1994 to 1997 - 30 years in 30 Days

Ok - I OBVIOUSLY slacked off the past 3 days. After several emails, I will continue even though I already quit. But in my defense, I had tickets to the Dallas Starz game on Friday, went shopping on Saturday, and Sunday I slept on the sofa. As you can see, I was CLEARLY too busy. I have the worst reasons for things. Here you go!

1994

14 years old here! I was in 8th grade this year. I think....yes. 8th grade. I really don't remember much from this grade. I was just trying to get by without looking like a total goober.

You can tell I have a huge look of, "really mom?" on my face. I look so annoyed, yet smiling. And lookey there! I got my braces off that year. Pearly Whites, all straight and ready to go. I had my braces literally 2 years to the week. I was so happy to have them off. Things at home I'm assuming were the same as I have no stories of anything there. Nothing life changing. Jill was 16 so you can imagine how fun THAT was. 2 teenage girls, 1 14 and the other 16. You could say we fought...just a little.

1995

Freshman!!! I'm 15 now. I remember this year for one reason. It was April 15, 1995 and I was in the front lobby of the jr high. I was out there with some people from StuCo. I don't remember who, sorry. But we were painting the back drop to the Freshman Dance for pictures. It was a luau. We were laying on the floor painting when Mr. Cox came out and told us that we needed to go back to our rooms. A bombing had happened in OKC. My first thought was my Grandma Stone. She lived in OKC. My Mom worked at the school library so I asked if I could go see her as I was a little scared. He let me go, thank you! My mom was in the back office of the libary with the TV on. All the Libary Aides were there too watching the news. It was so scary to see the images and to hear the news reporters try to talk. My mom called my Grandma and she was ok, home, but had felt the explosion. She had falling a couple of weeks ago and broken her collar bone so we were a little concerned. I went back to my classroom and everyone was buzzing about what was going on. Here is a picture of the building. It's hard to look at, at least for me as I remember it so clearly.

The next week, we needed to go see Grandma and take her back to the doctor for her check-up on her collar-bone. I went with my Mom. We were driving downtown and my mom asked me if I wanted to drive over where it was. Not in the gawking way, but in the, "we are here, you will never (hopefully) see something like this, for history/education, do you want to see it" I was scared, but curious. She asked again to see if I was ok. I said yes. She said ok. That was the worst choice both of us had made. It was awful. We both started crying and got past it to my Grandmas's house as soon as we could. I can still see it from the window view in my head. I think that is why looking at pictures makes it so real.

Anyone who lost someone, be it friend or family or knew someone that was injured. I think about everyone every year on that day and send out my thoughts and prays.

O-kay, on a lighter note. Here is 15 year old Sarah and our Wonderful Family Dog Grover!! You might remember him from the 1982 blog. He is still here!

1996

Finally I'm 16 and can drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrive. I got my Grandpa Gibson's 1978 Baby Blue Buick Regal. Oh' it was pimping. I hated/loved that car. I hated it b/c it was old and a Grandpa car, but I loved it b/c it was really nice inside and out. Because, let's face it...old people's cars are so well kept! I was still playing basketball at this point. Really LOVED it.

I had my 16th birthtday party in my basement. This is the only picture my Mom could find to send me. Our basement was so dank and dirty! Looking back, wow - how embarrasing!!

Jill graduated this year. She got a soccer scholorship to NSU. I was very proud of her and excited, but was very sad too. I was a only child in the house for the first time in my life. It was strange.

This was the year that changed a lot for me in basketball. Coach Wallis was no longer my basketball coach for the 1st time ever. We had a new coach. There was a scrimmage before the real season started and I was trying really hard to do good. This new coach didn't know me or anything about me. I had to show her what I could do and how much I loved the game. I loved it too much that day. I planted my left foot to save the ball from going out of bounds. As I did...SNAP...my ACL tore right in half. Literally, right in half. I still have 2 screws in my left knee. That put the end to me and basketball. At least my Junior Year it did. That was really hard, but one thing helped, my sister.

She had done the same injury 1 month earlier in college soccer. We had the same doctor and everything. I had her to go through the rehab and everything, even though she was at college doing it, she would call and ask how I was and teach me over the phone what the rehab folks there were telling her. College sports rehab is always better than just regular. By May of 1997 (next year I know) I was back playing and I give a lot of that credit to my sister.

1997

The beginning of my senior year. I was totally over my knee at this point, so that story is done. I got to play my senior year...but it was really different. I just couldn't move as fast or turn as quick. It really bummed me out. Oh' Well. One thing I haven't really done in these blogs is talk a lot about my friends. I have mentioned one here and there, but didn't really go into any long stories. This is a long story. Several years back I had become good friends with Miranda, Micah, and Wes. We all had Coach Hendo's class together and really hit it off. We were involved in StuCo, German Club, stuff like that so we had similar interest. The summer of 1997 we had Miranda's parents rent us a hotel in OKC and we went there for the night. We thought that was so cool. We almost got killed by a tire on ther way there, hahahah, I forgot about that until just now. Anyway, so it was fall of our senior year and we were sitting together at our table in the Commans Area. Well, we are sitting there and we see this girl that we had never seen before sit down at table with a bunch of people who played in the band. She sits there a while and we over hear them ask her what instrument she played. When she replied she doesn't play, they asked her why she was sitting there. She picked up her food and left the table. We told her to come sit with us....and that my friend....is how I met Lauren. Awwwww...my little Lauren.

We laugh about that story still to this day. How she got rejected. Not really, but it was funny. It was the best thing ever. To this day Miranda, Wes, Lauren, Micah and I are all still close friends. Just this past August Preston and I came into town and all of us met over at Lauren's for dinner. I love my friends. That is 1997, but I have to leave you with a great photo of me all dressed up to go the Winter Ball. Classy blue silk dress that could have been a nighty for all I know. Thanks Mom!