I'm a sucker for great storage ideas...

This has to been the coolest thing I've seen in awhile! Now I just need to find one that fits both my bikes :)

(Credit to Keen's Pinterest account)

Thankful

‎8 years ago today a cement truck almost took my life away, thank God all it took was my car. Can't believe it has been 8 years. So grateful to be alive, especially today.


Cherish everyday you're given here on this earth, and live it to the fullest. 

Remington!

Well we were going to wait until we moved to Colorado to get a puppy, but we ended up finding the perfect one here in Kansas and couldn't pass him up! This is Remington. He is a 7week old chocolate lab/border collie mix and the sweetest puppy in the world. He's super calm and very smart!

And now Dylan wants his sister (who looks more like a border collie) for his birthday! So we might just make this a family affair :)

Moving On Up?

Woah it's been awhile since I've updated this thing! I've been super busy with work, incase you didn't know I work 10hr days and I live 66miles from where I work, so that combined with a little bit of sleep leaves little time for anything else. So far it hasn't been the best experience; getting up at 3:45am and then working 10hrs of very physically demanding work (and getting extremely dirty in the process) is just not enjoyable for me. I've discovered that if I'm not doing something I feel makes a positive impact in the world or someone else's life I just don't feel complete, I think I was born to help people. Fernando and I usually go all week living together but not actually seeing each other because of our work schedules, which is also stressful. But in the end, it was a new experience and helped me confirm, yet again, that all I really want to do is teach, so it was worth it. I've been talking with some faculty at University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) about their Special Education MA and I've been told I'm the perfect candidate and they'd love to have me apply. If all goes as planned I'll start the program in January 2013, and I'm very excited! We will be moving to Colorado Springs at the end of October and hopefully staying there for an extended period of time (Fernando plans to get out of the Army at the end of this enlistment in March 2016 and stay in Colorado) and we absolutely can not wait (Kansas isn't very exciting). We'll also be in Medina August 15-20 (friends wedding), again September 28-October 1st (another friends wedding) and again for Thanksgiving. Hope to see some of you then!

I Finally Have a Job!

I am officially employed by the United States Department of Agriculture as a Food Safety Inspector!


After over 100 job applications, and being unemployed since moving to Kansas, I finally start working on June 4th! Hopefully I'll be able to move up and make a career within the USDA.

Colorado

Things I want to do when we move to Colorado.

This. Starlight Spectacular

Love and miss you all!
-Taylor

What I Discovered While Joining DAR

I haven't had a job for the past 6 months, this leaves me with a ton of time to do useless things, but sometimes I'm slightly productive, and browsing Ancestry.com happened to be one of the more productive things I've done lately. This all started around Christmas time, when Ancestry.com constantly runs commercials to try to convince people to gift memberships to their loved ones. I've always been interested in my family history, but no one seems to know much past my grandparents, so I thought I'd try out the free membership and see what I could find. This turned into one of the BEST things I've EVER done! I decided to trace all my paternal lines back to when they came to America. Most lines didn't go too far, but the Bowden line (My Dads, Mothers, Father) turned up some very interesting information. I traced the Bowden line because it's the family I look most like, and I knew they had been in this country for awhile. Well I traced the line back to 1280AD in France! The name has changed a few times over the years but the Beaudoin's were royals in France, before leaving everything to come to America for religious freedom in 1678. My 8x great grandfather Pierre Bowdoin brought his family to Ireland and then to America from Basse-Normandie, France and ended up settling in Isle of Wight, Virginia. The family name was changed to 'Bowden' from 'Bowdoin' shortly after. My 5X great grandfather John Bowden Jr ended up being the most interesting find of all. He fought in the Revolutionary War alongside George Washington and was good friends with both him and Ben Franklin! For history obsessed nerds like me, this was like finding ancestry gold! This find only adds to the strong military history in my family. My paternal grandfather fought in WW2 and my maternal grandfather was enlisted during Korea but was stationed in Germany for the cleanup. My husband is an Iraq veteran, and will most likely be sent to Afghanistan at some point (especially since he just reenlisted for 4 more years). Because of these findings I decided to contact the Daughters of the American Revolution to enquire about joining, I'm in the application process now but John Bowden Jr is already an approved patriot, which means my distant cousins are already DAR members! The whole process has been so educational and fun, I love to learn about my family history!