Christmas 2003

Merry Christ-mas 2003

This was an exciting year. Kathy earned her Masters Degree in Nursing and is now a Nurse Practitioner. She also passed the National Boards. She was hired by Tampa General Hospital and works in a clinic with three other doctors. She loves her job and they seem to love her. In addition, the drug representatives take her out to dinner about twice a week (and we are not talking Sonny’s or Wendy’s here). What a life. We did spend one week on call and the phone was ringing at all hours of the night (that was not too much fun).

Brandon is in his junior year and taking a heavy load with AP Biology and AP Physics. In addition he is an officer in the Math Club and Prom Committee. He serves as a Guide and on Student Government. He also started a remote control airplane club and even flew to Boston to learn how to fly from Uncle Mel.

Of course basketball season has started and we are 3-0 at this time and ranked 3rd in the State. He hit the winning three bucket to beat Jesuit (a school we do not like very much). Last summer he traveled to Five-Star Camp near NY City where Uncle Charlie drove him to the camp. He also attended a 3-day leadership conference at Disney for the top 200 rising high school juniors in Florida. He was invited to represent Florida in DC for the nationals.

Austin is in 7th grade and was asked to play JV high school basketball, but we decided to give the 8th grade team (where he was MVP as a 6th grader last year) one more year. Austin loves to work with his hands and he bought a go-cart which he took apart and put back together with his friends. He also recently bought a mo-ped skateboard. Austin earns his money cutting lawns.

Another highlight of this year was our trip to DC for Mimi’s wedding. We stopped in North Carolina on the way up and visited Duke and UNC. We also climbed the dunes of Kitty Hawk. Of course the highlight of the trip was the uncle/nephew game where Austin hit a few threes in uncle Xavier’s face. Staying with the Hammies was a blast.

Manny continues his work at Berkeley. You can visit his website at www.berkeleyprep.org just look for the Summer Programs. While there you can also visit the boys basketball website with updates on the basketball team. For the second year, Manny is teaching AP Statistics and he claims that the students are learning a little too much about the real world out there.

Hope this Christ-mas season finds everyone healthy and happy. We are still having a blast in Tampa, Florida

Love, Kathy, Manny, Brandon, and Austin Suarez