index

Merry Christmas from the Neergaard & van der Werff Families

Lois	Lois and I remain reasonably sound – who cares about a few scratches and dents. Again this year we escape from Ohio’s winter by retreating to Hilton Head for four months, less four weeks in December in Cincinnati for an at-home family Christmas. [Ooops – Hilton Head: shortly after the foregoing was written last week, Lois passed out on the tennis court. Perforated appendix. Yesterday, nine days later, she was discharged from the hospital, and while still weak and tired [who gets to sleep in a hospital?] is slowly recovering. First time since she was a teenager that she’s had to be hospitalized – except of course for having four children. So we’ll remain in sunny Hilton Head and have our Family Christmas there this year]. On a lighter note, I've developed a robust enthusiasm for the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday matinées, streamed live (!) in HD video from the Met to selected movie theaters around the world (there's also an “encore” Wednesday evenings a few weeks later). They truly are the “Best Shows on Earth!” - I won’t hesitate to say thrilling.	Dick
In September we drove to St. Louis for the seventh of the informal biennial reunions of my fraternity's (ΘΔΧ) classes of the ’50’s. These gatherings do provide a most pleasant reaffirmation that we really were the way we were. Now, here are the reports from the actually interesting members of the family:

SUE and JAN WILLEM and Willem and Nick (per Jan Willem):
Sue	Jan Willem	The year went by very fast for us; it feels as if we just wrote last year’s Christmas update a few weeks ago. Willem and Nick have become really serious now. We’re delighted that after many years they’ve come to understand and appreciate the value of hard work.	Willem	Nick
Next year they'll get to apply it at school. In the meantime they rely on sheer genius and a bit of occasional effort (which seems to work, as they have progressed to grades 9 and 8). The boys had exciting school trips: Nick went to the island of Texel and Willem went to the island of Ireland. Somehow Nick thought that was unfair. In the meantime their enthusiastic sailing has continued, and while not yet as afield as the aforementioned islands, they do enjoy it. They like especially the Fall sailing camp, when the wind howls and the water is cold. We guess that’s to be expected when you crossbreed Vikings with the Dutch. Sue and I have been busy turning Global Blade Technology from a one-year-old start-up into a two-year-old start-up, growing from 20 people to 80 people. I’m getting the orders; Sue’s getting the people. And as the numbers get bigger and everyone involved feels more important, one of our goals is to keep that spirit of start-up. The subject of renewable energy provides much inspiration: we’re constantly inventing new stuff and bringing it to market, so that soon we’ll be able to recast what we’re seeing now, in an historic perspective: that the Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stones.

ARTHUR:
Arthur	I continue on at P&G, keeping up the stock price, and singing in my Irish Glee Club. As I reported last year, I acquired a rescue puppy, Pumpkin. As can be expected with any puppy, she has become the center of attention for everyone. We come over to Grandma’s regularly for Sunday dinner, bringing her along so she can play ‘Woof-Woof’ - running around in the yard with Grandpa. This is a great solution, because it allows Grandpa to have a dog without Grandma finding out he has a dog, and the dog and Grandma have become best friends, mostly because Grandma gives excellent scratches under the chin. There was one unfortunate incident where ‘someone’ chewed on Grandma’s gardening shoes, but since we couldn't tell if it was Grandpa or the dog, it has been forgotten. Evening walks down Poage Farm Road have renewed acquaintances with many neighbors, who also walk their dogs in the evening. We don’t know some of the neighbors’ names, but we do know the names of all their dogs ….	Pumpkin
Thanksgiving brought a brief visit with Grandma and Grandpa down in the warmer climes of Hilton Head, for a delightful weekend filled with (you guessed it) dog romps on the beach. [Editor: In the process of refining and commercializing his gun-sight invention, Arthur has developed a unique expertise in the optics of aiming rifles, and has published new insights that have achieved wide respect in the world of target-shooting.]

RICHARD and ISHRAQ and Samer and Lila:
Richard	Ishraq	FROM RICHARD: It was our first full year in Germany as a family and everyone is settling in quite well. Although the kids are both teen-agers now, they have both thankfully remained fully human. Samer played on the JV Volleyball Team, continued learning guitar, making videos on the computer, and occasionally being a DJ at parties.	Samer	Lila
Lila played on the Middle School Soccer Team, and continues to amaze on the piano. We had many nice trips to El Gouna in Egypt, starting with New Year's Eve 2011 and will end with the same for 2012 including the usual swimming, boating, windsurfing, Harley riding, even Segway tours…. and lots of partying with friends in the sun. This was despite starting the year with the Egyptian revolution and Ishraq glued to the TV and to Facebook for weeks, constantly calling friends and relatives to keep up with the fast-breaking and sometimes very worrying news. She even arranged to host friends who were fleeing the violence in Cairo, but thankfully that need never materialized. We enjoyed a business turn-around at work [editor: Richard is General Manger of Reckitt-Benckiser’s German subsidiary], from Germany being one of the worst-performing countries in Europe in 2010 to one of the best in 2011. The entertainment value of the business was increased with the acquisition and integration of Durex, a business oriented toward "physical products", of sexual well-being and Scholl foot-care; rather a change of pace from washing dishes and laundry. The number of requests for samples from friends has skyrocketed.
FROM ISHRAQ: I’m still fascinated by my History of Art classes, and the museum visits which I love making. And a tour of Brazil was fascinating. I’m enjoying the daily challenges of raising my two lovely teenagers. It’s so nice to see Samer and Lila grow stronger day by day. We do miss having Richard at home every day [editor: during the week Richard stays in Mannheim where the company has its headquarters; the family’s home is in the Taunus mountains, near Frankfurt and the International School]. We’re building a life slowly in peaceful and beautiful Germany, but my thoughts constantly go to Egypt and the daily political and social developments there. The young Egyptian revolution brought most Egyptians together and reconnected me with my family and friends. My only hope is for the dignity of the women and men there. We’re looking forward for the next year’s challenges. In the meantime – I want to wish you all: Merry Christmas!

PETER and CATHY and Steven and Alex (per Peter):
Peter	Cathy		Steven and Alex
Biggest news is that we decided to put our house on the market after living in it for only two years. We decided we wanted to build... foolish as that may be. We’d come to the conclusion that we would be better served by creating exactly what we wanted. The markets have been a little slow (!) this summer, sowe have not yet had success in selling the house, but are made hopeful by recent activity. Alex, now three, grows like a weed and is just the sweetest little boy. His favorite activities include swimming (it is near impossible to get him out of the pool) and wrestling with his big brother. He is ALL boy (without contradicting the earlier "sweetest little boy") and does not know the meaning of fear…. a little scary at times for Mom and Dad. Soon we expect he'll be making videos for us that start with "Watch this!...". Big Brother Steven is now 11 and will be testing for his black belt early next year. He continues to do very well in school and has even represented his district in a couple of academic competitions. Perhaps the highlight of his year was going on his "10-year-old trip" (thanks to Grandma and Grandpa!) wherein he got to visit Europe for a couple of weeks. He simply loved it! As for Cathy and me, we are still with IBM and still working way too much. Cathy continues to put extreme effort into her new(ish) job, which has her planning and running client-based conferences for IBM. Although she is involved with a number of smaller events in the US and Europe, her flagship responsibility is administration of a get-together of nearly 10,000 folks in Las Vegas. As for me, I still work with one of IBM’s education groups, writing the books for, and presenting, IBM’s technical courses for our flagship WebSphere product.

With our most cordial wish that you’ll have a joyous Christmas and prosperous New Year

Dick and Lois Neergaard