Memorial for Coach Burns

Thomas Joseph Burns
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on Jun. 20, 1946
Departed on Jul. 22, 2008 and resided in Middletown, RI.

Service: Monday, Jul. 28, 2008



Middletown, RI – Middletown High School Math Teacher and Retired Senior Msgt. Thomas "Tom" Joseph Burns, 62, passed away Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at Rhode Island Hospital, in Providence.

He was the loving husband of Susanne "Sue" (Allenby) Burns. Married on July 20, 1968, in Redlands, California, they recently shared their 40th anniversary. He was the loving father of three daughters, Kelly, Liz, and Lindsey.

Tom was born in Boston, MA on June 20, 1946; he was the son of the late Leo V.Burns and Kathleen (Quinn) Burns, and brother to Leo Burns Jr., Paul Burns, and Peter Burns. Growing up in both Dorchester and Canton, MA, Tom was surrounded by many cousins, grandparents, and relatives during his childhood. He spent much of his youth involved in sports. He participated in Little League Baseball, and especially loved CYO Ice Hockey. He also spent many days working as a caddy and in the pro-shop at the local golf course alongside his brothers.

Tom attended Boston College High School, graduating in 1964. At age 18, he then enlisted in the United States Air Force where he began his 20 year military career allowing him to enjoy his love of travel and his commitment to serving his country. Tom served his country during the Vietnam War. One of his proudest moments was his participation in "Operation Homecoming" on March 16, 1973, bringing home American POW's from Hanoi. He was highly decorated during his military career; however his most notable award was the Meritorious Service Medal for risking his own life in order to rescue a fellow soldier from a burning building.

Tom retired in 1984, at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. He enrolled in college at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education, with Departmental Honors in Social Science, in 1988. He began teaching math at Chaparral Jr. High and then Alamogordo High School, in Alamogordo, NM. Besides teaching Math, Tom was a well respected football, cross country, and track coach. Moving to Newport, RI in 2001, he continued his teaching and coaching career.

Tom enjoyed the simple things in life, most of all spending time with his family. He enjoyed a good cup of coffee, a crossword puzzle, a Red Sox game, and a sunny day at the beach.

In addition to his wife Sue, Tom leaves three loving daughters, Kelly and husband Davie Salas of Las Cruces, NM, Elizabeth and husband Jim Diesing of Portland, OR and Lindsey and husband Steven Montoya of Socorro, NM; five adoring grandchildren Sydney, Thomas, Kyle, Emma, and Megan; brothers Leo Burns, Jr. and wife Liz of Rome, NY, Paul Burns of Brownfield, ME and Peter Burns of Quincy, MA; and many nieces, nephews, and cousins who held a special place in his heart; and his Alamogordo and Middletown High School family and friends who shared his fun-loving spirit and were always there for him.

A Funeral Service will be held on Monday, July 28, 2008, at 9:00am, at St. Lucy's Church, 909 West Main Road, Middletown, RI. A reception will follow at the Parish Hall. Private burial will be held for the family.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Tom Burns Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o Bank of Newport, attn: Mary Beth Manuel, PO Box 450, Middletown, RI 02842, which will benefit graduating Middletown High School students.

Update on Coach Burns

I am trying to keep all the comments together, clink the link below.

CLICK HERE COACH BURNS

UPDATE: Urgent Prayer Request.

Coach Burns took his last breaths on Tuesday July 22nd at 6pm. He is now resting with his heavenly father. Funeral arrangements are still being made. I will let you know when I have the exact time and dates.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. I know Lindsey and her family greatly appreciate it. They will be able to read anything that is left here. So please leave them some uplifting words.



My High School Coach (and long time second dad) is in trouble right now. He's in a coma and needs all your prayers.

1. That the swelling in his brain will go down.
2. That his other bodily functions will continue to work wonderfully.
3. That he will wake up from this coma.

Also please pray for his Wife and 3 daughters. One of whom is my very best friend Lindsey. Please pray that they make it through this and will ask for help when needed.

We love you.

New member to the family!

No, I am not pregnant Vicki!

We got a new car.

We have been looking for a new vehicle for awhile now. Joe really wanted an old beat up truck. He even went to look at one last week but it needed more work than Joe could have done at this time so the search continued.

Sunday Joe saw a Jeep Wrangler on craigslist and we drove up to see it. The guy had two jeeps for sale. We pulled into the drive way and there are four people checking out the jeeps. We were to late, the jeeps were sold! Joe was pretty sad, I wasn't heartbroken as the jeep we were looking at was white. I didn't want a white jeep. We came back home and I looked on Ebay for a jeep. I found one that was pretty nice. It had less than 2 hours left in the listing and nobody had bid on it yet. I emailed the guy and asked that if he didn't have a bid on it would he take less for it. He emailed me back and said that he would depending on when we could come up and get it.

So, yesterday we took off to go buy the jeep. It was in a town four hours away so it was a long day. We didn't leave until noon yesterday and I pulled into our driveway at 9pm. Joe is so excited and he says he feels so manly!

Without further ado here are some pictures of our new JEEP.

The Jeep already has a name courtesy of the boys. They call it Chitty Chitty, Bang Bang

There is a new member in our family....

Coming up tomorrow pictures and a story!

The Toothless Grin!

We finally have a toothless grin. Last night around 7:30 Bryson came up to me and said "Mom I think I am ready for you to pull my teeth out." I personally would have liked for them to fall out on their own but Bryson was finally ready for them to come out. He has not been able to eat much unless it was broken up because it hurt his teeth.



I asked him if he was sure and he said he was. We got a paper towel I folded it around his little tooth and pulled. It came right out. The look on his face was pure joy.
He ran straight to the bathroom to look. I asked him if he was ready for me to pull out the second one. He said "No." Then I told him that he would get more money from the tooth fairy if he had the two teeth. (In all honesty the second tooth really did need to come out as well. Joe was afraid they would come out and Bryson would loose them or swallow them.) He finally said yes. I put the paper towel around the tooth and pulled but nothing. I told him to let me try again but he started crying and said no. He said I hurt him. I explained to him that he might swallow it and to let me try just once more, he agreed. I put the paper towel on his little tooth and pulled a bit harder and out it came. It also came with a bit more blood, so he rinsed his mouth out and checked out his mouth once again.


He has been carrying his teeth around in a zip-lock bag. He didn't want to put them under his pillow last night because this morning he wanted to show all his friends his teeth. He is so proud of them. I am sure they will be under his pillow tonight and the tooth fairy will be broke. Don't tell her but he expects 100 dollars per tooth.


Side note: You can see by the pictures just how much laundry I have to do. Pulling his teeth out was over a span of about 30 minutes and in two of the pictures he is wearing different shirts and one of the pictures he isn't wearing a shirt. My boys like to change clothes a lot.

Happy Fourth of July!

We started off the day washing the cars. Actually, Joe and the boys washed the cars I took pictures.

Afterwards they all came in ate lunch and the boys took naps. Once they woke up we went over to our friend Terra's house which is so convenient since she lives right across the street. There were some other families there. Some of which you have read about. Cami and her kids were there, Shanna and her husband Chris and then a few other families that I haven't mentioned before. We had a good time hanging out. The kids all played the guys hung out by the grill and the women played some cards.

Around 5:15 Joe, Bryson, Carter and I left Terra's and went to Fort Bragg. They were having a fourth of July festival like last year. There were thousands of people there and really crowded. At 5:45 the Golden Knights were going to jump. I skydived with the Golden Knights a year ago. I will have to tell you about that another time. Back to the fourth...we got to the field about 5:40 and made our way through the crowd to were the jumpers were going to land.
We found a spot right up against the rope and sat down. A few minutes later the show began.


It wasn't as good a show as last year but always fun to see skydivers. After they jumped we tried to meet the skydivers
but there were to many people and the boys weren't being pushy which you have to be around here.

Then we headed all the way across the field to the stage. Wynonna Judd was going to start singing at 6:15.

We walked around all the chairs and blankets and found a spot right up in front. She sang really well, but after about 45 minutes the boys were done so we headed back to Terra's

We made it just in time for the pinata

that Cami bought and the boys had a blast. There was even a silly string fight.
The fireworks started around 10 and we played with sparklers, pop it's, fountain's and their favorite the snakes.


The boys had so much fun and were so tired that they didn't wake up until 9 the next morning.

All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth....

My fourth of July post is coming up I just don't know when yet. As I was uploading some photos earlier today my flash card reader stopped working and I can't get my photos off my memory card for some reason. I will try and get the pictures up soon. The pictures that I have on this post were taken off my old camera.

We had an awesome forth and we even saw a celebrity and no this time it wasn't Carter. You will just have to wait and see who we saw in Concert.

Carter hasn't been feeling to well the past few days. So, today I made him stay in his pj's and just hang out all day. We had a wonderful dinner tonight. We made BLT's and I made homemade baked potato soup. It was so good, then the highlight of the evening we went outside and made S'mores.
I had to brake up poor Bryson's because of his teeth.

What is wrong with his teeth might you ask??? Well, the fact that he is about to loose both bottom teeth. That's right my baby is going to lose two baby teeth.

Here he is checking them out.

Experimenting with chicken

Last night I cooked on the grill for the first time since Joe and I have been married. The first four months he was gone we didn't even own a grill the second four months he was gone the boys and I stayed with my father who worked the grill but last night I was the grill master.

I decided early in the day to do a bit of experimenting with chicken marinades. I had three chicken breasts and wanted to try out three different marinades that we have never tried before.

First up balsamic vinaigrette and crushed rosemary. We usually marinate with Italian dressing so I figured this would probably be good. It was very tasty.

Second was soda...yep, Coca Cola with black pepper. I have had the most shocked looks once saying this. It also tasted pretty good.

Last up was soy sauce and crushed red peppers. We have marinated with soy sauce before but never with the red peppers. It was also very good but had a nice kick to it.

I just asked Joe which one he liked the best and he says that they were all really good but that he thinks he liked the breast coated with soda the best. I liked them all. I should have taken pictures through all this but didn't. Darn!