The general scheme of
things for Chris and Rita is to move to Northern California next year, to our
property in Pine Grove, located in Amador County. To date the barn is now
finished; our tiny cabin is almost finished out on the inside, and the shed
which will, in the short term, serve as our kitchen is up and ready for build
outs. A great deal needs to happen before we can occupy the land, including
running permitted underground electrical and water, and get our current house
ready for the market. Target date for
the move remains June 30th of next year.
Rita continues to
telecommute upstairs for Caltrans. She technically works out of Sacramento so
she will be that much closer after the move. Her Girl Scout troop will disband
next year, now that Anne and Emily and many other girls in the troop have
earned their Gold Awards. A new skill
was learned this year, laying out and mortaring cinder block retaining walls
around the upslope sides of the barn. Her projects abound, and she is seldom
bored. If she ever is, there is always her trusty Kindle Reader. The next big
item for her will be to take the house plans for Pine Grove and redesign the
layout to suit her taste.
The life of Chris
involves a lot of going back and forth; to drop off Emily at school, to the
garage to work on O scale railroad models, and shopping for new and exciting
food items that meet the criteria of the new diet Rita and he are on. So far
weight has been lost, but not enough as yet. Chris is anxious to get up north
and leave Los Angeles County behind. He will work as the advance party to get
things ready so that when Rita finally shows up she can get right back to work.
The O Scale model railroad is already designed. He will start building upstairs
in the barn as soon as they move into the new house. Until then there are no
shortage of tasks for Chris.
Anne is working
through her sophomore year at San Jose State in the animation program. Her
portfolio was reviewed and accepted so she is good to go for another year! Not much time for her to do much but go to
class, do homework, and if she’s lucky, sleep. She is happy when it’s time to
come home for a break. Her artwork has come along nicely, and Chris and Rita
are wondering where she got that talent from? The summer job was as a counselor
at the Long Beach Girl Scout camp. She enjoyed it, most of the time. Anne also
got to go to see her favorite people again at an internet convention in Austin,
Texas at the end of the summer.
Emily is finally in
her senior year at Whitney High in Cerritos.
As predicted, she is practically running the place. As president of the
Drama Club, Team Captain, and a few others, as well as being on the
Cross-county and Track & Field teams, she spends most all of the daylight
hours at school. She sang and danced in
the schools delightful production of “Mary Poppins” just prior to Thanksgiving,
and will be in two additional shows before she graduates. Over the summer she
earned her Gold Award by building an 8 foot by 16 foot storage shed on school
grounds, to be used for prop and costume storage. Mom and Dad, as well as the
rest of the drama kids helped a little. Emily is not quite sure which college
she will be attending next year, but Fullerton State in Orange County is a front-runner.
Sadly we lost our
beloved dog Missy this year. She was a loyal member of our family and she will
always be remembered. After a suitable period of time we will get another dog,
but likely not until we are settled up north.
That’s about it for
us, again we hope your year was a good one, and if it wasn’t, well, at least
it’s almost over now- so hang in there! (FYI- We will send out our new address
after we get a PO Box next year.)
All
the best,
Chris
Rita Anne Emily
