Christmas 2004

Christ-mas 2004

Merry Christ-mas and Happy New Years !!!

Well it has been another exciting year. It started last Feb. when Brandon’s basketball team made it all the way to Regional Finals. Those were an exciting three weeks. It even goes a little further back, when Charlie and Xavier and some nephews drove to Gainesville to see Brandon play in a national Christmas tournament. We even drove to Daytona to go swimming in the Ocean and of course play some ball at the nearby playground.

This has been a whirl wind year with colleges recruiting Brandon. Most recruit him because of his high SAT scores and 4.0 gpa. Others recruit him because he is Hispanic and some for his basketball. We have to wait until Dec. 15 to hear from his first choice MIT where he met the coach and went out with some of the players. The coach (who calls him once a week) says he is in, but we still have to wait for the admission committee. If for some reason he does not get in, then Cal Tech is high on his list (coach still calls Brandon). Amherst was nice enough to fly him to visit, but they do not have engineering. Ga. Tech is his third choice (Manny’s personal favorite) and of course U.of Fla. would be FREE and a strong alumni association for jobs after graduation (but he could not play ball for Ga Tech or UF).

Of course the highlight this summer was the family reunion in Miami. Brandon and Austin just love meeting and talking to the cousins and hearing all the stories about Cuba. Brandon used those stories in several of his college essays.

Kathy signed her new contract with Tampa General for a second year. She really loves her job and likes the free dinners at all the expensive restaurants around town put on by the drug reps.

Austin grew about 4 inches and is 6’2” now and made the varsity team as an 8th grader. In his first varsity game he scored 9 points, hitting 2 three point shots. This has always been a dream of Manny’s to have Austin and Brandon on the same team. Austin passed it to Brandon in the corner for a beautiful three. When the coach asked Austin why he wanted to play varsity, Austin said because I want to play with my brother (Austin passed up the leading scorer position in the JV team).

Manny continues to teach Pre-Cal and Calculus and of course run the summer programs with over 2,000 campers. He was able to find two more scholarships for two minority kids to enter 9th grade. And the girl that we drove to school for 7 years graduated from Berkeley and got a full ride at Northwest University.

We know many of you did not vote for Bush, but Brandon got to vote for the first time and he went 2 for 2: Bush for president and a Cuban Martinez for Senate.

Well we have truly been blessed and we continue to look forward to hear news from our family and friends,

Love, Kathy, Manny, Brandon, Austin
(PS: almost forgot, Brandon bought a motorcycle for his 18th birthday, it is a beautiful 1982 Honda 500 and Manny gets to ride it too.)