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.

I left the public school system in the fall of 1991 to the wonderful world of private education. This would be the first of many schools for me in my Jr. & Sr. High life. Community Christian School in Mineral Wells, TX was different from anything I’ve ever experienced. It was a very small school that I was very scared of, but turns out it was a school that ended up being filled with great people and some of the best and funniest memories ever. I figured out lots of way to have fun and how to get in trouble on a regular basis.

There were many things that I did to push the envelope, this however was not one of those time. When it came to boys, I was really innocent… Kind of like how I am now. Anyways, I would always be running late for school and one day I put on my uniform and forgot to put on a slip underneath it. Now, I was in the 6th grade… I was 11 years old. It didn’t even cross my mind that by not wearing a slip I would attract boys. At this point in my life we were still running around the playground throwing sand at one another. So this teacher made the biggest deal about my not wearing a slip that day to provoke lustful feelings in the boys at the school… She had a conference with my mom and basically told me that I was hussy. She was never my favorite teacher. Any hussy like behavior I have since acted on, I feel like I can blame solely on her. She put the thoughts in my head. Be very careful what you say to children… Very careful. When I feel like rebelling still today, you’ll probably find me walking around town with a skirt on… and no slip, like a hussy.

Fun Family Photo

Formal time

President: George Bush
Vice President: J. Danforth Quayle
Population: 252,127,402
Life expectancy: 75.5 years
US GDP: $5,916.70 billion
Federal spending: $1323.63 billion
Federal debt: $3598.5 billion
Median Household Income: $30,126
Unemployment: 6.8%

No. 1 Song week of Feb. 12, 1991: Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) by C&C Music Factory

Nobel Prize for Literature: Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)

Fun Facts:

• Nirvana, Nevermind Released
• Miles Davis & Graham Greene died
• Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman) is arrested in a Florida movie theater for indecent exposure
• Fox Broadcasting is the first network to permit condom advertising on television.
• Professor Anita Hill accuses Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment .

So 1982 brought some fun stuff… We moved to California for my dad’s job.  Before we moved my parents began to realize that my brilliant brother had begun to realize that not only did he have an amazingly beautiful sister, he had a guinea pig. My brother has always been the inquisitive type, very smart kid… Always wanting to know what would the direct results would be of his scientific inquiries… Such as, what would happen if you stand on a hot plate that’s plugged in the bedroom when you are supposed to be napping? Could you fly like superman if you take a bottle of Superman vitamins? What would happen if you drink the toilet cleaner Tidy Bowl? Well, now he could test out those things… I was a more than willing volunteer. Let’s just say, my parents had to keep a pretty decent supply of Ipecac in the house.

Now my little nephew Sam and niece Lily are the same age my brother and I were during 1982… It’s like watching an old video of Bevan and myself, the way they act together. It’s really cute. She pretty much thinks that Sam hung the moon and will sit and listen to him as he works out these big plans… Let’s hope he doesn’t have her stand on a hot plate though.

These are some of my favorite pictures from a trip to the Grand Canyon on our way to California.

Nice quick lunch on the hood of the car.

I'm shocked my mom let us sit this close to the edge!

My dad pulling a Britney Spears...

President: Ronald W. Reagan
Vice President: George Bush
Population: 231,664,458
Life expectancy: 74.5 years
US GDP: $3,242.10 billion
Federal spending: $745.76 billion
Federal debt: $1137.3 billion
Median Household Income: $20,171
Consumer Price Index: 96.5
Unemployment: 9.7%

No. 1 Song on the Billboard Charts the week of February 12th.

• Centerfold - J. Geils Band

Nobel Prize for Literature: Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) — Totally one of my favorites!

Fun Facts:

• E.T. Movie Released
• Falkland Islands Invaded by Argentina
• King Henry VIII’s Ship the Mary Rose Raised After 437 Years
• Michael Jackson Releases Thriller

John Belushi dies of a drug overdose at age 33.

So being 1 years old was rather uneventful for me. I learned to crawl, talk and I started reading Camus this year too. I was the cutest little existentialist. This year probably was the year that started making my mom’s pretty raven hair turn gray. My brother began to realize that he had a for real toy with his baby sister! (There are more fun stories in the years to come when he began to realize that he also had a guinea pig with his baby sister.) He was the ultimate escape artist and he would always find his way to wake up me when I was supposed to be napping.

Speaking of napping… One day in 1981 I was fast asleep inside taking a nap. While I was excelling in sleep, drama was unfolding outside of the house. The family dog, Tara, had passed away, my mom was pacing in the back yard holding my brother while my father had taken Tara down the hill to bury her. She is hysterical. The neighbor came to the fence and asked if everything was okay. Through her sobbing she gets out that Tara has died… Automatically the neighbor starts to freak out and asks what happened, what he could do… My mom tells him that there is nothing he can do, that my dad was down the hill burying her… Well the neighbor jumps the fence screaming, “ARE YOU ALL CRAZY!!!” It took a few moments for my mom to realize that he thought that I was Tara… Here I am inside napping and my neighbor thought my parents were burying my body in the back yard.

So that is just about all the excitement that 1981 has to offer for me.

Bevan would wake climb in to my crib to wake me every morning.

I love that beard Daddy!

President: Ronald W. Reagan
Vice President: George Bush
Population: 229,465,714
Life expectancy: 74.1 years

US GDP: $3,115.90 billion

Federal spending: $678.25 billion

Federal debt: $994.8 billion

Median Household Income: $19,074

Unemployment: 7.6%

No. 1 Song on the Billboard Charts the week of February 12th

• CELEBRATION by Kool & the Gang

Nobel Prize for Literature: Elias Canetti (Bulgaria)

Fun Facts:

• Prince Charles and Diana Spencer marry July 29.
• The first DeLorean sports cars roll off the assembly line.
• Pope John Paul II was shot by a Turkish assassin.

Reagan nominates Judge Sandra Day O’Connor as first woman on US Supreme Court.

February 12, 1980… Maybe my favorite day ever. A little bit before 8:00 in the morning, I was born in to this glorious world to two of the greatest people ever, Doug & Nadine Houston. They named me Lauren Francis Houston. I would have been Wyatt Francis had I been a boy… named after a dear great uncle.

They brought me home from Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, TX. My brother Bevan was 19 months old and his life would never be the same again either. What a lucky guy.

I really don’t remember much from this year, except that life as anyone in the world knew it, would never be the same again.

My mother says that I excelled at sleeping, which was a great relief to my mom since my brother was still not sleeping through the night. Still to this day, I excel at sleeping.

The posts will get increasingly more interesting as the years go by… I didn’t do a whole lot of fun stuff as a newborn.

He still gets that excited every time he sees me.

The "First Impressions" page from my baby book.

(By the way… My mother’s handwriting hasn’t changed one bit in 30 years. Kind of impressive, I think. My handwriting changes about every 30 minutes.)

President: James Earl Carter, Jr. (Wouldn’t it have been cooler had it been James Earl Jones?)

Vice President: Walter F. Mondale

Population: 227,224,681

Life expectancy: 73.7 years

US GDP (1998 dollars): $2,784.20 billion

Federal spending: $590.95 billion

Federal debt: $909.1 billion

Median Household Income: $17,710

Unemployment: 7.1%

No. 1 Song on the Billboard Charts the week of February 12th:

• Do That to Me One More Time by The Captain & Tennille

Nobel Prize for Literature: Czeslaw Milosz (US)

1980 Facts:

• Ted Turner started CNN
• John Lennon, an English musician and peace activist, is murdered by *XXX in New York City.
• Mount St. Helens Erupts
• Yugoslav President Tito dies. The funeral ceremony later becomes the world’s biggest diplomatic meeting and media event ever, with more than 140 state delegations in Belgrade from all over the world (only the funeral of Pope John Paul II in April 2005 will have more news coverage and a higher number of delegations).

*I refuse to speak his name because that’s what he wanted.