Our Sweet Sadie Passes Away

What a sweet little dog Sadie was. Her illness started around the end of January. She wasn't eating very well....in fact she quit eating and I was getting worried. I attributed this to the fact that I had just purchased new dog food and I thought she was protesting. I kept thinking that she would eventually eat if she got hungry enough. The last week of January while she wasn't eating she was spending a lot of time outside...just sitting there. She wouldn't come inside and it was really cold out there. I would coax her in and she would go right back out a couple of minutes later. On Sunday February 1st we went to church and came home. Of course she wasn't in the house and we made her come in. She proceeded to throw up and I told Kary that she looked like she was dying. She was looking like Scout did when he was close to dying. A couple of hours went by and after she threw up a few more times I decided to take her to the emergency vet. When the vet examined her she took blood samples and found bad news. From her blood she could tell that she had diabetes ketoacidosis. A pretty bad case of diabetes. She was also concerned because she was throwing up blood which meant that her esophogus was being affected. She believed that she had pancreatitis too. When an animal has that it can get to a state where the acids start eating away at the organs and whatever else it comes in contact with inside their body. She told me that we had a hard decision to make. If we decided to keep her alive then she would require probably 3 shots of insulin a day. We would have to do that the rest of her life...whether it be two weeks or 2 years. But she believed that with the pancreatitis Sadie didn't have long. Her breathing was not good and she looked like she didn't feel good. Kary and I decided that we needed to put her down because it was the humane thing to do at this point. Sure we could've kept her alive for awhile....but she could've lived in pain the rest of her life. I didn't want that for her.

Sadie was so lonely without Scout. After he died she kind of moped around the house and wasn't her usual self. She never knew any other life than with Scout. We got her when he was a year old. She loved sitting by him and grooming him. She is running and playing now with Scout. I truly believe that these two sweet dogs will greet me in heaven! I can't wait to play with them again. I know that there is a special place in heaven for our pets....I just know that a loving Heavenly Father would allow our pets to be reunited with tus again.

It has been lonely without our dogs. We will get another dog again. We just need to greive for these two first.

Adam's Baptism & Birthday Celebration

On January 3rd, 2009 Adam was baptized. His baptism was at 6 pm at our local Stake Center. He was baptized with another little boy from our ward Trey Worrell. He and Trey are friends and it was fun that they were baptized together. I spoke on the Holy ghost and Gavin said the opening prayer. Sean was a witness and Kary did the baptism and confirmation. So all of us were involved somehow. Trent wasn't here but he was baptizing a convert in The Netherlands on the same day. So we all were involved on his special day.

The Whole Burke family came.

Here is a picture of just the five of us...

We also celebrated his birthday that afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa Burke's house. I made a cake for him and we opened presents and everything. He got a pair of Heely's shoes/skates, a Nintendo DS game called Wall-E and a set of new scriptures with a case.

Christmas is coming soon! I can't believe it's already December and we are counting down until Christmas. I just had to put this you tube link in here for my favorite Christmas parody. I think you'll enjoy it! No snow yet here in Utah. My boys are so anxious for snow to come that they just can't stand it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkF7fpw-wI

Scout

Our beloved pet Scout passed away on September 23rd, 2008. Over the fourth of July weekend Scout had some breathing problems and orientation problems so I ended up taking him to an emergency vet (on the evening of the 4th). The vet took one look at him and felt his abdomen and told me that he believed that Scout had a tumor in his belly. He gave me three options. 1-I could take him home and let nature take it's course and in a few days he would probably be gone. 2-I could have the vet do surgery, take the tumor out and see if it is benign or malignant. The operation would buy him time at the least. 3- I could just have the vet put him down right then. Of course my whole family was up on a mountain camping and I had to make the decision alone. So I decided to have him operate on Scout. Scout stayed the night and by the next morning he was able to come home. Two weeks later we found out that the tumor was malignant and he had cancer of the liver. They told me at that time that Scout would live about a month, maybe two if we were lucky. Our Scout was 9 years old. He was such a fun part of our family and we all miss him. Sadie, our other dog, misses him terribly. She has never known life without him. We felt extremely lucky that we had an extra 2 1/2 months with him. That last week of his life he started acting lethargic again and had no interest in eating or playing. He was breathing funny again so we decided it was time to let him go. That was a really tough day.

Claudean

Poor Adam!

First of all I'm sorry that it has taken me forever to post again on here. I'm going to try to be better at it.


In July we were all excited because we would be going to my family's house in California. We were busy getting packed and talking about all the fun that we would be having there. We had our plan trip set for August 4th. I would be flying out with the kids and then Kary would come later.


Adam was so social this summer! He was always playing with someone and going to friends houses or they were coming to mine. It was fun to see him open up so much. When we lived in Thailand he didn't ever want to leave the house!


On August 2nd Adam had a friend over and they were playing down in our unfinished basement. All of a sudden I heard screams of pain! I ran downstairs and found Adam laying on the floor next to the fooseball table and I couldn't get him to settle down. So I helped him upstairs and laid him on the couch. Come to find out he had been on top of the fooseball table trying to walk in between the bars. He had lost his balance and fallen off. His leg got stuck in between the bars...but then he fell to the floor. Now understand it was a friday afternoon at 4:00 pm. Kary had gone to youth conference the day before with Gavin and Sean. I took a look at Adam's legs and noticed that his right leg looked a little different than the other one. So I made a quick decision to take him to IHC instacare before they closed. I knew that if I waited too long than I would have to take him to the emergency room if he needed medical help. Five minutes away and $35.00 vs. 30 minutes away and $85.00. I decided to drive the 5 minutes and have them take a look at his leg. Well, they x-rayed his leg and it was definately broken. They put a splint on his leg and told me that we had to wait until monday to cast it because they wait for the swelling to go down. I started to panic....our flight was on monday! How were we going to get to California if we couldn't make the flight! They scheduled our appt. with the orthopedic surgeon for 8:00 a.m on Monday morning. It turned out that our flight was at 5:00 pm that evening! Thank goodness it all still worked out.
Here he is with his first cast! He wanted bright red and he had to wear shorts all the time. It was a good thing it was still summer and the weather cooperated with his wardrobe needs!
We borrowed a wheelchair from Kary's parents and that saved our life! We made it back from the orthopedic surgeon just in time to get ready for our trip to California. This would add an extra element of fun to our trip!

They Got Us!

We were trying to slide by under the radar at church. We were enjoying going to church with no responsibilities because we knew that would change as soon as we were given callings. Our church records finally came from Thailand to our ward here two weeks ago. I was asked to be Primary President and Kary was asked to be Young Men's President! Double Whammy!! I don't know if they think we are superhuman or what! All we can do is give it our best try. I am excited to be able to work in the primary. I love the primary! That is my favorite place to be! This next sunday will be my first week in there...but I've already asked the outgoing president to come in and conduct. I think the kids need a transition from outgoing to incoming. I think it will be better for the kids to have the previous president let them know about the changes and introduce the new presidency.Our shipment from Thailand finally arrived here on February 21st...Gavin's birthday. So we are still trying to unpack and get things put away. It's tough because we are in a smaller house here than we were in Thailand, so our furniture and things don't fit like they did in the house there! Needless to say we have made and will make many trips to Deseret Industries to give away the excess.On top of everything else this week I am sick. Bronchitis is wiping me out! When it rains it pours.
Posted by Claudean at 8:26 PM 2 comments

It's February and Still Snowing!!!

It has been the snowiest winter in Utah history since the 80's!! It has been snowing almost every other day for the last 8 weeks! Finally this weekend, Feb. 9th we have sun! But the weather people tell us that the snow is not over yet! Adam is absolutely loving the snow! He wants to go play in it every day. One day he came inside and declared that today was the funnest day in his entire life! That declaration came after just sledding on our little snow mound in the front yard! We've been over to the park a few times so that he can go down the "big hill". The first time we went to the park Adam came down the hill and ran almost head on into the swingset! What fun that is! He has since learned how to bail off the sled when it's needed.Sean and Gavin have also had fun at the park going down the "Biggest Hill". It's not huge, but it's funner than not sledding at all.