The Patterson’s

Well, if you have made it this far on to my page, you have some genuine curiosity about who I am and what this is all about. So.. here ya go.

My name is Tayler Patterson, the Mrs. to Mr. Andrew Patterson. I’m just a small town ranch kid, grown up to be the wife of an amazing man, a daughter of the strongest blue collar family, a firefighter/emt, a nutrition coach and business owner, a crossfit coach & athlete, and a mega nutrition nerd.

This is my first blog post ever ((So exciting)) so it only made sense to me to introduce myself and my little family. There is a lot to who I am, or at least it seems that way in my head sitting here writing this, but to be completely cheesy, the biggest piece to me is the man I get to be married to. The oreo to my coffee. ((If you know, you know))

Here is our summed up version of the story of “us” and who we are. We met in the gym, which will surprise no one who knows us, but it was a perfect match almost immediately. My incredible husband is a police officer of 14 years going on 15 and at the time that we met, I was a firefighter for almost 7 years. We both are Crossfit nerds and love every bit of the sport. We both grew up in rural pieces of Colorado and that little tidbit has set the stage for a lot of what we see our future as. We are not the love story of “opposites attract”, in fact we are the opposite of that. We are the story of literal best friends that fell in step with each other like we had been on the same path all along, just didn’t know it.

We are big in our faith, Christians and if there was ever any doubt in our faith, our love has only confirmed that there is, in fact, a plan working that we have no control or say or need to worry about. I don’t mean that in the sense that God made us perfect for each other necessarily, but He sure knew who we needed, even if that wasn’t clear to us until we met.

God has a funny way of working. In fact, we both had come to peace with being single, and not in the depressed, woah is me, way. In a, this life is pretty beautiful and neither of us felt like we needed other people to be happy, kind of way. But I genuinely believe that neither of us realized just how happy we could be until each other.

Walking into each other lives was like walking into a house and having that instant feeling of knowing your home.

With all that being said, and getting some of the mushy stuff out of the way, here’s the rest.

You probably noticed above I said I “was a firefighter”. Well I spent 7 kick ass year working in the fire service, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll go back. One day, one post, I’ll spend a minute writing about my career and everything or rather everyone that made it so awesome, but for the purpose of this particular post, I’ll keep it to what’s going on now.

Last year I had the cool experience of competing at the Semifinal stage of the Crossfit Games Season. It was, one of those moments where I really felt like I was exactly where I was suppose to be, doing exactly what I needed and had dreamt about doing for so long. It was the moment that lit a fire inside me to really and truly go after my dream of making it to the Crossfit Games.

Enter conversation 1 of why I quit the fire service. If you know anything about the fire service, you know that while it is truly one of the best jobs in this world, it wreaks havoc on your ability to recover. It does so for just a regular person trying to live there best lives. The health risks that come with being a firefighter make up a pretty extensive list, but on any given day, asking any given firefighter, I would guarantee they would all say, it’s without a doubt worth it. The job is one that is truly, not just a job, it’s giant piece of your life and who you are, and it demands that. It’s not job you can half ass, and I value that characteristic of the job. So what am I getting at? Crossfit, at the level I want to compete at, is just that too, if not more so. Any professional athlete will tell you point blank, to be a professional in a sport, there is no such thing as balance. Period.

While I loved my job, I loved my family more. I can be great at 1-2 things but 3-4 things means I am below average at it all, and I couldn’t accept that from myself. So, I had to choose. I'm 28 years old. I’m no spring chicken, I’m not old! And I’m not saying that, so calm down! But in the sport of crossfit, it is getting up there. My time in this sport at the level and division I want to be at, is limited. There’s a time cap if you will.

Now enter conversation 2. I’m 28, you read that right? Well, in my life pre - Andrew, I was adamant I did not want children. People would always insist that when I met the right person, that would change… I’d always roll my eyes at the comment. But, well, I’ll be damned if they weren’t right… and with that, the time cap just got shorter. I want to be high level athlete, the best wife I can, a great coach, a successful business owner, and damn it maybe a mom. I feel like I don’t have to spend a time on this one, you get it. It’s pretty much point blank on that one.

And finally conversation 3. We love our little life. It’s not glamorous or glitzy or fancy. It’s simple and honorable. We both have servant hearts and it genuinely fills our cups to be able to help other people. Where we live currently though, has become busy and crazy packed full of people. You could say we are most certainly introverted humans… extroverted introverts at best, and amount of people who have flocked to this area of the world is…to be put politely, upsetting.

A big goal of ours is to get the heck out of here, head for the hills, head for a quiet community, a small town, somewhere like we grew up. Somewhere rough enough you have to be tough to live there. Give us a less likely chance for what we are experiencing now, to happen again. We see a future running our own working cattle ranch, homesteading even, being completely self sustainable and relying on no one else. But still giving back. We hope to start a direct to consumer beef company. Nutritious beef to nourish our communities. A beef company where you know exactly where it came from, who raised it and how, and a face to the name of the family you’re supporting. I grew up on a working cattle ranch my entire life. There is nothing I want more than to raise our family the same way.

So we have made the ultimate leap of faith. I quit my full time job as a firefighter/emt and switched to prioritizing being a full-time athlete. It’s both terrifying and so very exciting. Terrifying because it’s truly the epitome of putting action to your dream with no certainty that it will work out. But it’s exciting because at the end of the day, I know that’s not the only reason I walked away. I’ve had a dream to chase this goal from the day I found Crossfit back in 2014, but now I have the opportunity to really give it hell. An opportunity given to me by a man who not only supports this dream, but believes in it even more than me sometimes. This life is short. It’s not worth playing it safe to look back on our lives and wonder, “what if”. I want to be able to look back and know, I gave everything I could to a dream and man was it one hell of a ride, together

You might be wondering why I got so in depth for this first blog post…well, because this is the start, the catalysts of what inspired this site. Over time, I’ll fill ya’ll in on more of the details as a lot has already happened since I walked away from my job; I’ll share more of our past and how we got here, more about my incredible husband (let’s face it, he’s far more interesting than I am.)) and more about where we’re going. But for now, this is the grass roots of what you need to know. The love of my life and myself are going all in on a pretty lofty dreams and it’s making this little life just a little more crazy. The storyline is about to take some crazy turns but it’s gonna be one heck of an adventure.

If you’ve made it this far, I’ll leave you with this. I am passionate about a lot, and over the next few blog posts you’ll get to learn way more about alll those. But for now, we’re just a couple of small town folks who fell in love, are passionate about agriculture, beef, Crossfit, helping others in their health and fitness and more than anything, each other.

It’ll all come together in time. But for now, just know, this little ride is gonna be full of twists and turns.