General Farnsworth

I decided to go back to my pink blog--it's more me. I liked the Abe Lincoln quote blog background, but it was too dark, and the formatting was kind of weird. So, the pink blog is back!

At the Taylor home, the 4th of July means celebrating our nation's independence in 1776 and commemorating July 1863 when the battle of Gettysburg took place (July 1-3) and Vicksburg surrendered to the Union troops (July 4). What a great time of year!

Speaking of Gettysburg, I am very proud to have a relative who fought and died in that famous fray. He's not technically my ancestor, because I am not descended from him, but if you go back far enough we are descended from the same person--so that makes us relatives, right? His name was Elon John Farnsworth, and he was made a Brigadier General the night before he was killed at Gettysburg. He was part of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. In fact, it is after him that the Farnsworth Inn in Gettysburg is named. And, get this: General Farnsworth was stationed at our very own CAMP FLOYD before he went off to fight in the Civil War!! How cool is that? Elon was descended from Matthias Farnsworth who was born in England in 1612. Elon's ancestor was Matthias' son Samuel, and my ancestor is Samuel's brother Jonathan. How it all works out is that General Elon Farnsworth is my mom's dad's fifth cousin once removed. :-)

So, at this patriotic time of year, let us remember those who formed our country in 1776 and those kept it together in 1863.

24

Today I turned 24! I've decided that 24 must be a good age because 24 is the name of the world's most exciting TV show, there are 24 hours in a day, 24 is the atomic number for chromium (which prevents corrosion when applied to certain metals), and Willie Mays was #24. Also, June 29 is a good day to have a birthday because it is Independence Day in the Republic of Seychelles--an archipelago nation of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Today is also Veterans Day in the Netherlands. Sounds like a great day for a party!

Speaking of parties, we've had some pretty great ones around here lately. Yesterday we had a lot of fun outside when Miss Eliza discovered sprinklers! She had so much fun running through the water (and trying to drink the water as she went). I'm sure that her diaper weighed about 10 lbs. after she was done because of all the water it must have absorbed!

Today has been a very fun day. I got to go to Nate and Lindy's ward to give a presentation about Joseph Smith and the pioneers during their combined RS and priesthood meeting. They have a really nice ward, and everything went well with the presentation. Then I had a good long birthday nap, then we had our fun combined Lindy and Tiffy birthday party. Lindy is surely nice to always share her birthday party with me. I got some fun Southern belle and Southern humor birthday cards, a beautiful necklace, a book, a fancy apron, and one of my favorite movies: "National Treasure 2." Thank you for all of the wonderful presents everyone! The family made all of Lindy's and my favorite foods for dinner--and we even got two kinds of desserts: strawberry shortcake for Lindy and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cake for me!















It was so fun to be here for the birthday festivities this year because for the last two years I have been in Natchez, Mississippi on my birthday. I still had fun, even when I was away, but it wasn't quite the same as being here at home. Last year's birthday was especially memorable because the Barretts sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers which was delivered to Melrose. Then, one of the interns, Mary, made me a birthday cake (pictured on the left) in her microwave using a rice cooker! It didn't turn out quite like she had planned, but it was really nice of her to make the attempt. It was a pretty solid block of chocolate, and the sprinkles which were supposed to be on top ended up inside the cake, but it still tasted yummy. And, Mom sent me a delicious Miss Grace Lemon Cake in the mail which I and my fellow rangers enjoyed very much! So, I've had a lot of fun birthdays, but it was great to be home with my family this year. They're the best birthday present ever!

The New and Improved Wedding Website

Today I went to Greg's and my former wedding website, only to find that ewedding.com changed their whole site structure and is now charging money to display certain parts of the website--like the part that tells the story of how you and your beloved met. What a rip off! And they changed the format of their websites, so ours did not look as nice. So, I found a new wedding website host, www.mywedding.com, and created what I think is an even better, cooler website. It's not finished yet, but it will be soon. You can check it out at: http://www.mywedding.com/taylorbowles.

June 27

Today is Lindy's birthday--hooray!! She is so lucky to have a birthday that is a significant day in Church history. Other such birth dates would be July 24, April 6, December 23, etc. I am thoroughly enjoying this summer because summer is birthday season, and I've been gone for the last few summers, so it's nice to be able to celebrate with everyone here at home. Speaking of birthdays, I've decided that it would be best if we could stop having birthdays at oh, about age 15 --then we wouldn't have to worry about any grown-up stuff like insurance, finances, careers, etc. I've decided that growing up is exhausting and it gives me a headache! But anyway, back to today's date.

Besides being Lindy's birthday, June 27 is important because it is the day we commemorate Joseph and Hyrum Smith's martyrdom in Illinois. As I was thinking about Joseph today and then heard on the news about all of the levees breaking along the river in Missouri, I was reminded of something that Joseph wrote in a letter to John C. Calhoun on January 2, 1844. He said, "While I have power of body and mind--while water runs and grass grows--while virtue is lovely and vice hateful, and while a stone points out a sacred spot where a fragment of American liberty once was, I or my posterity will plead the cause of injured innocence, until Missouri makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks degraded, and damned to hell, 'where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'" Ouch! Harsh words for Missouri.

Illinois Governor Thomas Ford is generally considered to be the "Pilate" of the martyrdom. Before he died, Governor Ford wrote a volume called History of Illinois. One of his closing statements is interesting. He said he feared that the names of "Nauvoo, and the Carthage Jail, may become holy and venerable names, places of classic interest, in another age; like Jerusalem, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Calvary to the Christian." He felt "degraded [like Missouri!] by the reflection, that the humble governor of an obscure State, who would otherwise be forgotten in a few years, stands a fair chance, like Pilate and Herod, by their official connection with the true religion, of being dragged down to posterity with an immortal name." Mmmmm, indeed.

Corporal Taylor

Today I got promoted to the rank of Corporal in the US Army! I was actually hoping to get to wear the hoop skirt today because it was so hot--and the hoop skirt at least has good ventilation. But, Jeri got the hoop skirt, so I got to don the wool uniform and be a soldier with Sergeant James. I've decided that all of the soldiers in Johnston's Army must have weighed like 60 pounds because they ran out of food, so they could only eat once a day, and they walked around in those wool uniforms, so surely they would sweat off a few pounds a day. We got all dressed up today because we had a school group to entertain. We also had a school group yesterday (I got to wear the hoop skirt for that one), so we were all pretty tired after two schools in two days. The school groups stay for about three or four hours, and we usually have between 50-100 kids, so it gets a little crazy sometimes. It's a lot of fun though. I love this job!

This afternoon I had the opportunity to get down and dirty and learn the process of cleaning muskets. Those things get nasty inside! From the look of the stuff we were getting out of the barrels, you'd have thought that the guns hadn't been cleaned since the Civil War--but they actually clean them about every week. Cleaning a musket is a pretty intense process, and you get a little dirty doing it, but it was actually quite fun. As part of my internship at Camp Floyd, I'm going to be working on a few special research projects. I was also given a new assignment today to create the text and come up with some graphics for a few wayside panels the park is going to put up along the road. That will be a really cool project!

This afternoon after work, I met Mom over in Lehi, and we had a fun evening enjoying the Lehi Roundup Week festivities. Tonight they had a boutique at the park as well as the "Family BBQ." We had some delicious BBQ for dinner and had a great time walking around and looking at things. Mom and I love fun boutiques like that! It kind of reminded us of when we went to the arts festival in St. Charles, Missouri a couple of years ago. Mom and I have tons of fun together!