Dan Burk Family Christmas Letter 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

2008 has been a great year for our family. We currently live in lovely Salem, Utah in an older home that Dan’s folks fixed up. We are happy to be in a house and ABOVE GROUND (until now we have always lived in a basement apartment). The home is on half an acre so there is plenty of room for the kids to play. It has beautiful hardwood floors and a wood burning stove and a lot of country charm.

By far the neatest thing that happened this year is that we added Joy Anne Burk to our family. She was born on Feb 3rd so she is almost a year old now. She is such a delight with her chubby/rosy cheeks and strawberry curly blonde hair. Her middle name, Anne, comes from one of Faith’s favorite heroines, “Anne of Green Gables” and she has a little bit of Anne’s red hair and temper too. =-) She crawls all over and pulls up on things and takes little steps. She will be walking soon!!

Grace LOVES being a big sister and she does such a good job! She will give Joy toys, help feed her, rock her, play with her, and get Faith diaper changing supplies when I need to change her diaper. Watching our two little girls interact and seeing how much they love each other brings us so much joy. Grace also knows her shapes and colors and is learning the alphabet. She is a very smart two-year old! She also LOVES going to nursery at church and playing with her friends.

Another huge blessing for our family is Dan’s job. He graduated with a BS in Geology from BYU in December of last year and got hired on at Intermountain Paleo Consulting after substitute teaching for a few months. We feel very blessed to have steady income and for Dan to be able to gain experience in his field. He works in Vernal, Utah and does 3 days on 4 days off. Dan’s job consists of doing paleontological surveys, monitoring construction, writing reports, and preparing fossils so that they can go to museums for research. We are so glad that he is working in a field that he loves!

In addition to being a stay at home mom Faith has been learning magic tricks. She has done a great job with her disappearing act because she has lost 50 pounds since giving birth to Joy. She has found a new love of jogging and has participated in various 5K’s and a 10K. She also substitute teaches when Dan is home with the girls and is taking a BYU independent study course to keep her teaching license current.

We wish you a all a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Dan, Faith, Grace, and Joy Burk