating little web cocoons to hide in. And they aren't small spiders either. I can't leave my house without scanning all the surroundings and feeling immense amounts of anxiety. Two days ago, I killed two in my house in one day. And one of them was a flying spider... not kidding! It literally flew out of the way when I tried to squash it. These spiders are well trained and prepared for battle.

But even all of that is nothing compared to what happened to me about two weeks ago.

One Thursday morning, I left my apartment on my way to work with a smile on my face and a gleam in my eye. It was a good morning. When I got to my car in our car port, I noticed a huge freaking wasp on the window behind the driver's side door. Wasps are another bug that I don't like to deal with. So I calmly decided to walk around to the passenger side door and put my bags on the front seat, thinking that when I shut the door, it would cause the wasp to fly away. Well, that plan didn't work. This wasp wasn't going anywhere. That's cool, I thought. I'll just get in on the passenger side and he'll get blown off when I start driving. So I calmly climbed over my center console and into my seat and started to back out of the car port.

The next thing I know, I see a spider start crawling down my windshield. Luckily, it was on the outside. So... I waited. And when the spider got down far enough, SWISH! I wipered that sucker to death. Sayonara. (That's Japanese for "goodbye.")

Feeling pretty good about myself, I started my drive to work, keeping one eye on the road and one eye on my mirror, watching to see when the wasp would get whisked away by the wind. But would you believe it? That wasp was HOLDING ON FOR DEAR LIFE. He would not be whisked! Finally, when I hit Lehi, the wind was blowing pretty hard so his little legs gave up and he let go.

Victory! I thought.

Then when I got to work, I walked around to the passenger side of my car to get my bags out, and when I started to open the door, I noticed that a dense web had formed, attaching the door to the body of the car. Ew! When I opened the door all the way, ripping the web in half (thinking, how did this happen? I JUST opened this door 15 minutes ago and got in on this side!) This spider was spinning like crazy while I was driving 75 mph! And then I got really grossed out thinking about where the spider might have been lurking when I was entering that door... sick!

And then I saw the spider. You guys, this spider wasn't small. It was brown, and leggy, and angry because I just destroyed its new home. (Why, why was it building its home on my car?!) I was so grossed out that I took a picture whilst I was dry-heaving.

I was too afraid to get close enough for a clear picture.

Disgusting side view.

For a minute, I thought I was going to be brave and kill this thing myself. There was NO WAY I was leaving it there, in my car. So I rummaged and found a water bottle. And I got close a few times, but I just couldn't do it. I was too disgusted. So I left everything in my car and ran up to the 3rd floor, grabbed the first guy I saw and asked him to come kill it for me. This guy was trying to be all macho by making fun of me, and he grabbed this tiny piece of paper to kill the spider... I was like, uh... you might want something bigger than that, just sayin. But he didn't listen.

So he came to my car and I backed away slowly whilst he used his small paper to, not smush the spider, but swipe at it, trying to swipe to the ground. As you can probably imagine, this backfired since these spiders are well trained in combat. The spider simply ran down the side of the door and then escaped into a crack... into the INSIDE OF MY CAR DOOR. Where we couldn't get to it.

And that's when I decided that I was absolutely selling my car. That night. I'd been wanting to for several years. Welp, no time like the spider-ridden present. Okay, I'm kidding. Devon and I had decided to sell the car the night before. This merely solidified the mind that was already made up. But, back to my story...

At this point, I'm angry. "Person!" I yelled (leaving names out for identity protection), "I asked you to kill it, not coax it into my car where it can now build a home and start a family!" He just shrugged and went upstairs while I started writing down my last will and testament. This was sheer panic mode. How was I supposed to get home that night? I couldn't just drive my car with a huge spider living inside it! What if it re-emerged whilst I was on the freeway? I would for sure wreck - and I just couldn't put myself and other innocents on the road in that kind of danger. For the rest of the day I periodically checked my car to see if the spider would re-emerge. It didn't. When it finally came time to leave, all I could do was man up and hope that the severe heat and my black car had singed the spider to death. I was brave and drove straight to the high pressure car wash and hoped to goodness that the spider didn't survive that if he had, in fact, survived the heat. And that night, I listed my car on KSL.

Two days later, it sold. I may or may not have left out the spider part when the guy asked me, "Tell me all the bad things about the car." I hope I don't go to hell for that.

Rolli (that's my car) served me well for the last 9 years.

The first time I laid eyes on him, I named him Rolli Polli, because, well... he looks like one.

 I will miss his great gas mileage. But that's pretty much all I will miss. (Well, that and no car payment). Because now, I have a beautiful 2010 Honda Civic LSX and it has wonderful advanced technology perks like power windows, power mirrors, keyless entry, an auxiliary cable so I can listen to my iPod, comfortable seats, 4 doors, and best of all? NO SPIDERS.

Trust me, I checked.

Proud owner.

How To Survive Riding in the Bed of a Tailgate-less 1990 Ford F250 Whilst Driving Up a Mountain

Last weekend (Memorial Day weekend), Me, Jayni, and Devon road tripped up to Grace, Idaho for a "weekend away" at Jayni's parents' ranch.

We arrived late Friday night, shot the breeze for a while, and then went to bed. On Saturday, we had a full, fun day planned, starting with a little cow branding (which I have vowed never to do again, because I just feel bad for the poor things).

Devon trying it out.

Then, we did a little horseback riding (it was Devon's first time on a horse).

 He liked it.

 After horseback riding, we decided to head over to the Caribou County High School Rodeo Finals (high schools treat rodeos like sports?) But we had some time to kill before that started, so we went to town to pick up some flowers for grave decorating that would be taking place on Monday. Jayni held the flowers on her lap in the car for point two seconds, and ended up looking like she peed all over herself.

She was sad, but I viewed this as a wonderful photo opportunity.

We also stopped by a "haunted" old hotel/museum and a little geyser. Then we went to the rodeo finals.

Doug and Peggy.

I look like I have no left arm. 

After the rodeo, we got some FOOD. Then we went back to the ranch, did some reading in the hammock, and prepped for our bonfire up the mountain that evening. 

 And here's where the real adventure begins. We packed up Doug's 1990 Ford F250 that he only uses for driving around the ranch. But there's only 2 seats in the front of the truck, and we had 5 people. So naturally, Me, Jayni, and Devon needed to sit in the back. We set up some camping chairs and got ready for what we thought would be a fun 3-4 minute drive that would not be life threatening in any way, shape, or form.

Oh, how naive.

We started like this:

Happy Happy Joy Joy

And that soon turned into this:

Holding on for dear life. 

The back of the truck had no tailgate, and it's not like our little camping chairs were nailed in or anything, so we were all holding on to each other's chairs to try to stay secured. It was bumpy back there. And, before we knew it, we were driving up unnaturally steep and completely unexpected inclines and through (and under) very lush shrubbery, which meant that we were constantly ducking (or getting smacked in the face by angry tree branches) and I was frantically trying to keep my head and neck covered because, I kid you not, spiders were falling on me off of the trees. SPIDERS!

We almost lost Jayni once and Devon twice. We did lose two chairs at one point too. I ended up sacrificing my body to save a lantern from flying out the back of the truck.

When we finally arrived at our final destination, safe and in tact (besides some high blood pressure), we (and by "we," I mean Doug and Devon) built a bonfire, set up dinner, roasted hot dogs, told stories, and then, of course, roasted smores. Which = happiness in my book, any day. It felt like camping. And I, actually, happen to love camping.

Then, it got really dark outside, but the moon (which was a full moon that night) hadn't come up over the trees yet. And I was starting to feel certain that a cougar was hiding in the trees waiting to make its attack. So Peggy says to Doug, "Doug, why don't we pack up and go?" And Doug says, "No, I want to wait until the moon is up so we can see...the truck doesn't have headlights." To which Peggy responded, "Excuse me? No headlights? You brought us up to the middle of the mountains in a truck with no headlights?! We're leaving right now." At that point, you couldn't really see the path through the trees at all. Doug kept trying to reassure us all it would all be fine when the moon came up. But Peggy wasn't having it. She said, "Go turn that truck around, we'll put out this fire, and then I'll walk ahead of the truck with the lantern if I have to. No headlights? That was really well thought out Doug." So Doug went and spent what seemed like 20 minutes turning the truck around without any headlights while we let the fire die more. Then we packed up the truck and Doug told us to start walking so he could drive over where the fire had been. As we were walking, he kept shouting, "faster, faster!"

And then he turned on his headlights. And Peggy said, "Doug!" And the rest of us laughed a little, said, "We knew it!" And then got in the back of the truck and prepared for the treacherous downhill drive home, which actually wasn't that bad. (Though I did have to have Devon keep checking my body for spiders all along the way - true story.) But we made it safely. And then we all took some MUCH needed showers.

Sunday was church and some more Hammock reading on the porch. Then some great grilled T-bones and games.

             
We left Monday after lunch. It was a great weekend and we were all exhausted.

Worth it.

Also, Devon and I concluded that we would need to probably always live in the city. Ranch life is great to visit, but not for us.

Hawaii Trip 2013

Okay, so I know it's been a month and a half since I got back from my Hawaii vacation (I miss you, Hawaii!), but I was sick this weekend so I found myself with some extra time to FINALLY create a video of our trip. So, here it is. Hope you like it!


Hawaii 2013 from Raechel Logan on Vimeo.

The Proposal.

Well, I've been officially engaged for about a week now, and everything is kind of a blur. I feel like I've been living in a constant state of Cloud-Nineness mixed with extreme surrealism and some healthy doses of intense stress. With all those emotions going on, I can't wait to experience what weeks 2-22 will be like. haha.

No, but really guys, I couldn't be happier. Devon is the absolute greatest and I love him. Can't wait to share my life with him.

But enough about that. You want to know how he proposed, don't you? Well... it's kind of a funny story...

Long before Devon ever proposed, I warned him that he would have a hard time surprising me due to my suspicious and detail-oriented nature. His response was, "I think I can do it."

So, the week before the proposal I was in Hawaii with my girlfriends. We got back Friday night from a hellacious day of travel and arrived around 1:00-2:00am (so really, Saturday morning). Saturday was our church's General Conference, which starts at 10am, so after going to bed very late, I got up to watch GC running on about 5 hours of sleep. GC got over around 4pm and I kept asking Devon what he wanted to do after he got home from the Priesthood Session, which runs from 6:00-8:00pm. We decided to go see a movie. Devon left my house around 5:00pm and I was like, "See ya! I'm taking a nap." I had only planned on taking a 2 hour nap... but it may or may not have turned into 3. So when I woke up, Devon was coming over in 15 minutes and I was still in sweats, hadn't done my hair, and wasn't wearing any make up. Needless to say, I looked like a dumpster lady.

I got up and started getting ready, realized that I was starving out of my mind and hoped that Devon and I could grab something to eat before the movie. In my head I was thinking, When Devon gets here I wont be ready yet, so I'll just have him listen to some of these new songs I found while he waits... and I was actually pretty excited about it.

When Devon knocked on my door, I just yelled to him from down the hallway to come in, and a few minutes later, walked out to greet him saying, "Well, I may or may not have overslept, so I'm obviously not ready yet." To which he responded, "That's okay."

At this point, I start to notice some things that are out of the ordinary, and it was like my brain was trying really hard to be suspicious, but nothing was actually clicking. For instance, Devon told me he brought me flowers, and said that he planned on bringing them to me when I got home from Hawaii, but since I didn't get home until 2am, he decided to bring them to me that day instead. And in my head I was thinking, hmm, he was here all day long, why didn't he bring them earlier? But I was grateful, because I love getting flowers from him.

Then I noticed that he had brought over a backpack with his laptop, and he only does that when he has work to do, and this is how the following conversation went:

Me: "Why did you bring your laptop (thinking, we're just going to dinner and a movie anyways...)? Do you have work to do?

Devon: (Spouts off some reason that I don't remember and then says...) "But I have this video that Justin asked me to be in for one of his projects a few months ago...it has something to do with cool light stuff, I dunno, but he finally gave me a copy so I want to watch it real quick."

Me: "Oh that's cool, I need to finish my make up anyways."
 And then he had this weird look on his face and I realized, "Oh, you want me to watch it with you, don't you?"

Devon: "Yeah! Come watch it with me." (A little too eagerly if you ask me, which threw me off a little bit.)

Me: (long pause while internally thinking, Ugh, do we have to watch this video RIGHT NOW? I'm starving and I need to put my make up on and I wanted him to listen to those new songs I found. Why can't we do this later? Yeah... just ask him if we can watch it later. But then, when I opened my mouth to say those words, the look on his face stopped me and I realized that for some reason, this was very important to him. So I said, a little begrudgingly...) "Okay fine. I'll just grab my  make up and put it on while we watch."

Then I went to get my makeup, grumbling inside my head thinking, Now I have to do my make up with a tiny mirror in bad lighting...grumble grumble. Then I sat down on the couch next to the one Devon was sitting on.

Almost immediately, he says:
Devon: "No, come sit by meeeee."

Me: *Sigh* "Okay..."

Then I started putting my make up on while he started the video. And then... I heard a song start playing that was written, recorded, and performed by my uncle. A song that Devon loves. And I thought, Weird, did Devon give my uncle's CD to Justin to use in one of his videos? Then I looked up at the TV to see what was going on, compact mirror and make up brush still in hand, and saw that the first frame said, "For Raechel..."

Me: Whaaaaaa?  *Slowly puts down compact and brush*

Then this video played:

And that's when Devon got down on one knee, opened a ring box with the most beautiful ring I could ever have hoped for in it, said lots of sweet things to me, and asked me if I would marry him.

I said, with slightly watery eyes, "Of course I will."

And then, after some kisses and hugs, I looked that man straight in the eyes and said, "And you really couldn't wait 5 minutes for me to put on my makeup?!"

And we laughed. And then we never got around to eating dinner or seeing a movie because we were too busy calling our family and friends.

So unbelievably happy.

Is this real life?!