It's Official...Bye, Bye Peterson!

On the eve of the year ending I am no longer a Peterson...officially!  This afternoon I officially had my last name changed to my husband's.  I'm a Vaughn! It was important to me to make time for the name change this afternoon, as I want to start the new year as a Vaughn.

I will have to start practicing writing Vaughn.  I've had to write it a few times today. But there's a lot of thinking that goes into it now.  Writing Peterson has been second nature for many years.  I'm sure I'll mess up a few hundred times in the coming months.  Likely start righting Peterson then have to switch to Vaughn.  At this point I'm not sure how easy it will be to change a "P" to a "V", I'm sure I'll master it though if I should mess up. 

They ask a lot of questions about your parents and other pertinent info when changing your last name.  Which is to be expected.  Oddly enough when it came time to discuss my dad, the lady handling my name change told me that his name had been entered into my record incorrectly back in the year I was born.  On my record they have his first name as his middle name and his middle name as his first name.  This didn't create a problem for me today, but it is quite interesting that my parents did not catch that mistake years ago or were not informed of the mistake so they could have changed it.  The lady that worked with me today said it was clear to her it had been that way since I was born and my record was established.

I will say it was a bit surreal as I sat there and the lady said my new full name outloud a few times.  She said it with just Vaughn and then also stated I could have it changed to Peterson-Vaughn.  After I officially said I wanted just Vaughn she then said it outloud a couple more times.  It was slightly weird hearing a new last name yet I couldn't stop smiling!  I'm a Vaughn!

Now the biggest question of all is, what are the boys?  Are they still Petersons or now Vaughns?  Cody Peterson or Cody Vaughn?  Simon Peterson or Simon Vaughn?  I asked them which last name they wanted and they are still mulling over their options!  I have a feeling the boys last names will automatically be changed when I do their licenses next time they come due.  I would think once my last name gets changed in the system so will theirs. Same goes for their vet office, once my name is changed in their system I would assume the boys names will change too.