Once upon a time, way back in 8th grade, my civics teacher gave us a project. It was to go on the Vietnam Memorial's website, find a name, and write a report about them. We could find information about that particular person and write up a non-fictional report, or we could totally make up a story about them. I decided to search for someone with the same family name as me. However, since "White" is very common, I went with my mom's maiden name, Maccubbin. There were no Maccubbin's on the wall. I remembered that my grandma's maiden name was Klinger. So I searched that name. There was one Klinger on the wall. Henry Chester Klinger. When I googled him for information on family or anything, I couldn't really find enough to write a true report on him, plus I love making up stories. So I went the second route...writing a made up story about my chosen Hero. It was a love story. And I so wish I could find the story, because it was a good one! But being that it was so long ago, and my family moved since then, so I have no idea what happened to it. Unfortunately, the ending was a very sad one. Just as I'm sure the real life ending of his story was devastating for his family.

Fast forward about five years, Kevin and I went to DC for Spring Break. My grandma lives near there, so we stayed with her, and rode the metro in to the city to site see every day! It was awesome, but cold! One of the days we went in to DC, we walked by the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I had gotten a rubbing of Henry Klinger's name in 8th grade when we had come up on a class trip, and I wanted to find his name again! So we looked him up in the books, and found his name again. Kevin got a picture of me rubbing his name.

Back then, I had a blog on blogspot.com. And wrote a post about the day and how I did the rubbing.

Fast forward another 3 years, and we come to a few months ago. I got a message from Henry's sister!!! She had been searching her brother on google and came across my blog post and wanted to contact me to tell me about him and her family. It was amazing. I never expected to ever speak to his family. It was a true honor to be able to speak to his sister. I had always had him in my heart since I came across his name nearly 10 years ago!

TODAY, I googled myself. I was bored, don't say you've never done it! I had to do my entire name since Taylor White just gets me Elizabeth Taylor White Diamond results. The first result is a Genealogical Record of the family of Eaves and Klinger. It was my family! My whole direct family is in it along with the Klinger side of my mom's mom's family. Awesome discovery! Not only that, I found out that my great-great-great grandfather's name is Henry Klinger! (as well as his dad) Unfortunately I could not find Henry Chester Klinger in the 75,000 ancestors and relatives on the website [yikes!], so I still don't know if we're related, but I still told Henry's sister about it. It was just really neat.

So that is my story about the power of google!

~Taylor~

Really, the recipe calls them "Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies," but I changed the name of them because I made them from what I had in my cupboard! And the four "C"s in the title just look so cute!

Anyway, this story begins with twitter. Naturally. I twittered about a website I had once used, but couldn't find it again, and I almost immediately got a similar and better website from Kevin's mom!

I went to supercook.com and entered in all the ingredients I could remember having. Mainly, it was hard to find something to make because we have one egg and no sugar. We have Splenda, but Kevin uses that for his sweet tea, so I didn't want to take away any of his sugar.

I searched through all the recipes I could make, trying to find something I could make for dinner, but I didn't seem to really have anything that would work. I ended up making cereal, but Kevin was saying he wanted cookies. So I found a recipe finally that I could make with the ingredients I had! The Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies that I renamed. :)

I did make some alterations...I used a cup of whole wheat flour and a cup and a quarter of the all-purpose flour. I read somewhere that you can substitute whole wheat flour in anything as long as there is equal parts...and I guessed it wouldn't be a big deal to have 1/4 more all-purpose. Also, I only had bittersweet chocolate chips...so it's got a little kick with the chocolate. However it's 60% cacao and that's good I think!

Kevin's letting me use his old camera, a Canon Rebel XTi, to learn how to take better pictures. So I took that one with a 50mm lens. I've been having so much fun taking pictures with this camera and the lenses that he is letting me use. He's awesome. It's the batter after I spooned a dozen cookies out already. They were in the oven.

After those came out of the oven, I added the rest of the batter to the cookie sheet.

And the final product!

It was fun making real cookies...I've been buying the packaged kind that you just tare apart a place on the cookie sheet. It's just so easy! But so were these! And I got more out of making them and I didn't have to buy anything for them! Plus if you get over the bitter chocolate, they are really good.

I have a similar story about this I'll post about later, it involves an iPhone app! Oooo!

~Taylor~

In November!

"Noah Biorkman is a 5yr old boy who is in his last stages of neuroblastoma cancer after a 2 1/2 year battle. His family is celebrating Christmas next week and all he wants are christmas cards. Lets try and see how many we can get to him from all over the world please."

From my Aunt's facebook status & I've seen lots of tweets about it!

There seems to be conflicting addresses however...one being the one I wrote on the card envelope:

Then there is another one that my Aunt posted:

" Another friend said snopes said the request is true but the address is Noah Biorkman c/o Scott Biorkman 3480 Petoskey Way Milford, MI 48380"

However, that is the first time I've seen it as that address.

News Article has the first address.

A-ha! Snopes.com says that it is an alternate address. So I believe you may send a card to either address.

I hope God sends many blessings on that family in this difficult time. But I really hope Noah has an awesome Christmas!

~Taylor~

Since I have been practicing taking pictures with the Canon Rebel XTi, what better subjects to take picture of than my pets?! So I thought I would share my favorites of each pet. We'll start my babies with Kevin!

Kevin and I decided to get cats together back in May, when he moved into his Condo. We at first decided to get one cat, originally Amber, who is now Cali. I saw a picture of her on the Humane Society website. She just looked so funny because she looks like she has a mask on. At home, with my parents, we have three tortoiseshell cats, two with white, and I just love looking at those kinds of kitties. Always so funny looking! So here is Cali:

When we went to the Humane Society to see Cali, near her was a meowing, fat, black and white kitty. Kevin saw her, and wanted her! She was adorable and we decided we definitely wanted to get both. Molly, at the time she was known as SC or "Shed Cat" because she was found under a shed, is very furry and very chubby. She had been at the Humane Society for a really long time! With little exercise being caged up, she just kept gaining weight. She is still pretty fat, but she has lost some weight with us! I think she looks fatter than she really is because she is so furry! Here she is:

Now, at my house with my parents and brother...we have six cats. Yep. Six. I grew up with four cats...Bat, Bear, Tribble, and Jack. We also took care of my great grandma's cat, Gully, when she passed away. They've all since moved on. So I guess we're on our second generation of cats. Snoopy came to us in a unique way. My mom was driving down Given's Lane when she saw something scamper in front of her car. She realized it was a tiny kitten and decided to catch him before something, like a hawk, got him. He was so tiny! Now he is HUGE! And such a sweetheart. Here he is:

After we had Snoopy, we decided he needed a younger cat to play around with, since some of our first cats were still alive, but really old. Then we turned to the Humane Society and decided to get Zoey. She is so much fun, and will even play fetch! Here she is:

When we were at the Humane Society, I fell in love with McKenna [only cat we kept her original name!]. She was Zoey's neighbor, so my mom said if she was still there, we'd go back and get her after my cat, who was very close to death, died. So getting McKenna was pretty bittersweet. She is our tortoiseshell without white. Here she is:

Rufus came to us in an unique way as well. He actually showed up at our work. Naturally I wanted him, I called my mom told her about him, and she came to my work and we took him to the vet. At the same time we were trying to find his owner. He was neutered, so someone must have done that. However, we never found the owner, so we kept him. He is HUGE now. Not fat, but just big in general. He also has a really bad attitude, that's why he ended up my brother's cat. I'm not a fan of Rufus anymore, but I don't have to put up with him often since he lives in my brother's room! I let him out to take pictures of him though. Here he is:

I don't know how, I think my mom was surfing on the internet and somehow went to the Humane Society website, and found Lily. She is sooo cute. She's just a little girl. She's a long haired tortoiseshell with white:

Then, somehow Mallibou or Bou came in our lives the same way. She is a very interesting cat and has such an attitude! She does her own thing and will only let you pet her when she feels like it. Bou is so strange looking to. She looks like a white cat that walked under an oil drip or something. Here she is:

Those are our cats! We also have two dogs. One is Riley. We got her from the Humane Society after our dog Clyde, died so that our other dog Jazz could have a companion. I think she is a mix between a springer spaniel and an Irish Setter. Boy can she jump! We had to put extensions on our fence because she could just jump out of the dog area. She is very sweet though:

Now Bungee just showed up on our front door step as a puppy. Don't know how he got there or where he came from. We couldn't find the owners, we gave him away, but somehow we got him back. So, he was sticking to us! So at one point we had three dogs! However Jazz was pretty old, and she died a little later. Though I think she enjoyed taking care of a puppy. As Bungee grew, we could only guess he was a Labrador/Chow mix. He has blue on his tongue, but seems to have lab features, but he's short like a chow. Here he is:

That's it! They're great animals...for the most part...and I'm glad we're able to rescue them and give them a good home!

~Taylor~

My grandma and I were going through some old magazines she had for some yummy recipes to make. We came across this recipe in the Southern Living Volume 42; Number 11 [mid-October 2007]. Since it involved chocolate, we immediately decided to make it, especially since it was gluten free, my mom can eat it when she gets up here for thanksgiving dinner!

First, place pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until toasted. Be careful they don't burn, it is easy! Since the bars that I made came out a little salty, next time I plan on putting the salt on the pecans right when they are warm out of the oven, and then not sprinkling the salt right in to the chocolate. However the point of these bars is to be sweet and salty, so you make like the saltier taste! Still, don't go overboard on the salt.

Next, you'll line a 17-12 inch jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Break each chocolate bar into 8 equal pieces. (You will have 48 pieces total.) Arrange in a checkerboard pattern in jelly roll pan, alternating white and dark chocolate. [pieces will touch] Bake at 225 degrees until chocolate is melted. Remove pan to a wire rack.

Then, swirl chocolates into a marble pattern using a wooden pick.

Finally, sprinkle evenly with toasted pecans and salt. Chill 1 hour or until firm. This would probably be great to make, throw in the fridge, then make and eat dinner, and it'll be ready for you when you're ready for dessert!

Afterward, break into pieces. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 1 month.

Couple pieces of this candy in a decorative bag would make a great gift this holiday season!

~Taylor~