BACKSTREETS BACK ALRIGHT!

Once upon a time a beautiful young lady was working at her favorite place in the world: American Eagle. On one particular afternoon one of her managers mentioned that an amazing group of male singers were going to have a concert in Salt Lake City. The beautiful young lady and a co-worker, Javin, looked at each other and knew that they would go to this concert together. Another co-worked, Brooke, joined the group and the beautiful young lady got them all tickets to this exciting concert. After three months of impatiently waiting, the three AE employees drove to Salt Lake City to see the long awaited concert...










After 30 long and painful minutes, the opening act (a DJ playing a mix) told them that after another 30 minutes the group of male singers would start their concert. It was the longest hour of the beautiful young lady's life.



Finally, after months, hours, minutes, and seconds of waiting....they finally made their appearance:

That's right! The beautiful young lady and her AE co-workers went to a BACKSTREET BOYS CONCERT!


The Call
More Than That
Larger Than Life
I Want It That Way

So after an evening of dinner, witnessing an amazing concert (which involved the beautiful young lady singing, dancing, jumping up and down, and screaming with excitement), spending time with work friends, and driving back to Provo (which involved the beautiful young lady singing Celine Dion songs into her Wendy's cup), the beautiful young lady went to sleep....and for the next few days woke to the song "Backstreets Back" playing in her head :)


"Now let me show you the shape of my heart..."

The Doty

I found this article on msn.com - the complete copy of the article can be found at this site: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37927284/?gt1=43001

Lake Michigan shipwreck found after 112 years

By Dinesh Ramde
updated 11:58 a.m. MT, Fri., June 25, 2010

MILWAUKEE - A great wooden steamship that sank more than a century ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm has been found off the Milwaukee-area shoreline, and divers say the intact vessel appears to have been perfectly preserved by the cold fresh waters.

The Doty was carrying a cargo of corn from South Chicago to Ontario, Canada in October 1898 when it sailed into a terrible storm, Baillod said. Along with snow and sleet, there were heavy winds that whipped up waves of up to 30 feet.

The Doty should have been able to handle the weather. The ship was only five years old, and the 300-foot wooden behemoth's hull was reinforced with steel arches.

But it was towing a small schooner, the Olive Jeanette, which began to founder in the storm after the tow line apparently snapped, Baillod said. The Doty probably sank when it came to the schooner's aid. All 17 of its crew members died, along with the ship's cats, Dewey and Watson.

Divers found the ship upright and intact, settled into the clay at the lake's bottom. Even the ship's cargo of corn was still in its hold.

The Doty is so well-preserved because it's in a cold, freshwater lake. It's also far enough below the surface that storms don't affect it.

There are no plans to raise the Doty, which is now the property of the state of Wisconsin. The ship will remain preserved indefinitely where it is, rather than exposing it to air that would cause it to rot away within a few years, Baillod said.

one love 2 love - one life 2 live

So I’ve been thinking about 3 things in particular lately: (and I promise that they do connect)
1. marriage
2. the past 5 years
3. the next 5 years

I started thinking about marriage when I found out on facebook that my ex is engaged. To be married. ANYWAY - Angela and I were talking about marriage and how grateful we are that we aren’t married yet. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to get married. But I would have never been able to do what I’ve done in my life if I had been married. And as I think about it – once I get married, I plan on staying married for ETERNITY. And that’s a LONG, LONG time. And so then I thought to myself, Rach you aren’t married, so what can you do and what are you going to do before you do get married and can’t do whatever YOU want anymore?

Which brings me to the second thing that I’ve been thinking about. It’s now June 2010. Five years ago, in June of 2005, I graduated from Redmond High School. And as I thought about what I would do and who I would be in the five years after high school I definitely had other ideas of what would happen. I thought that I would be married and that I’d have had a kid and I would be a wife and a mother. Well, sorry to disappoint my past self but that isn’t what Heavenly Father had in the cards for me and my life. I look at facebook and see these people I went to high school with, they have their degrees and have these important jobs and I feel like they’ve accomplished a lot with their lives. And when I think about what I’ve done in the past 5 years, I don’t feel like I’ve done as much as I could have or accomplished as much as I should have.

In the past 5 years I’ve:
- attended BYU-Idaho for 2 years and gotten my associates degree

- worked at 4 different clothing stores: Victoria's Secret, GAP, Laura Victoria, American Eagle Outfitters

- served an 18 month mission for the Church which included me:

o living in western Germany for 16 months

o learning to speak German


- and after being home from Germany for 10 months, I’ve:

o gotten my job back at American Eagle

o moved to Utah

o completed a semester at LDS Business College

o and I can still speak, read, and understand German



I remember several years ago writting down 3 life-long goals that I had for myself:
1. serve a mission (at the time I wrote that thinking that I would serve a mission someday when I was old, like with my husband or something)
2. learn to speak another language (and not just study it like in school but actually be able to speak and communicate)
3. live in a foreign country
WELL in the past 5 years I've done all of that! So this brings me to the third thing: what am I going to do in the NEXT 5 years?

To begin, I thought it might be a good idea to graduate from a university. I think its about time I get it together and decide what I want to do and study. I’m thinking that I want to be going to Utah Valley University and that I want to graduate with a bachelors in marketing. I also miss Germany a LOT and just being in a foreign country. So I’m thinking that I need to be doing some traveling. I’ll probably do a study abroad or something along those lines. ALSO thinking that I may want to get an MBA. We’ll have to see about that though because I hate school. But who knows, maybe when I’m studying something that I love, I might actually change my mind and like school.

I heard once that if you don't take the time to sit down and write out some goals, that you won't accomplish as much. So this is me taking the time to sit down and type out some goals for my life. Let's see what the next 5 years has in store for me!

Memorial Day and Keri's Birthday!

Memorial Day - us girls drove up Provo Cannon to hang out with some friends. Since Keri is in Berlin and couldn't be with us, we blasted Justin Bieber, sang and danced along and wished she was with us.
"My first love broke my heart for the first time. And I was like: Baby, baby, baby ohhh. Like baby, baby, baby noo. Like baby, baby, baby ohh. I thought you'd always be mine"


Keri's birthday was on the 2nd - and since she's currently on another continent and we couldn't celebrate with her, we made a birthday sign, took a few pictures, and emailed them to her. Alles gute zum Geburtstag Keri! We love and miss you!!

Living my life with AE employees...outside work

I LOVE my job most of the time. There are times when working retail isn't easy or fun. Mostly because people are stupid.
BUT what makes working at THIS AE so enjoyable are the people I work with. There are about 10 of us who work regularly. They make coming into work so much easier because they are my friends! A few weekends ago we decided to do something together OUTSIDE the store!

We roasted marshmallows, ate lots of gummy bears, and played Truth or Dare!


Bryce, Brooke, Whitney, and me!


(up - Rachel 1 and Rachel 2 [but now I'm just called Doty])
(up-right - Me and Devin)
(right - Brooke and me)

They should really make that more clear...

So my brother and I were shopping at Smiths grocery store and I saw this sign and THOUGHT it read: 4/$1 - meaning 4 watermelons for one dollar - when really the sign says 4lb/$1. So you can imagine my reaction: "oh my gosh Al look! 4 watermelons for a dollar!" - to which he responded: "Rach, it's 4lbs for a dollar. Not 4 watermelons for a dollar." I was very disappointed. They should really make that more clear on the sign...