Dear Friends and Family, December
2012
I’d like to start off by thanking all my loyal fans. Year after year you guys convince me to keep
at this. I just want to let you know
that you are the reason for our great year.
We succeed in life for the sole purpose of you putting this on your
refrigerator and chuckling every time you go to pull out that leftover turkey. May your leftovers never run dry.
This year Dad had the most fun summer of his life. He had been so bored without his beloved sons
that he practically begged Steven and me to come home, so we did. We got to go camping up in Tennessee and we
strolled about fifty miles. We just
can’t call Dad’s pace hiking any more. Someone
is getting stiffer. This summer I also
started asking Dad each night at dinner how his day at work had gone because I
thought it was one of those questions you ask to make people think you’re
interested, and I learned that when I was tired of listening to his answer all
I had to do was make the slightest political comment to change the
subject. It is so easy to get him wound
up. Good thing I wasn’t around in
November. He also remodeled his favorite
room in the house: the pantry. Now that
the food is back on the shelves, he’s forbidden from entering.
Mom’s new hobbies this year have been teaching seminary and extreme road
tripping. Both activities started the
same week. We all know how adventurous
she is, so there’s no surprise she chose to get a substitute teacher for the
first week of seminary. Our road trip
team of three drove from West Palm Beach, Florida to Riverton, Utah in forty
hours non-stop. She returned to a house
void of children to keep satiated so she stopped baking sweets. There’s a reason Dad really enjoyed summer.
Weston’s wife Megan had a new baby in October. Sam is his name. Once he can talk, he’ll introduce himself as
“Sam I Am.” They also moved into a house this summer and learned that
everything breaks once you buy a house. But
aside from all their broken stuff, Megan has fun playing with kids all day and
Weston keeps busy fiddling with doohickeys all day in his cubicle. Surprisingly enough they lead a fulfilling
life. Two-year-old Wyatt’s main
contribution to the family is in the marriage prep category. This year for some reason Steven and I were
babysitting that lil’ guy and he exploded.
So because I was the alpha male and Steven is strangely humble, docile,
and obedient, he changed the diaper while I searched everywhere for something
to get rid of the smell. I searched in
vain.
Dave’s been working on his resume all year. He decided that real construction was too
tedious so he earned an honorary doctorate in sand castling. He can do that since he lives in Hawaii. Evelyn grew her teeth in and started walking
and stopped looking like the girl version of Megamind and now she looks like
the girl version of the kid from Harold’s Purple Crayon. I doubt anyone besides myself ever read that
masterpiece, but you’d be surprised by the similarities between Evelyn and both
of these flattering comparisons.
Elizabeth is still doing great at whatever she does. She has somehow developed an uncanny ability
to get complete strangers to criticize her parenting skills, especially in
Costco, but regardless of that, we think she’s doing a great job.
Cody, who is married to Brad, gave birth this year to Brooke. But March was so long ago I forgot to include
it in the original draft. Now that Brooke
can actually do stuff she is simply adorable.
All she needs to be happy is a couple of anchored and mildly elastic
strings. She will grab them and eat them
all day, and by that I mean until she gets hungry again. Brad’s enjoying his last semester of college
and finishing out his long time college goal, which ironically doesn’t have
anything to do with grades or graduating or resume building. His goal was to take a college class with every
one of his siblings, and he succeeded. They’re
moving to Boise so he can do an internship before starting grad school next
fall.
I had an awesome year. I got my
dream job this summer working for this little establishment a couple miles away
from home called McDonald’s. The ethnic
diversity was awesome. I learned that to
a middle aged Haitian woman if you are a female or a male younger than her that
makes you a “cheri” which means “sweet heart.”
For the longest time I thought everyone’s name, including my own, was
Sheri. Once summer was over, I got my other dream job. I’m a professional poster-putter-upper for
the marketing department in BYU’s school of music. The job satisfaction is incredible. It just tickles my heart strings when I see
people looking at posters that I put up. Another highlight is that I went on two
second dates this year. That’s all the
average girl can handle of this personality.
But here’s the part that perplexes me: both of these girls wanted to be
English teachers. I never once in my
life had an English teacher that I liked.
How can I be attracted to the bane of my existence? So I started wondering at what point the
beautiful young woman becomes the teacher who makes kids read chapter books
during the summer. No English majors
more for I. So my list of deal breakers
are: English major, outie belly button, avid animal lover, Canadian, or taller
than me. #RMandsingle
#ifyoudontunderstandthisyouneedmoretwitterandfacebook
In August, Steven left on his mission and he’s currently working on the
only attribute he hasn’t mastered yet: his sense of humor; he’s come up with
some good stuff so far but I don’t think he knows he’s being funny; here’re
some favorite quotes from his letters: “New York was kind of boring. Overall, it was nothing special.” Does he know that there are people on this
earth whose lifelong dream is going to that city? I don’t even think he took pictures; if you
feel the urge to write him a letter I’m sure he’d greatly appreciate it, just
don’t ask him to compare and contrast the differences in culture between the
United States and Africa; he gave us his answer already: “To me, comparing
extremes like that is fruitless.” I’m
sure Africans have asked the same question and my heart goes out to him because
I don’t know if he knows how to say that in Portuguese; something else I’ve
noticed about him is he uses more semicolons in one letter than I’ve used in my
whole life; including the ones I accidentally pressed and deleted; (for those of
you who are not English majors: semicolons are winkey eyes ;) either Angolan
keyboards are lacking in punctuation keys or he’s trying to set a church record
of some type; and it’s probably the first because Steven doesn’t expend energy
on fruitless enterprises.
So right as I was about to submit the final product Michelle came in whining
and begging for a better paragraph, not unlike how she acted before I carried
her across a river this summer on my back.
She might be the only normal one and that’s why her news seems boring. I am scraping a clean barrel. Michelle graduated from high school second in
her class this year and took a bazillion AP classes. She’s so smart she graduated before the
salutatorian, which doesn’t make any sense if you know what that word means. Michelle has had a lot of fun at BYU. She got into the pre-industrial design
program, which is a fancy and misleading way to describe the major of
arts-and-craftsing. She also created an
instant bond with the grass. There are
signs everywhere that say “please don’t walk on me, I’m trying to grow.” I’m trying to make them into t-shirts.
Well thanks for laughing. I hope it
met your expectations.
Love, Jeff Whitaker
P.S. There are still three openings
in the family if you know anyone interested in being made fun of on a yearly
basis. It’s tough work so we’re only
able to focus on one of the openings for the time being. We appreciate your patience and support and
applications on behalf of cute girls you may know. Let’s work together this year and beat last
year’s referral record of zero.
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