2012

Hello and MERRY CHRISTMAS 2012!

Dave and Kylie's wedding in New York and reception at Waveny House in New Canaan, June 2012

Dan, Mike, Dave, Cara and Bryan

Pictures in Central Park, New York City

 Dave's graduation; White coat ceremony for induction into dental school

 Mike & Kathryn with West and Quinn in Houston

West Philip Whiting, born September 20, 2012

West and Quinn

West's blessing day in Houston

Cara in D.C. and beyond

Dan takes on the mountains

Bryan at BYU and working the summer in New York

Grandma Whiting's 90th birthday with 71 descendants, in Mapleton, Utah

Conducting the "Grow Tabernacle Choir"

Biking on Cape Cod and Nantucket

"Mormon Helping Hands" in The Rockaways, Queens, Thanksgiving weekend

Dear friends and family,

Each year seems to go faster than the one before. But this particular year was so packed with historic family, national and local events, including natural disasters and tragedies, that it felt like a nonstop whirlwind.  If you'd like to catch up with us, here’s the Whiting family news for 2012.   
We have loved getting your cards and always look forward to hearing from you!   

Warm Wishes for a Merry Christmas and 

Happy New Year from our home to yours!

Mike & Kathryn and Quinn & West are our Texans. West’s arrival in September was a wonderful event, and marks the first of the Whiting family born in the Lone Star State. Mike and Kathryn are in that busiest time of life with two little ones who always have something to say or do to delight parents and grandparents alike.

Cara  continues to find fun things to do and fun places to go, and it only took 4 years of living in the DC area for her to get a tour of the Capitol dome. She is one of the lucky ones who actually gets to use her history degree professionally and has started her own business doing research and archival work. She had the opportunity to do research in Utah for six weeks this summer, which conveniently coincided with Dave’s wedding, the largest Grow family reunion ever, and Grandma Whiting’s 90^th birthday celebration. She biked her first "century" this spring and helped organize the third annual 50-mile “Robinhood Ride” through New England's autumn leaves, which attracted 30 riders from up and down the East coast (including Steve).

Dan’s job continues to evolve following a merger with a larger medical equipment company, Baxter.  Baxter is replacing much of its installed equipment with machines built by Dan’s company, so there is a big effort to install and train people across the world on the new equipment.  Dan is in the middle of this, giving training and helping users get acclimated to the new systems. When he isn’t working, he is hiking, biking or snowboarding. Denver is a great place for him, but we’re glad he still enjoys a visit home from time to time. 

Dave & Kylie  Dave had a very eventful year, graduating from BYU and from singlehood, along with getting accepted to Columbia dental school. The wedding was in New York City with a reception in New Canaan, followed by a reception in Utah. Kylie is wonderful and it is great to have them living in the area.  Dave has jumped into dental school with both feet and they found a great apartment just a couple blocks from the main campus and a short subway ride to the medical campus.  Kylie got a job in advertising with Translation (started by JayZ) where she works on social media outreach for the State Farm account, and she also has her own photography and graphic design business.

Bryan, a senior at BYU majoring in statistics,  is working as a research assistant doing statistical research in biology and chemistry and is thinking seriously about going for a Masters degree in statistics.  2012 winter semester was the last that Bryan and Dave would be together as students and they enjoyed being on a basketball team together as well as playing softball together.  Bryan had fun this summer living in New York City and interning at Deloitte.  He spends his free time learning piano and guitar.

Steve & Jeanne are thrilled to be grandparents for the second time with the birth of West in September!  We had fun taking sailing lessons this summer in the Long Island Sound and exploring Cape Cod and Nantucket on bikes.  Jeanne broke her ankle just after Dave’s wedding which put a little damper on our rowing this summer. But she got to live a lifetime dream of conducting in the Salt Lake Tabernacle as she gathered a 220 voice choir for the historic reunion of over 3,000 descendants of her great-great grandfather, Henry Grow-- the Mormon pioneer who designed the Tabernacle.

Grandma Whiting celebrated her 90^th birthday in Mapleton, UT with all but two of her 71 descendants.  What a remarkable reunion it was!  And Grandma Grow celebrated birthday number 92. (Now you can see why Steve thinks he might have to work a while longer.)

Steve was released this summer from the bishopric, after over five years, and was called to the High Council. Adding up all the bishoprics he has served in, we realized it has been ten years since we have had breakfast together on a Sunday morning. Jeanne still works in the Young Women, and conducted Messiah with full orchestra and chorus last week. If you want to catch the real spirit of Christmas, try immersing yourself in that music!

Jeanne’s Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation got a new website, www.dtrf.org, along with some national media attention as fundraising received support of celebrities Meredith Vieira, Dr Oz and Rosie O'Donnell.  The next goal is a big collaborative project combining the best scientists in the field to accelerate the speed and effectiveness of research.  The dream that “two women planned at the kitchen table” is palpably moving toward a discovery of a cure.

We survived Superstorm Sandy that devastated much of the East Coast.  We got off lucky just losing power for 7 days.  Our Stake joined thousands of Mormon Helping Hands bussed in from all along the East Coast to go help “muck out” houses four consecutive weekends in The Rockaways, Queens.  People there got a devastating 6 feet of water in their homes and needed help emptying houses of possessions and tearing out sheetrock and floors.  Working with our children joining a positive force of thousands of others wearing those iconic yellow vests was the most memorable and meaningful Thanksgiving weekend activity ever. 

Our stake was overwhelmed with sadness this past week when a child of members of the Newtown ward was lost in the elementary school shooting that occurred only 35 miles from us in Newtown.  We were so moved by that family's expressions of faith and forgiveness, and we take that ultimate message of hope for "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men" into our hearts as we approach this Christmas.

This year has left us very grateful for our blessings, and for the purpose we feel in life’s journey. Every year counts as a great blessing!  Thanks to all of you for being part of our journey. 

Love,

Steve & Jeanne

jgwhiting@gmail.com

swhiting@yahoo.com

176 Gerdes Road, New Canaan CT 06840

2011

Greetings!

Thanksgiving in Houston

Cara gets her Master's degree 


Ferry to Shelter Island 


 Bryan returns from Honduras   

                      What would you give to have a picture 

with both of your Great-grandmothers?!! (ages 1, 89 and 91)

Dave and Kylie



"Running for Answers" 5K in PhillyRaising Funds for Desmoid Tumor Research  

Dan in Colorado: Great Dunes National Park, 

Garden of the Gods, Crested Butte bike park

 

 

Mike & Kathryn with Quinn

Hello and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Dear friends and family,

We send greetings and love to you this Christmas.  We’d love it if you'd leave a comment below.

Where did 2011 go?  It certainly came into Connecticut like a lion, and then just continued to roar with once-every-century-type events:  
the snowiest, iciest winter on record (we could not extract the Christmas lights from the ice in the front bushes until March);  a summer earthquake felt in NYC (and in our bedroom at home), followed a week week later by Hurricane Irene that took our power out for six days;  and, a Noreaster in October that dropped 8” of snow and another extended power outage.

We've watched the year's events in the Middle East with great interest as we were living in Cairo when Sadat was assassinated and Mubarak first took power thirty years ago. 

Amid these and other chaotic events in the world this year, here’s an update on what else was going on with the Whitings:

Bryan returned in August from his mission to Honduras.  He is loving being back at BYU where he’s pursuing a major in statistics.  We will miss writing a missionary after all of these years but love seeing our kids launched so well into life.

Dave’s big news is that he is engaged to be married in June to Kylie Nixon from North Ogden, Utah. If that isn’t enough big news, he has also been accepted to the University of Connecticut dental school for next fall, and is on the wait list at Columbia.   Either way, it looks like we’re going to be lucky enough to have them close by for a few years! We love Kylie and are so happy that they found each other.

Dan continues to enjoy his job in the international marketing department of Baxa, a firm in Denver that develops and markets medical technology.  They were recently taken over by Baxter, and Dan has happily survived the merger.  Dan thrives on the healthy Colorado lifestyle and loves the hiking, snowboarding and mountain biking available all around. 

Cara donned a Master’s hood in May as she completed her master’s degree in Applied History from George Mason University in Virginia. After completing an internship at the Smithsonian, she has continued her archival work in DC.   To celebrate her graduation, she did a spring trip to Norway and Denmark with friends. Once again, we've enjoyed biking with her in her historic area: to Mount Vernon and through some civil war battlefields, and  in the New Hampshire White Mountains this fall for part of a 60-miler she had put together with friends. 

Mike & Kathryn and Quinn hosted us all for Thanksgiving in their new home outside of Houston in The Woodlands, Texas.  They moved there in August with Mike’s new job in treasury management with JP Morgan Chase.  Kathryn is a busy, creative stay-at-home mom keeping up with Quinn who is now 15 months and toddling at the speed of light.  Quinn was a big hit with all the family and we loved the time we all had together in sunny Houston. 

Jeanne & Steve continued to explore on bike the sites that we’ve been so close to for years but have never seen, like Shelter Island on Long Island and Block Island in R.I. And then there’s always a lovely seashore to explore within minutes of our house in many directions.  Of all the places we’ve thought about for retirement, we just can’t imagine anywhere we’d rather live more than here.  But Steve figures he has several years left so we’re procrastinating that decision. The credit crisis continues to keep him well employed.  He’s still in the bishopric, and Jeanne is working with the Beehives in Young Women.  We saw our New Canaan ward divided for the first time in the 17 years we’ve lived here.  There has been lots of change, but the important things stay the same.  And you all are so important to us.

We send warmest wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

Jeanne & Steve

jgwhiting@gmail.com

swhiting@yahoo.com

176 Gerdes Road, New Canaan CT 06840

2010

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 17^th 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 80^th (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 90^th 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

jgwhiting@gmail.com

swhiting@yahoo.com

2009

MERRY CHRISTMAS from the WHITINGS!

2009 marked the first time in two years that the entire Whiting clan could be together. In June, Dave returned from his mission in Argentina, just six weeks before Bryan left for his mission to Honduras. The short overlap was great for the two boys, their siblings and, of course, their parents. It will be a joy to have everyone (except Bryan) home for Christmas this year.

Shortly after Bryan received his mission call, there was a coup in Honduras. Fortunately, the resulting instability has not seemed to disrupt Bryan’s missionary work. He is having a great time in some rather simple conditions (no running water in his apartment), and it is extremely rewarding to see life through his eyes in his letters each week.

Dave spent the summer doing medical internships with Americares clinic as a patient-physician translator, and following with the local hospital ICU and surgical teams. He has jumped back into BYU with both feet, working on completing requirements for both Accounting and Premed. He has gone from being on a mission to having a mission.

Dan graduated in Economics from the Univ of Colorado in May. The commencement speaker pointed out the positive side of graduating into the current economic situation: the graduates had not seen their investments fall in value (they have none), they will never be poorer than they are right now (they’re students!), and no one can take from them their most valuable asset—their education. Dan has moved to Denver and has a job with a mutual fund company. As always, he is very resourceful.

Cara retired from full time work and enrolled in a graduate History program at George Mason University in Virginia. She works part time in DC, lives in Arlington, and is having great fun in school. We're glad she discovered the DC-New York Bolt Bus (get round-trip tickets for $5 if you buy early enough!). She has made a number of trips to Connecticut, and we have enjoyed visiting her and reminiscing about when we used to live there as a young couple with one child.

Mike and Kathryn are still enthusiastic city dwellers in Manhattan. Mike is enjoying his work with Citigroup, and Kathryn has been having a lot of fun exploring her passion for photography. They are also both enjoying teaching for an early-morning seminary class.

Jeanne recently had surgery to remove her right kidney and is now in recovery mode. It's a long story, but she'll be fine with her one healthy kidney. Her short-term goal is to have the strength to conduct the ward choir Christmas program this Sunday. Then, after doctor's clearance, there will be the motivating goal of getting back in shape to row in the spring! She is enjoying her work as a counselor in the Relief Society presidency.

Steve is still a consultant with KPMG and in the Bishopric. He has found a good stress reliever in his new favorite exercise of rowing nine kilometers every morning on the rowing machine. We are grateful that the worst recession of a generation did not become the worst depression of all time. The improvement since early spring has made things much better for Steve at work.

We've enjoyed simplifying our lives as empty-nesters and appreciating the basics: opportunities to serve, dinner and good conversation together every night, a fun hobby to share, watching our family members progress in their lives, and seeking more spiritual light every day. Life is good!

Warm Wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our home to yours!

Love,

Jeanne & Steve

176 Gerdes Rd

New Canaan. CT 06840

jgwhiting@gmail.com

swhiting@yahoo.com