Baby Burke...

I will try to sum up the past four months of our lives. In January Josh and I found out I was pregnant. This was a little bit of a shock to us but all in all we were thankful. I had major sickness in the beginning of the pregnancy to the point that I decided during that time I was not having anymore kids!! Finally the sickness went away and I developed a low blood pressure issue, so we closely monitor that. I am roughly 22 weeks along and we found out two weeks ago that the baby is more than likely a girl. We are doing the nursery in Dr. Seuss and will be excited once we can start decorating. Currently the nursery is a construction zone due to it not having proper working ventilation and the floor was caving in on it. Josh is in frantic mode and is working quite diligently to get it finished before the baby's arrival. We have somewhat determined a name for the baby and are deciding whether we will share it or keep it secret until she arrives. We are thankful for so many people who God has put in our lives to help us on this journey. We have already been showered with so many things that will prove helpful once she arrives. We have greatly appreciated the guidance and wisdom given by so many on parenting advice etc. We are looking forward to September and Baby Burke's arrival and pray the Lord will give grace and wisdom in how to raise this little one.

We're Back!!!

Well a lot has happened since September 2009 the last blog post. Let's see, well we finally finished the bathroom renovation. Feel free to stop by and take a peek. We went to Maine in October with Kevin Dowker and it was a blast. I unfortunately lost all my pictures due to our computer crashing but all in all the trip was great. Other than that I think those are most of the updates.... Oh wait I guess there is one other important update. Josh and I found out we are expecting our first child. January was quite the whirlwind. We found out the middle of January and everything has been a blur since. My due date is September 16, 2010 and so far we have been told Baby Burke is a girl! She is already quite the little star, there are roughly 125 people coming to her baby shower!! Josh is frantically renovating her room and we have had quite the star cast of helpers. We are so thankful for Josh's dad, my dad, Jonathan, Damian, my mom, Kevin D, Gene White and Gerry Slack. These people have been life savers in helping us get our little girls room complete before her arrival. Just a quick plug for Gerry Slack he will be opening his own HVAC company soon and I am sure he would appreciate your business. He completely renovated our current HVAC system and Burke Manor is now the Arctic Tundra. I will try to keep this as updated as possible.

A lot is going on....

Man time is flying. I feel like vacation was forever ago and it was really only a week and a half ago. Whew! Well since returning from vacation a lot has occurred. I have officially begun my MS injectable therapy. I am on Day 6 and so far so good. My anxiety has calmed down quite a bit, but I continue to pray that my body receives the treatment well. The needle does not bother me at all, but the medication feels like a million bee's are stinging me at once. Overall, it is not bad and Josh is a real pro at giving my injections. I thank God daily for each day I am able to get up and function with out any aids or assistance. I pray things continue to go well and that this treatment is effective.

Josh and I had an unexpected date night last night. As most of you know Josh and I are huge Tim Burton fans. So Josh and I went to see "Nine" the new movie that came out on 9.9.2009 that Tim Burton produced. It was ok, definitely not something I would pay to go see again. Overall, it was pretty good though.




Then last but not least. Today is officially the best day of the year. It is the start of 2009/2010 NFL Football. I am so excited. Fall is my favorite time of year and the fact that football starts during fall makes it all the better. Sunday afternoon's cuddled up in a blanket watching any and every NFL football game. I am so excited. Hail to the Redskins!!!

Vacation Was Wonderful and Much Needed!!

We did not realize how badly we needed a vacation.. This past week was absolutely wonderful and we thank God for allowing us to be able to go on a vacation. Six days of nothing but relaxation on the beach was a dream. We stayed at Garden City Beach about 20 min south of Myrtle Beach. We stayed in a beach house with my parents, my brother, my brothers girlfriend and her little girl Summer. It was a wonderful trip. This was the view from our beach house...

There really is not much more that I can write about due to the week just being full of relaxation. Josh did get his fishing license and fished with my dad. He attempted his Kyack but it was really more work than it was worth. Josh did get a lot of time to train for his upcoming triathlon in VA Beach. Ooooh! Wednesday we were all sitting out on the beach and around 4:30pm a guy came out and started fishing. Within a few minutes he had from what we could tell something rather large on his line. Long story short 10 min later he pulls in a 3ft baby hammer head. Needless to say I did not swim the rest of the evening.

An impromptu evening out led to one of the best restaurants I have ever eaten at in my life!! We decided to go to Rioz Brazilian Grill. It is an all you can eat type place, a little pricy but well worth it. You have a salad and sides bar you can go to and then when you get back to your table you have servers coming left and right offering you different cuts of meat that have been cooked on these huge skewers. This meat oh my gosh was cooked to perfection. Filet Mignon, Flank Steak, Top Sirloin, Sausages, Pork Loin, Chicken legs, Chicken breast wrapped in bacon, Filet wrapped in bacon, Lamb, Ribs and the choices went on and on. It is well worth what we paid and the experience was wonderful. If you are going to MB, SC anytime soon I definitely say hit it up. Supposedly there is one in the Fairfax, VA area. It is called Texas de Brazil. Not sure if it will be as good, but possibly worth a try...

Team Trinity, The Line Has Been Drawn In The Sand!

This weekend was definitely an experience of a lifetime. I never thought I would be saying that about a sporting event, unless it is a Redskins football game of course! Well we met up with the Pelt Family, Dowker Family and Bryan Scott at the lovely Monroe Bay Campground in Colonial Beach to camp out and prepare for today's Colonial Beach Triathlon. Everyone was excited and I think I can say a little anxious about the race day events. We all hit the sack rather early to be well rested for the 5am alarm. We all found out rather quickly that Monroe Bay Campground is quite the happening place at 10pm at night, however we eventually got to sleep. "Team Trinity" all loaded in Bryan's truck and headed down to the race to prepare for the 650am start time. The Dowker Girls and I followed not too far behind and met up with Ms. Shaw. Tracee and the kids came down a little later. We got our chairs set up to cheer on the racers and the night before I let the kids make signs for Jason, Bryan, Josh and Kevin.

The race began with the 750 meter swim, followed by the 14 mile bike ride and finishing with the 3 mile run. I am not going to lie when I saw the swim course I started getting a little worried and gave Josh and extra big hug before he started. However, the race started and all of Team Trinity finished in one piece. All of the team finished under 2hrs and it appears that the next Tri will be in Williamsburg in September 2009. Josh hopes that he can get some more training in between now and then and shave a little time off his finishing time which was 1:52:48. He is already talking about things he can improve, things he needs to buy and how excited he is about the next one. Overall I think he did an excellent job and I am excited to go to the next race!!

Party People, Everywhere!!

It has been a while since my last blog and since then we have participated in three parties. It all started off with my birthday party on June 18, 2009. I was not aware I was having this party, but Josh surprised me with everyone gathering at my parents house. It was a sweet little party of family, my family, Josh's family and Damian. The next party on the agenda was the Wedding Shower for Beth and Elliott. This was quite the event. The Hinton's let us borrow their house to host this event at. Jenna pitched in a ton and aided with the decoration department and the shower was lovely. The fact it was a guy/girl shower added some interesting twists. Let's just say one of the games became an all out brawl between many of the guys!! However, the night ended with Elliott and Beth getting a lot of nice things and with Debra and Kevin Dowker winning the game prizes.. Then last but not least we close the parties out with Jonathan's 26th birthday celebration. We had dinner at O'Charley's, then closed the night out with Oreo Ice Cream Cake and Rob and Big and Jon's house. The summer is definitely flying by, but a lot of fun things have occurred thus far!!!

And the walls came tumbling down...

For anyone who has ever visited Burke Manor you know our reason for being so adamant for getting our bathroom renovated. You also know why we would be in such a hurry due to having to make due with the RV bathroom (the real reason why we purchased the house!!!) Thankfully we have Jonathan right around the corner and he is graciously offering his shower facilities to us. The first week has not been too bad, but I can definitely tell that the house being in shambles is going to get old quick. For the most part Josh and Mike (his older brother) have kept things pretty clean, but unfortunately you can only control dust so much. So there is dust on pretty much everything... Then of course my OCD mind gets going and knows that the dust is also now deep in the fibers of the sofa's, etc, etc... I keep telling myself it will so be worth it in the end. However, when will the end come, supposedly this weekend my bedroom wall is coming down as well. Something about the floor under it is rotten, I don't know!!! Oh well I am excited and looking so forward to the finished product. I will keep you posted.. Below are before and mid-way pictures!