Lauren is my friend!

We rang in 2003 right… Watching OU take the win at the Rose Bowl. It was a beautiful day in Pasadena, the parade was amazing to see too. Right after we returned home I made the big move 120 miles southwest to Norman, OK. Bevan and Evie were living there and finishing up school. They lived in a charming little apartment complex that luckily had an apartment open right when I was looking. So I looked no further and moved directly upstairs from them. It was a small complex and the neighbors I met were all friends. My friend Cailey lived there and I grew to love my time spent with she and her now husband Marshall. It was always great fun. But best of all I became best friends with one of my brother’s best friends and past roommate Jason. We ended up hanging out pretty much whenever we weren’t in class or work. I worked at Journey Church in Norman at this time too. Bevan got me a job there and from that I met some more of my favorite people ever. But back to Jason… We started taking guitar lessons and we would play and listen to old records and make really unhealthy food. If it wasn’t for Jason, I totally would never have survived living in Norman that first year. Through the church I met my best friend Mindy. She worked at Journey too. We never talked. I thought she was a weird A/V type and she thought I was just weird. When I first started there I answered phones in the room with the copy machine, so anytime anyone would come and make copies I would do the Rob Schnieder “Making Copies” routine… I was bored. But one day an attorney who shared a parking lot with us was yelling at Mindy because her car was parked illegally and my brother had to get in his face to get him off of Mindy. So she came in and told me how nice my brother was and from there we became friends. Plus I had a washer and dryer and she didn’t at the time… I think that was the real driving force of the friendship. After she came over to my house one night to watch a movie and do laundry we became instant best friends.

While I’m off in Norman having a grand ole time little did I know that there was some 19 year old boy was preying on my sweet baby sister. She in my opinion was no where near the age of dating… She should still be thinking boys are gross on the playground, right? Well anyways, it’s a good thing I wasn’t able to chase him off because today he is my precious brother in law… Okay, so she was 18 years old… But I always thought of her as a baby sister, not a grown up younger sister. Jeffery Paul Hutsell you sweet son of gun, I love you man!

That pretty much sums up 2003.

Hope you enjoy!

Jason in my messy apartment.

Jeff & Millie in 2003

President: George W. Bush
Vice President: Richard Cheney
Population: 291 million

Federal spending: $2,158 billion
Federal debt: $6,783 billion
Unemployment: 6.0 %

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 2003: All I Have by Jennifer Lopez featuring LL Cool J

Nobel Prize for Literature: J. M. Coetzee (South Africa)

Random Facts:

• Scientists uncover the fossil of a new species of flying dinosaur in northeastern China thought to have existed 120 million years ago. It is the first dinosaur ever found with four wings
• Johnny & June Carter Cash die this year.
• Three fossilized skulls discovered near the Ethiopian village of Herto in 1997 have now been identified as the oldest known remains of modern humans. Assigned to a new human subspecies called Homo sapiens idaltu (idaltu means elder in the Afar language of Ethiopia), the skulls are estimated to be about 160,000 years old—a good 50,000 years older than any previously discovered Homo sapiens
• Space shuttle Columbia explodes, killing all 7 astronauts (Feb. 1).

I lived with my friend Susi Doring during 2002. Living with Susi was an absolute blast. I met her my senior year of high school through our German class. Susi is one of those special people who is just so full of life. I always envied her because of that. No matter what life threw at her, she danced her way through it. She literally danced all the time, while making hummus or guacomole, ironing her shirt, walking to the bathroom, and especially while getting ready to go out. Madonna would be blaring and Susi would be dancing. I loved the year we lived together.

Kelly fell in love this year to tall drink of German water. We were friends with every international student at TU and met him at party one night. They fell in love and when he went back home and she decided, why not… I am going to go give it a whirl in Germany. I decided that year to leave TU and move to Norman the following Spring semester to finish school at OU. So in honor of Kelly and me moving on to more fun and exotic places we decided we would commemorate our friendship by getting Glamour Shots. Not 2001 style Glamour Shots either, we wanted the late 80′s early 90′s style Glamour Shots. We walked in there and asked them to do the big hair, big makeup and big shoulder pads. They all acted offended that weren’t taking their jobs seriously, and we assured them that the pictures that they do are stellar pieces of art, but we wanted something bigger. Oh the fun we had. Oddly enough they still had the wardrobe of that era. So we putting on sequins and denim jackets with American flags on then, posing back to back while popping our collars. It was quite amazing, especially the one where we looked naked and had red satin and angel wings. Sadly those pictures are MIA… They will be found soon and I will dedicate and entire blog post to their glory.

But most importantly in 2002 my brother and Evie got married. It was a beautiful wedding. It seemed so crazy to stand as bridesmaid watching my big brother become a husband. Their ceremony was the most beautiful ceremony ever. They used a ceremony from a Robert Fuldgem book. It was such a powerful union and one day I hope to use the same words to marry my husband, just as my sister used to marry her husband. Like always, Millie and want to do the same thing as their big brother. That day I gained another sister. And I will always thank God for that.

We ended the year in style. The family rented an RV and headed out on Christmas day towards California to go to see OU in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day. I won’t talk about that since that was 2003 but the last day of 2002 we went to the Jay Leno Show. Snoop Dogg was the musical guest and he was totally entertaining. Jay Mohr was there and several other folks that I can’t remember. It was a wonderful way to wrap up a year.

Millie & Me with the Bride

Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard

President: George W. Bush
Vice President: Richard Cheney
Population: 290 million

Federal spending: $2,011 billion
Federal debt: $6,228 billion
Unemployment: 5.8 %

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 2002: U Got it Bad by Usher

Nobel Prize for Literature: Imre Kertész (Hungary)

Random Facts:

• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets opens
• Pennsylvania miners rescued after spending 77 hours in a dark, flooded mine shaft (July 28).
• Kenneth L. Lay, chairman of bankrupt energy trader Enron, resigns; company under federal investigation for hiding debt and misrepresenting earnings.

In 2001 I turned 21 years old… I was legal to do anything I wanted to do, go anywhere I wanted to go. Oh yeah, total freedom.

2001 also brought me my love for Alaska. My parent’s took the family on a cruise through the Inside Passage. It was such a phenomenal, even spiritual journey. It was just as they had described but even more beautiful. I will never forget seeing the glaciers calve, walking through the streets of Ketchikan, watching the salmon swim upstream. That beautiful state made every other place I had seen in the world seem dirty and regular. It was nothing in comparison to Alaska. My heart was won over. Someone else’s heart was won over on this trip too… My brother asked Evie to be his wife, and she said yes. It was a wonderful trip.

I’m pretty sure this is the year that we burned Pier 1 in Utica Square down too… Not sure. I’m really bad with dates, so there could be information under one year that belongs in another year. We still were going to see Admiral Twin regularly and you could always find us on Sunday nights at Arnie’s playing shuffle board with a Harp in hand.

Kelly & I seeing Admiral Twin one night... It looks like I was a flipper baby. "It was only a couple of flipper babies!!"

President: George W. Bush
Vice President: Richard Cheney
Population: 281.4 million

Federal spending: $1,864 billion
Federal debt: $5,807 billion
Unemployment: 4.8 %

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 2001: Ms. Jackson by OutKast

Nobel Prize for Literature: Sir V. S. Naipaul (UK)

Random Facts:

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone opened.
• Terrorists attack United States. Hijackers ram jetliners into twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashes 80 mi outside of Pittsburgh (Sept. 11). Toll of dead and injured in thousands. Within days, Islamic militant Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda terrorist network are identified as the parties behind the attacks.
• Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh executed.

Well “In the Year 2000….” I met my best friend in the whole entire world. But first let’s just say the world didn’t come crashing down at 12:00am 01.01.00, thank goodness. Because if that happened I my sweet baby boy Toby would never have been born. So in April 2000 my sweet Tobias Aloysius Houston was born. One day I was with my mom and dad and my mother needed to run to in to Wal-Mart so my dad and dropped her off and I was going to run in to Radio Shack really quick to get something and on my way in there I saw a guy sitting on the tailgate of his SUV with a couple of puppies in the back and a sign that said “FREE PUPPIES”… I of course stopped and looked and there was one dog left… the runt. I immediately ran to my dad’s car because I had to get to him before my mom came out to the car and talked some sense in to us. I gave him the “pretty eyes” (I only use the pretty eyes on occasions when I really really have to have something, because so far they have never failed me not since I was a little girl and I don’t want to waste that power on something not super important.) So back to the pretty eyes… I batted my eyes like crazy and said pretty please the whole way over to SUV and as soon as he saw that little puppy he said yes! So by the time my mom had made it over we had asked the gentleman what kind of puppy it was, he said the mother was a Golden Retriever and the father “came from a good home.” So sweet Tobias came in to the Houston family that blessed spring day! My family likes to give me a hard time because I HAD to have him and later this year I moved in to a house without a backyard so I left him with my parents… Toby was wild puppy. He ran laps constantly in the backyard, he tore up their backyard twice, there were several times they wanted to give him away and probably even worse… Finally by the time the puppy had worn off and he was the perfect TV Golden Retriever, wanting to lay on your feet to keep them warm, and being the perfect dog, I had bought a house with a yard and took him back. They joke that I was an unfit parent and they took custody of my child until I was ready… He still loves going to his Nana and Poppie’s house though. Even though he’s sick, he remembers that his spot is curled up right behind my dad’s legs on the couch and he knows that when he is at the house his Nana will pour extra milk in her cereal just so he can have some when she’s done.

I can’t imagine my life without this sweet boy. He’ll be 10 years old in April and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t look at him and thank God so much that he is my handsome man!

My Handsome Man!

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr
Population: 281,421,906

Federal spending: $1,788.83 billion
Federal debt: $5,674.2 billion
Unemployment: 4.0%

No. 1 Song week of February 12, 2000: I Knew I Loved You by Savage Garden

Nobel Prize for Literature: Gao Xingjian (China)

Random Facts:

• U.S. presidential election closest in decades; Bush’s slim lead in Florida leads to automatic recount in that state. Supreme Court seals Bush victory by 5-4.
• Charles Schulz, the cartoonist who created the “Peanuts” comic strip, dies in his sleep after a battle with colon cancer.

Let’s PARTY likes it 1999!

1999 was another fun filled year. It started out with my brother falling in love. Now my brother and I hung out all the time together prior to his falling in love so I was a little less than welcoming to my beloved sister-in-law Evie. Bless her heart… It didn’t take long though for me to realize that she loved my brother so much and that we were so lucky to have her in our family. That year will always be special because Evie came in to our lives.

My sister, my best friend, and I were further apart in age at this point in our lives than any other time and we constantly butted heads. But we still loved each other and we still had a lot of fun.

My parents 25th wedding anniversary was this year too. They celebrated it by taking a cruise to Alaska, the cruise that sparked their love for that state and lucky for us since then they have shared that loved with all of us!

I tried my hand at waiting tables this year, at El Paso BBQ… Let’s just say I was the world’s worst waitress. I was so bad I got great tips. People felt really sorry for me. I think I probably lasted for about 2 months before we all decided it was best for me not to wait tables any longer.

I worked at Pier 1 in Utica Square around this time too… This is where I met my better half Miss Kelly Green. We quickly became best friends, quoting lines from Brain Candy, going to listen to Admiral Twin at Barkley’s on Tuesday nights, and being absolutely ridiculous most of the time.

I had settled on my major of anthropology this year. My classes at TU were a lot of fun, I really loved school the people I met there.

STILL NO PICTURES… I’LL GET ON IT SOON.

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.

Federal spending: $1716.95 billion
Federal debt: $5978.5 billion
Unemployment: 4.2%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1999: Angel of Mine by Monica

Nobel Prize for Literature: Günter Grass (Germany)

Random Facts:

• Rev. Jerry Falwell outs Teletubby Tinky Winky and calls him a gay role model. Falwell deduced that because Tinky Winky’s purple, carries a purse and has a triangle on his head he’s gay.
• Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, storm Columbine High School in Littleton , CO, killing twelve other students and a teacher, then themselves
• JFK, Jr. and his wife die in plane crash.

My senior year of high school I had the opportunity to do a German student exchange through my German class. That spring we had group of German students come and stay at our homes. My exchange student’s name was Nicole. She was a super sweet girl. We all had a great time the month they stayed here. Right after graduation our group left for Germany. We spent some time traveling through Italy, Switzerland and Austria. It was so much fun. We had a great time… Young silly Americans traveling across Europe. I look back and wish I could do that trip again knowing the things I know now. Funny story from the trip. Remember my saying in a previous post that I had a thick Texas accent at this time? Well, I was walking back to the hostel from a pub one night and these Russians guys were asking for directions to the pub we just left. They spoke broken German, as did I. They spoke no English and I spoke no Russian. So I am trying tell them where it is… Well, they all started laughing and then they asked if I was from Texas. I had no idea how bad my accent was… But apparently even when speaking in broken German my Texas accent shined through.

I have such nice memories from that trip, watching the sun rise over the Adriatic Sea, going to an all night rave (maybe that wasn’t such a fun memory, I wasn’t much of a techno girl), traveling with my best friends. I had a blast staying with Nicole and her family. She had a little brother that told me inappropriate things to say in German when I would ask how you say something appropriate. I definitely made the grandmother blush several times.

(AGAIN… STILL SICK, NO PICTURES TODAY. I’LL POST THEM WHEN I FEEL BETTER!)

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 270,298,524

Federal spending: $1675.88 billion
Federal debt: $5750.4 billion
Unemployment: 4.5%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1998: Nice and Slow by Usher

Nobel Prize for Literature: José Saramago (Portugal)

Random Facts:

• Frank Sinatra dies.
• President accused in White House sex scandal;denies allegations of affair with White House intern,Monica Lewinsky.
• An estimated 76 million viewers watch the last episode of Seinfeld.

1997 might have been my favorite year of my adolescence. My dad called a family meeting early summer and when he started it off he was looking right at me. He told us about a job offer he had in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was asking what we thought about it, specifically me since I would be starting my senior year of high school that fall. Well I was thrilled much to my parents relief I’m sure. So we planned a trip my dad and I. We flew in to Tulsa International Airport and rented a car and took out on a tour of the town. Remember the towns I’ve lived in? Tyler, Mineral Wells, Blandon, Odessa… You get the picture, very small towns. Tulsa seemed huge to me! But I was so excited, it was going to be an adventure! We ended up moving to a suburb called Bixby. I was to start my senior year at Bixby High School that fall. My first year in public school since the 5th grade. I was scared to death. Here I was going to a public school in a new state. It was all so exciting, but still I was super scared. I walked in to school that first day and here I was a girl with a heavy Texas accent that you can still hear if I’m super sleepy or I let my guard down, and I picked up my schedule and headed off to class.

This is a story that my best friends like to tell everyone we meet. My family had visited a church before school started and I had met this girl in Sunday School who I saw at school that first day. Well I sat with her and her friends at lunch on the first day of school. I sat with them for about a week when one of the guys at the table asked me what instrument I played. I told him I didn’t play any instruments. It was like the bad movies. Everyone stopped eating and looked at me, and then he said, “Then why are you sitting here? This is the band table.” I picked up my tray, waiting for someone to laugh or say they were kidding, but no one did…. So I slowly turned to walk away. The stars were aligned in my favor though. There were four people at the next table who witnessed the whole scene and felt bad enough for me to ask me to sit with them… Of course they have held that over my head since that fall day in Bixby, Ok. Those four people would turn out to be my best friends that year. And I am happy to say still to this day, I still talk to each of them. They totally saved me from humiliation and ensured that I had the best senior year that a girl could have. So thank you Sarah, Wes, Miranda and Micah! Love you guys!

(I am super sick right now and I don’t have any pictures scanned for this year, I’ll post some hopefully tomorrow though. So look back.)

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 267,743,595

US GDP: $8,110.90 billion
Federal spending: $1635.33 billion
Federal debt: $5498.9 billion
Median Household Income: $37,005
Unemployment: 4.9%

No 1 Song the week of February 12, 1997: Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton

Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo (Italy)

Random Facts:

• William S. Burroughs, Jacques Cousteau, John Denver, Princess Diana, Allen Ginsberg, Mother Theresa, James A. Michener, James Stewart all died this year. Big year for St. Peter.
• Timothy J. McVeigh sentenced to death for Oklahoma City bombing.
• Ellen DeGeneres outs herself. She becomes the first openly gay woman to have her own sitcom.

1996 was a year of many firsts. My first car, my first cell phone (it was big and I had to share it,) my first real boyfriend (not a random foreigner or a little boy neighbor who sang to me), my first prom and my first time being the oldest kid in the house.

We were going to Southern Oaks Baptist Church and I absolutley loved my youth group! We had so much fun. It was one of those classic youth groups. I’ll always have fond memories of those fun times at camps, 5th quarters, and all the other great stuff. I had a ton of great friends through this time… One of the most special was Kristie Banks. She a school teacher just out of college and she worked with the youth. We hung out all the time and pretty much all of my favorite memories from my time in Tyler are with Kristie. Now, I am going to have to call her because this has made me miss her so much!

Did I mention that I homeschooled this year? Yep, I spent a year at home doing my work. Basically I spent a few months completing my years worth of work and then became a fan of “The Young and the Restless” and “The Guiding Light.” It was a fun time. I could go have lunch with my beau at his school and I worked at Honey-B-Ham making sandwiches for a little while this year too.

For my 16th birthday I got my first car. It was a 1989 Cutlass Cierra. It had a little computer in it that said welcome when you started up the car… It was a hot vehicle. My parent’s bought it from my Aunt Lana for my brother for his car and then they gave it to my when I turned 16 and he took the Suburban off to college. He left that year ETBU. Let me tell you how fun it was to have a brother who was a freshman in college. He and his friends would all come to my parent’s house for the weekend… Yes, that was fun for a 16 year old girl.

My sister around this time was absolutely adorable. She was really kinda obsessed with Jan Crouch and she would have us all sit on her pretty daybed and she would dress up in a formal dress, high heels and put on a fur stole and she would preach to us at least once a week. Her dog Pearl would also be dressed up in her Sunday’s best and every week during the altar call portion of the sermon Pearl would get saved. We have some of her sermons on audio tape somewhere, I would love to go back listen to those sweet sermons. She was a precious little girl.

Mom helping me get ready for my first prom... Love the sponge painted walls in my sister's room.

Summer Camp Fun after a mud fight with Kristie & Caitlyn. I love how tall I look in this picture.

Jan Crouch

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 265,189,794

US GDP: $7,661.60 billion
Federal spending: $1572.41 billion
Federal debt: $5207.3 billion
Median Household Income: $35,492
Unemployment: 5.4%

No. 1 Song the week of February 12, 1996: One Sweet Day by Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men

Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska (Poland)

Random Facts:

• Ella Fitzgerald, Carl Sagan, Tim Leary & George Burns all died.
• Tupac Shakur is shot and probably dies.
• Clinton appoints Madeleine Albright as first female US secretary of state.
• F.B.I. arrests suspected Unabomber.

1995 was the year I fell in love with a Belarusian man. His name was Kostya and he was a dancer.

TCF participated in a National Convention every year that brought together ACE schools from across the country. I had a science project that only a child of a chemical engineer could have had that won first place. But the highlight of the convention was visiting dance group from Belarus. We met after a performance and I remember being so nervous to go up to him and tell him how much I enjoyed it. But I did… He was so dreamy in his traditional Belarusian clothes. We decided to meet up later and talk some more. He kissed me that night! That’s when I fell for that Russian speaking, square jawed dancer. We decided to write letters to each other because after this convention they were going back home, where he would finish college to become an engineer. We wrote letters for over a year. That was until my brother’s friend from college told me he would write the letter in Russian instead of English because he would totally think that was impressive. Apparently he wrote something that might have been inappropriate and I wouldn’t have known any different, because I didn’t speak the language. I sent the letter off and never heard from him again. At least that’s my story… Maybe he got tired of writing to a 15/16 year old girl in the US, I like to think that wasn’t the case though. I’d like to think that my brother’s friend ruined it for me and it had nothing to do me at all. Who knows… Maybe he died in a tragic mountain climbing accident and that’s why he never responded. Wow, I haven’t thought about him in years now, I’m going to have to go find those old letters so I can remember his last name and do some cyber stalking Internet research to see if I can find him.  I totally wish I could find those pictures of  him too… He was so dreamy.

Hanging out on Wayne & Garth's sofa. *I needed an attitude adjustment basically all of '95

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 262,764,948

US GDP : $7,269.60 billion
Federal spending: $1519.13 billion
Federal debt: $4921.0 billion
Median Household Income: $34,076
Unemployment: 5.6%

No 1 Song week of February 12, 1995: Creep by TLC

Nobel Prize for Literature: Seamus Heaney (Ireland)

Random Facts:

• Jerry Garcia and Ginger Rogers die
• Los Angeles jury finds O. J. Simpson not guilty of murder charges.
• France explodes nuclear device in Pacific

1994 was another fun year. My dad took a job in Tyler, Texas. We moved late that fall in the middle of my first semester of my 9th grade year. Before I take you all to Tyler with me I want to close the book on Mineral Wells with a funny story. Well, maybe it’s a bit more of a morbid story. As I mentioned before we lived on a highway outside of town, which means we regularly had new pets. Cats & dogs who had been dumped by their cruel owners would wind up at our doorstep. Between my sister and myself we would adopt these pets. I even remember adopting baby rabbits and trying to hatch bird eggs. The cats ate the bunnies and I turned the heating pad up too high on the bird eggs. They all died on a Tuesday. Any dog that would wander up and I took on as my dog. I would love it with all my heart for the few days before it ran out on the highway to meet its maker, they all passed away on Tuesdays. Even our family pet Zach who sadly tried to follow us out of the gate died on a Tuesday. Our Rottweiler who was stolen, was stolen on a Tuesday.  It became a joke with all of friends in MW that you shouldn’t go to the Houston’s house on a Tuesday. Millie and I would be as dramatic as Shelby in Steel Magnolias at Truvy’s Salon each time one of these animals died. My poor parents… The drama that we created over must have been a lot to take. Tuesdays at the Houston’s… You never knew what could happen.

So the big move to Tyler, TX… As I said before we moved in the middle of my freshman year. The school we moved to was called Tyler Christian Fellowship. It was a PACE school, unlike anything I had experienced before. This might have been the worst kind of school for me to go to, because I needed a bit more stimulation, I needed to talk… I would finish all my PACES and then try to talk to other students and I would get in trouble. But it was a super fun school. Because of the awesome people I met there. I loved getting done early and going outside and sitting on the picnic tables playing checkers and chess with the guys. (Remember that Caleb?) It was a ton of fun. There were a few guys in the school that were total rockstars in their own mind. They were all super tough and oh so deep. I’ll never forget the day that Kurt Cobain died. You would have thought these guys had just received a call that their entire families had disappeared on a tour North Korea and would never be heard from again. They sat together and cried and played and sang the songs of Nirvana through those weepy tears… I cried too. I remember thinking how deep and sensitive they were at the time… Now that memory embarrasses me pretty bad. It’s funny how old we think we are when we are just kids.

My last homecoming in Mineral Wells with Holly & Perri

Hanging with Glen Campbell

President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 260,289,237
Life expectancy: 75.7 years

US GDP: $6,947.00 billion
Federal spending: $1460.84 billion
Federal debt: $4643.7 billion
Median Household Income: $32,264
Unemployment: 6.1%

No 1 Song week of February 12, 1994: The Power of Love by Celine Dion

Nobel Prize for Literature: Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)

Random Facts:

• Kurt Cobain kills himself. He was 27.
• My favorite movie of all time come out. Pulp Fiction
• White House launches Web page.
• Richard Nixon & John Candy die.