July 2011

I decided it was time for Lady to get a homepage picture. She is such an amazing dog. Cute personality, smart, playful and cuddly.

Justin is starting 5th grade in 2 weeks - WOW! Nothing against the other 5th grade teacher but we are thrilled to have the same teacher as last year. So much of the first few months of the school year are lost with a new teacher trying to figure Justin out. This year Mr C will know right off what is what. His personality is also really good for Justin and I think he will be better off having him another year.

Since the last update here was Nov of 2010 I'll try to recap what has been happening.

• Esther (Frank's Mom) could no longer live by herself and is in a nursing facility. In June we were able to move her here so she is only 15 mins away and we can visit often. As hard as it was for her to leave CA she is thrilled to be so close to us and especially Justin. He is too is thrilled to be able to spend so much time with her. They are very cute together.

• We had a wonderful week in Arizona for MLB Spring Training. Got to meet some players and saw 3 game in 3 days. Pretty much the perfect Rivero vacation.

• While at said Spring Training games we had a wildfire at home that came within 45-50 ft of our house. Lost about 27 or so pine trees, sadly one that was at least 150 yrs old. But we were very lucky and visual damage around the place is minimal. Very surreal to be so many miles from home knowing that we were under evacuation orders and not knowing what was happening. Thank goodness for friends that kept visiting the house when possible and kept us up-to-date.

• Probably as you can tell by Spring Training mentioned, we continue to be big baseball fans and Justin has caught the fever as well. He is living and breathing baseball 24/7.

• We got our normal camping trips in for the summer break - another wonderful Rivero tradition.

• Justin continues on trumpet. Not sure what band will look like in the new school year but he will continue in some way. He took lessons over the summer from his 4th grade band teacher. I will post videos later on from his end of summer "recital" that we taped (or videoed - guess we can't really say taped any more) for those of you brave enough to view them.

When I started out typing this I had more things in mind but they escape me now so I'll end. Enjoy the new pictures.

Peace ...

~ Cristi (on behalf of the Rivero clan)