Merry Christmas to All!

Merry Christmas (eve) Everyone!! We're in Michigan this year for the season, and surprised there really isn't that much snow! I've heard we should get some tonight though... the same stuff we went through in Utah on Tuesday, amazing. Seth & I hope you are all healthy, warm, and truly happy this Christmas. Here is our Christmas Letter:

Merry Christmas! 2009 has come to an end and it is the wonderful Christmas

season again. We are healthy, happy, and grateful for a wonderful year. Lots of

new things happened, just to fill you in …

Perhaps the most exciting highlights of 2009 for our family are the additions. In February we welcomed “Raja”, the ninja cat. She is the sweetest, feisty, absolute coolest cat one could ever desire. She’s a part of the family and she knows it. Third time IS a charm – On Christmas day Megan will be 30wks along with Baby Girl Burke. A name will be hopefully decided once we see her around March 4, 2010! After the first few pregnancy adventures, we’re very grateful to be blessed with this active and healthy girl.

We moved twice! We left BYU Housing in June for a basement apartment in Orem. We were there for about 6 months before needing to move again due to zoning laws. We are still settling into our new home of just a few days in an Orem condo. With this condo’s heated floors, baby friendly layout, and jetted tub we’re thinking it wasn’t that bad to leave our “perfect” set up with a garage, fireplace, and amazing covered side porch.

We escaped Utah to go to Iowa two times this summer for family events including a sibling High School graduation, nephew baby blessing, and a Nauvoo cousin wedding. Those vacations are always welcome to break up the routine of everyday life. Megan doesn’t even mind the drive! Can’t say the same for Seth though. (Seth says that’s because the past four times she hasn’t driven any of the 18 hr trip).

We celebrated our last childless wedding anniversary in November. We took a weekend getaway… getaway from Raja? … to Park City. We also saw The Trans Siberian Orchestra in concert. It’s difficult to put the first three years of our marriage into words that explain how awesome, amazing, and wonderful it’s been. But I guess you could say we’ve become the best of friends and much more.

Megan was offered a new job at a medical billing office in July. It seemed to be a risky switch from her stable job at wonderful BYU, but turned out to be the best decision. She absolutely loves her new job and responsibilities. She enjoys filling up her extra time with reading, trying out new craft skills, and preparing for the baby.

Seth graduated with his Bachelors of Science degree in Psychology, from BYU this month!! With just a few weeks break, he’ll start school back up the end of January at University of Phoenix to get a masters degree in “Mental Health Counseling”. Because his employment from the last 3 ½ years is a BYU student job, he has been laid off. We’re looking hard to find him a new job, but as many of us have been affected, the job market is just not a progressing one at the moment. We feel confident it will all work out though.

Our lives have been abundantly blessed this 2009! Our faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ has increased and we’ve felt the great love of our Father in Heaven individually and as a couple throughout our wonderful and difficult moments. Merry Christmas! We hope you’re all well and happy!

Much Love,

Seth & Megan Burke

from 30,000 feet in the air...

Everynight this last week I've told myself I need to blog before we get to Michigan... because if I don't there won't be a post before the new year begins....

Well, we're currently flying over Iowa (I'm sure?) to go to Seth's home - Michigan for Christmas. We got a free wireless pass from a nice lady when we boarded!! Baby girl has thoroughly been enjoying the flight, she makes me laugh.

It took two hours of waiting on the plane before we got up in the air.... blasted cater truck driver rammed the side of the plane and scratched it so they had to do some maintenance checks and paperwork before we could even get in line for the de-icer. Then we had to wait in line for the runway - since they shut down all but one, took a bit. We'll be in Michigan soon enough though...

While we were waiting for take off and about 45 min into this flight we read a whole book together! The Christmas Box, by Richard Paul Evans. I bought it back in October, waiting to read it all Christmas season. I knew it would be one that I wouldn't be able to put down, so I've waited weeks and weeks to begin reading it. I recommend it! Or let me know if you'd like to borrow it... I love his books. The end did make me cry... okay sob actually. I'm sure the dozens of strangers around me couldn't hear b/c of the air vents blowing, and ears still 'foggy' from the altitude. . . I hope they couldn't hear me at least. oh well. Good book.

Um - lots has happened since I have blogged last though... You know... We moved, I've hit the 3rd trimester, had another ultrasound to check the babies heart that was of concern from the 20 wk u/s, Seth graduated from College ... big stuff like that. All in the last week and a half! I've really wanted to blog about it all b/c they're significant things. I sure hope I'll get around to posting pictures and details about those big things soon!! But until then... Merry Christmas!

"Salt Lake City Weekend" & The Blind Side

The days go so fast in December! Especially this one...

Friday night we went on a double date with old friend Ashley and her boy Ian. They introduced us to a new eating joint, "Moochies". Incredible philly cheese steaks, incredible. The place is kind of a dump, but the story is the family who owns it used the building as an art studio with a sandwich joint in the back. But when the sandwich joint became most popular they made the studio into a little restaurant. I've craved Moochies for dinner every night since... we must go back soon. Then we went to Savior of The World. It was good... honestly not as amazing as I remember it being... but it warmed my heart and brought in the Christmas spirit/ me closer to Christ so it was well worth it. We had amazing seats too, which was sweet. We grabbed dessert afterward at another local SLC joint, the Big H?? Not sure the official name of the place, but it was a very fun evening with great company, food, and entertainment.

Saturday I slept in until 11:00!!! It was just awesome. I wish I could do that everyday, really. Seth made me waffles for breakfast and we did a little bit of packing. Got Christmas shopping almost done and I wrapped presents all special to put under the Christmas tree. We visited Aub/Dav/P-dawg for a while... I got to play with Preston while Seth fixed their printer, or at least tried to fix it. Preston is a baldy full of smiles, FULL of smiles. It will be fun to have the little one around at Christmas time in Michigan this year. We were suppose to go to our ward Christmas dinner, but missed it. We headed up to dear friend Heidi Kuhn Wideman's wedding reception. Which was kind of out in the middle of no where, plus fresh snow... it was an adventure. I'm so glad Seth is awesome when it comes to driving. He's a little on the speedy/aggressive side, which I don't like, but grateful he is good at it?

Sunday was a great Sabbath day. We went to Salt Lake yet again, this time for the Christmas Devotional at the Conference center. We had pretty good seats... we went with the Cho brother's and their girls. I loved the devotional. It was so awesome to be there with the first presidency and hear their stories. The center was decorated very beautifully and the music, of course, was very touching/uplifting. I loved the time to just sit close to Seth and hold his hand. Cheesy, but very true. Afterward Seth and I visited the Norvelle family in Bountiful. They treated us to a second Thanksgiving Dinner and a solid hour of Mad Gab. It's been a while since we've played Mad Gab - SO much fun, good laughs. And then drove home in the snow... It took a little longer, but I didn't mind that extra driving time in the car with Seth.

We really should be packing up our apartment more... since we are moving in 4 days - yikes! Tonight I worked late until Seth was done with class just so he could come by to scrape my windows off so I could get safely home. . . we need to find our other scraper. We got home just in time to decide to go to a movie for FHE. I finally used up the free movie tickets I got for dressing up as a jack-o-lantern for Halloween at work. We saw The Blind Side, with Sandra Bullock. Amazing. Such a great movie!! I held back the sad and happy tears, I want to go see it again, we may even buy it. We definitely recommend it. Baby Girl woke up and was quite active for most of the second half... She kicked me the hardest when Seth was holding his hand on my belly to feel, take that dad! :) I love her.

It's a busy week... busy weekend... Last week of classes for Seth - and then he's got a few finals before finishing his undergraduate work!! WOO HOO! So proud of him... hopefully he can find a job (anything) b/c he will be losing his student job next week. It's scary, but I know we'll be taken care of. And that... was our weekend/FHE.

Hiccups and Glucose...

Baby update... she is getting big, I can just feel it. She kicks me a lot now but it's not uncomfortable at all - I love to feel her! I read a few nights ago about hiccups and was talking to a prego co-worker who is due in 7 weeks. . . she explained what to feel for if the baby has hiccups. And I was pretty sure I had felt what she was explaining before. Anyway... Last night Baby Girl totally had the hiccups! At first I wasn't sure, but I became positive that's what was going on. Then it just started to make me laugh... Those close to me know how much I cannot stand the hiccups!! But sometimes they just make me laugh when I have them - laugh uncontrollably. Yea... I did feel bad for her, but she gave me a good laugh too.

I had an appointment yesterday, it was the big 1 hour glucose test. Even though I took a 12 hr fasting glucose test this summer (when they were sifting out possible reasons for reoccuring miscarriages) and it came out very normal I was nervous about having gestational diabetes during pregnancy b/c family members have had it. I was nervous yesterday, but felt good all the same after I had drank the nasty flat orange-pop-like drink. Today at work I checked my lab results and Wah la! my number was 83! (If it's over 140 they sign you up for the fasting glucose test) I was very happy!! Very... happy.

Also, friend Lara edited Baby Girl's profile pic for me... now I'm just trying to decide which one should belong on our Christmas card, which one do you think? The last one makes me laugh...

A Tragedy

Some of you may have heard in the news, about the tragic accident that claimed John Jone's life in the nutty putty cave here in Utah last week. Seth and I were lucky enough to know John and more so his wife Emily. Emily lived just below me in our Singles ward just before we got married. We got married a few months after John and Emily did. Emily actually had her mission call to New Zealand when John proposed and chose to become his beautiful wife. Such an amazing couple, with the most contagious smiles and so in love.

My thoughts continuously are turned to Emily and the many variety of emotions she must be feeling at this time. John and Emily have a 14 month old girl Lizzie, and were announcing to their family over Thanksgiving that they're expecting their second child next June. I can't bare imagining what life would be like without Seth in my life. And as I am expecting our child how difficult it would be for him to not be with me to share this pregnancy and especially life with our child. I am so sad for Emily, and what she must be going through at this time with Lizzie and preparing for life without John physical there each day. It's heartbreaking to think of what his parents and siblings must be feeling as well. Here is their family's statement. I hope faith continues to prevail and their pain will be overcome with love and support from Heaven. That they will be constantly comforted and find peace through their faith and the blessings of temple covenants. This is Emily's blog and a post from a friend of hers who was able to attend the sweet funeral for John last Saturday. Emily's amazing faith and strength is so touching and powerful.

Stephanie over at a daily scoop is hosting an auction all this week to raise money to donate to the John and Emily Jones memorial fund.Head on over to check out the first auction and keep checking back this week to see lots more. If you don't see anything you would like to bid on and you would like to contribute to the fund, click here. You can also email Stephanie at stephaniewaite@gmail.com if you would like to contribute something to be auctioned. Hopefully we can raise a good amount of money for Emily and her little ones. what better gift can we give this Christmas season?

What a Week!!

Where to begin!? It's been a while.

A few months ago I bought a $50 3 day 2 night weekend getaway to Westgate Resort (A timeshare) in Park City for our Anniversary. So last Friday after work we headed to Park City and escaped life until Sunday afternoon. It was Fantastic!! I had my camera... but we didn't take any photos - totally lame, i know.

Friday night we ate at "The Eating Place" on historic Main St. in PC - a nice little place. And found some good movies on TV to just snuggle up to. Slept in (!!) had to do a little tour of the place- aka 90 min of the timeshare trying to convince us that buying a week ownership of one of their rooms is somehow the best thing we could do with our vacation time and $1,000s that are completely nonexistent. At least our tour guide was actually an Olympic skier who did tours on the side of practicing for the next winter Olympics.

We then got out and went shopping at the Outlet malls. I had been saving up my money I got from doing the EaGER study through the hospital... We SCORED new wardrobes from Old Navy for pretty much free w/ the money saved. Really, with $10 from our own pocket Seth got a very nice jacket, khakis, and 5 shirts. I got a very cute sweater (the green one in a picture below), 5 shirts, and a nice pull over. Unbelievable Sales!! All the clothes I got will hopefully fit me to the end of the pregnancy - pretty stretchy.

It was so nice to spend so much time with Seth without having access to the internet :) and with no other distractions. We saw Couples Retreat, went swimming for a while, I enjoyed the hot tub too much during the 7 or so minutes I was in there - it was SO nice. I hope we'll always be able to take a weekend getaway to ourselves. Seth got Cologne as an anniversary Gift and Seth surprised me with a professional belgian waffle maker from Costco. He said he was on his way to the flowers but found me something much better. :) So... we've had waffles everyday since this past Wed when he came home with it - hahaha.

WED Nov 25 - Our 3rd yr Wedding Anniversary.
Our actual Anniversary date is November 25th. We both worked during the day and our big treat for our special day was going to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra in Concert in SLC. They were Unbelievable! It was at the Energy Solutions Arena - where the Jazz play ball. We were 3rd row in the balcony and they were fabulous seats. They did a Christmas program and then a showcase of their other songs. With the lights, lasers, colored fire, smoke, moving stages, etc it was the coolest/craziest show I've ever seen! It was pretty loud, it was more rock music than I am used to and that just means Baby Girl was having a grand ol' time. I couldn't believe how much she was kicking and moving... I was literally sore when the concert was over and had to walk a ways to the car. Which of course was fun, I'm not complaining - she got me laughing a few times with how much she was kicking. Seth got to feel her a bit too. I Love it all! A few snaps of us after the concert - I wish I had taken more.

Thanksgiving
I love this time of year! This year I especially have a lot to be so grateful for. My family, my health, Seth, Seth's health, our little girl, a job I enjoy and that treats me well. My testimony of the Gospel, prayer, and unconditional love from Heaven. I'm very grateful that Mom, Dad, Brian, and Kara drove all the way from Iowa to spend this holiday with family out here in Utah. They got into town Wed morning and headed back home late last night. We played a lot of games at grandma's, ate awesome food for our Thanksgiving dinner, watched movies, etc.

Sometimes there were just too many people and things going on and it just got too much for me! I'd like to pull the prego card please? Lots of obnoxious kids under the age of 12 + 3 hrs of sleep b/c we went black friday shopping + Trying to make the most out of the short time family from Iowa in town + 27 wks prego = Stressed Megan. I survived though, barely.

Black Friday - This was my 2nd year Black Friday shopping. I'm not a die hard like what you think of when it comes to lines/pushing/shoving black friday shopping. I look through the ads, look for things we've needed/wanted for a while and see if it's really a good deal, and go for it. I saved A LOT of money if I had bought these things on a normal day. At 4:30 we woke up (Kara, Seth, Me) met mom/Heather at Target which opened at 5. Then went to Jo-Ann fabrics (Seth went home to bed) and then to Seagull book/Michaels. We got - 1. A king sized down comforter for $30 (it's AMAZING!! Raja loves it too) 2. Queen size air mattress for camping $12 3. Annie, the original and the Dark Knight for $4 ea. At Jo-Ann's I bought Lots of fabric to make Baby Girl a quilt (it's going to be SO cute!) and 4 recieving blankets for $30 (I saved $60!) At Sea gull book I bought 3 Christmas presents for $15 - score. At Michael's I bought 1. A frame that is usually $40 for $15.00 - the frame has two 8x10 spots that I've been wanting to put a Japanese 'The Living Christ' and Spanish 'Proclamation on the Family' (our mission languages) to decorate. And a 12x12 paper storage box for $4. Oh, and I got Mod Bod shirts for $5, SO cheap! Anyway - totally a fan of black friday to get things we've wanted/needed for CHEAP!!

FUN TIMES - Friday; after shopping we met up with a lot of family at the movie theater... Half of us went and saw 2012 (Loved It!) and the other half saw the Mr. Fox movie - not sure what it's called. I then got a much needed 2 hour nap. And we all went to Laser Tag! There were 14 of us, My parents even came - that was the best! It was so much fun, definitely got us out and moving that turkey dinner around. Seth came in first place, so proud of him. My favorite part of it all... My mom laughing and talking on the phone during the time that we all knew where she was. She said toward the end she hadn't seen my Uncle Devry really anywhere, the entire time until the very end and she tried 'tagging' him. When we got all our results back Uncle Devry had hit mom a total of 33 times. hahaha.

I totally loved being with my family, the weekend went by so fast. Seth and I did have tickets for the BYU vs Utah game but decided to be with family instead of going. But actually we really didn't want to 'deal' with crazy game traffic and crazy fans for the most intense game of the season. So we sold our tickets and made a good profit to put in the baby fund. Definitely Worth It!! SO glad BYU won, it was a fun game to watch and not need to be there for all the competition/contention in the stands.

Well... I think that brings us up to date. Our Christmas Tree is already up... It's beautiful. I loved opening up the Christmas boxes and finding ornaments I bought at after Christmas sales that I had forgotten about that make our tree extremely beautiful. I will take a picture of it before it sadly needs to come down when we move in less than two weeks.

We have a lot of fun Christmas parties and events coming up. We have tickets for Savior of The World (shown at the conference center theater) that we're going to this Friday - Totally Excited for that!!! And also awesome seats for the First Presidency Christmas devotional next Sunday, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert the following Sunday. We are spoiled this Christmas Season! Happy Holidays Everyone! Thanks for reading our blog...

A Baby Shower

We will be in Michigan this year for Christmas, visiting Seth's family. As a joint effort of his family and his friend Lara there will be a baby shower for us while we're there. Lara has a blossoming photography business and put together this invite for the shower -I Love It!! Especially what she did to the picture I emailed her :) This was taken yesterday so everyone - here is your updated belly photo (27w 3d). I'm really excited for Christmas, and the holiday season... This fun event is just one more thing to add on to the parties. Thank You Lara!!