Hi ’06s.
Wishing you all a happy new year and hoping you had a wonderful holiday with family.
While back on the East Coast for the holidays, I visited Jesse Mynahan. He and his wife, Devika Bakhski ’05, live in Jersey City, New Jersey, and we spent the day with their 1.5-year-old daughter, Avni.
I also caught up with Ryan Fuselier, who recently moved with his family to their own home in Stamford, Connecticut. Ryan, his wife, Lara, and their pup Lolo are enjoying New England.
From the West Coast and the hills above Palo Alto, California, Kenyon Blomquist became the first person to swim around all 42 of California’s ocean-facing piers. This includes swimming to Rincon Island in Ventura. He accomplished this feat wearing only trunks, swim goggles, and a swim cap in water temperatures down to 48 degrees Fahrenheit. For 30 successive days, Kenyon swam up to 40 miles a day, traveling more than 1,200 miles. As of the column date, he was facing up to 35-foot waves at Mavericks, near San Francisco. If he survives, he looks forward to growing his new company: Tsunami.
Lei (“Tony”) Hao and Ben Schwartz had an impromptu mini-reunion in Shanghai, China, in November. The two have known each other since freshman year at Dartmouth, both having lived on first-floor Bissell in the Choates. They caught up on the preceding 10 years and enjoyed a great conversation about education in China.
Manya Whitaker is an education professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and recently coedited the book Counternarratives from Women of Color Academics. The book, which shares the journeys of 26 women of color working in academia, is part of the Routledge Research in Higher Education series and is available on Amazon.
On to baby news: Sara Friesen and her husband, Stephen Press (NYU ’03), welcomed their first child, Stephen Robert Press Jr., on October 17. They are officially suburbanites, having moved from New York City to Ridgewood, New Jersey, in early 2018. They would love to catch up with any fellow ’06s living in the area.
Tom Monahan and Carrie Rooke Monahan welcomed a baby girl, Catherine McKee Monahan, to their family on October 16. Catherine joins her big sister, Jammy Rooke Monahan (a French bulldog). All are well and happy together in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Josh Gregg and his wife, Merrill, had a baby girl, Abigail Laura Ella Gregg, on November 16. Mom and daughter are happy and healthy.
Karen (Kramer) Mizell and husband Tripp welcomed daughter Ruby Claire in November. They’re enjoying life in northern California, where Karen is the director of e-commerce for E&J Gallo Winery.
Jessica (Saraceno) Carroll changed law firms and is now counsel at O’Toole Scrivo Fernandez Weiner Van Lieu LLC in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. She welcome Mason Liam into her family on April 27 with husband Brendan and son Parker. Parker is now 2.5 years old and the boys are 22 months apart. The family closed on a house and moved to Mendham, New Jersey, in January.
It was great to hear from everyone for this column and to catch up over the holidays. Stay tuned for class events and other updates in 2019. You can follow us on social media on Instagram (@dartmouth06) and join our Facebook group (“Dartmouth Class of 2006”). As always, the Class Notes and photos can be viewed on our class website at 2006.dartmouth.org/classnotes.
—Cindy Tsai, Synchrony Financial, 222 W Adams St., 27th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606; cindaaay@gmail.com