For my entire life, I couldn't wait to get rid of my maiden name - Bowling. I just hated the way it sounded, looked. It took me until AFTER the wedding to realize that I was sad when faced with the prospect of changing my name.

Jaime Bowling was who I was for 26 years. Now all of a sudden, I'm someone new? I felt like the odd-man-out, my parents and brother were still Bowlings... why couldn't I be too?

I did a lot of soulsearching. I realized that the name didn't make me who I was, *I* do. I'm still me, no matter what last name I have. Hyphenating wasn't an option... Bowling-Patterson is WAY too much for an adult to be saddled with, muchless a kid - and I didn't want to have a different last name than my children. So I took a deep breath, sent in everything I needed to and with my new life came a new name.