MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Hello dear friends and family!
We love thinking about all of you at this special time of year. Here’s an update on our year's events.
2010 brought new and exciting adventures for the Whitings! At the top of the list is our advancement into a new phase of life with the birth of our first grandchild in September!
Bryan is in his 17th month of loving his mission in Honduras. He shares extraordinary and miraculous experiences in his emails every week. I can’t imagine a young man more full of light and love. Don’t we love missions!
Dave is in his junior year working toward a degree in finance at BYU. He survived Houston heat doing a summer research internship at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He’ll complete his pre-dental requirements and will take the DAT in the spring with the goal of eventually attending dental school.
Dan is loving his new job in the international marketing department of Baxa, a firm in Denver that develops and markets medical technology. After missing a significant part of the last two snowboarding seasons due to wrist injuries, he’s looking forward to this Colorado winter. And he’s quite a Nuggets/Rockies/Broncos fan and loves attending their games in the arenas just down the street from his downtown Denver apartment.
Cara will graduate in May with a master’s degree in applied History from George Mason University in Virginia. She does archival work part time in Wash. D.C. and will be doing a winter internship at the Smithsonian in the archives of the American History Museum. We especially enjoyed a trip to see Cara in the spring where we all rowed in the Potomac and biked in the spectacular hills of Shenandoah Nat’l Park, on the Mount Vernon trail, and on a Nat’l Parks Service bike tour of DC. After trying it out with us, Cara got hooked, bought a new bike, and organized a 50-miler with friends through the fall leaves in Vermont.
Mike and Kathryn are thrilled with their new son Quinn, born Sept 16. The pictures show how the little guy has grown just from Sept. to Dec.! He’s definitely a city baby as his parents are now in their sixth year in Manhattan. They live in a one-bedroom apartment on East 80th (on the top floor with a spectacular city view!), where they’ve walled off a corner of their living room for a just-right nursery. Mike works in Global Transaction Services at Citigroup, and Kathryn is a resourceful stay-at-home mom and avid photographer. We’re the luckiest grandparents--with Kathryn’s passion for photography and blogging, Quinn just might be the most well-documented baby on the planet.
Jeanne is excited to be a grandma! There’s no feeling to match holding that beautiful newborn in the hospital. How close it brings you to when you had your own babies – where did the decades go? We celebrated Jeanne’s mother’s 90th birthday and Quinn’s birth in the same month. Jeanne is loving her new calling as Laurels advisor in Young Women, and is having fun getting the ward choir program ready for Christmas again. Her foundation is still going strong in its sixth year of supporting desmoid tumor research. Her year started with months of recovery from her surgery last Nov., but she has enjoyed rowing and biking her way back to health. She feels these hobbies have practically saved her life, and have definitely given new life to life. We took some road trips to combine rowing and biking, like in Newport, RI, Florida and Philadelphia. In St. Catherine’s Canada Jeanne got to row in the World’s Masters rowing competition and we biked along Niagara Falls, in Palmyra, along the Eerie Canal and even to the top of Hill Cumorah. Fun times for empty nesters!
Steve is still a consultant with KPMG and in the Bishopric. He’s most excited that the 1998 gold minivan finally died this year and he doesn’t have to drive it to the train station any more! On the weekends, he enjoys simple pleasures like driving his lawn tractor (it takes him back to the farming days of his youth) and working in the yard. He’s a pretty serious road biker now and loves doing 20-30 miles around New Canaan and down by the Sound. It’s a great stress-buster. We even braved a weekend biking in NYC and across the Brooklyn Bridge! It gives you a whole new perspective on the big city. Steve also enjoyed riding mules in Bryce Canyon, and taking that terrifying hike to the top of Angel’s Landing in Zion’s Nat’l Park with the kids this summer. He hangs in there and can still keep up with the best of them.
We feel so blessed this year, so grateful for each day of life. And grateful to have friends and family like you! How joyful is the true meaning of the season – love, and hope through the Savior!
We’d love it if you’d click “comments” below and let us hear from you!
Warm Wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our home to yours!
Love,
Jeanne & Steve
