Faye's baby shower, 6/19

Here's Faye with a crown on her head and baby Jules in her belly. Aren't they both so cute? Javier's sisters Letitia and Veronica were the main enthusiastic planners. They made a diaper cake, planned co-ed shower games, headed up the decorations, helped Norma and I and May plan the food etc. Hats off to them. It was a fun, magical evening for all!
Here are a few of the many presents
Niko with his big brother name badge, Mr Tough guy! Brothers, Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts and Uncles all wore these pretty pink name tags. Nathan and Maceo refused to have their pictures taken with theirs
Faye and Javier's table under the arch with baby toys hanging down.
Overview of the party area at La Casa Gonzalez. This is a great place to have a party and they probably have every family get-together under these trees with magical fairy lights
One of the party games, who can drink lemonade out of a baby bottle the quickest. Javier was disqualified when he took the top off and drank it that way! May and I went to the dollar store before the party and bought prizes for the games, all in pink!
Another of the games the guys had to pretend they are pregnant ( balloons) and lean over and tie their shoes as fast as they can without breaking the balloon. A good time was had by all. We had more food than we could eat and it was all delicious. We were having so much fun. We looked down and it was 9pm so Faye and Javier decided to open all of the presents the next day.

More MacIntyre pics

Kirsten and her Dad and the kids. We had a great visit. Our biggest outing was a visit to the Children's Museum, Carolina's (Mexican food) and MacAlpine (ice cream sunday's). Carolina's in a hole in the wall barrio mexican food place which my family has gone to as long as I can remember. It has great Mexican food and freshly made tortillas. MacAlpine's is a soda fountain which my Dad went to when he was in High School.
Rowan, Dilly and Papa
Kirsten, yours truly, Dilly and Rob
We went down to the ditch for a picnic. This is a area about a half mile from our house that really reminds me of growing up in South Phoenix. It is an open ditch surrounded by cotton wood trees just off the canal. As a child, I walked to school each day along a ditch like this, but it was much deeper having been dug out many times. We had paths along the top of the ditch and it was an adventure to get to school and not fall in! Other times we played in the ditch catching frogs, crawdads and finding tadpoles to take back to the house to watch turn into frogs.

We have boats which we throw in & catch downstream


Papa reading to Ro and Dil
Drying off after a romp in the irrigation
It was late afternoon and the irrigation was just starting to fill the yard. The kids remembered playing in the irrigation other visits and had to wade even though it was sorta cold.
Making pizza
Grandma Coral taking the kids for a ride in the basket of her bike
Grandma and Dilly riding down our street

Faye's shower #2 & RoRo and May's Birthdays

Javier's getting ready for the big day
This was Rowan's 3rd birthday party. She milked turning five for all it's worth celebrating at all three grandparents!
We celebrated both May and Rowan's birthday at Faye's shower. We tried to get as many celebrations in as possible! I'm all for birthdays. Julian and I just celebrated our birthday on June 9th (yes it's the same day). It is great fun as we get many calls, e-mails, cards and facebook greetings. We seem to spend the whole day talking on the phone. We started the day with a call from India and Kirsten, Rowan and Dylan singing Happy Birthday. We had Happy Birthday sung to us a total of 4 times. I think that is some kind of a record!
These are the letters that Ro and Dilly gave to Faye and Javier to decorate baby Jules nursery, shades of pink, green and brown. The picture below shows the painting of the letters. The kids painted them, then Kirsten and Julian painted the dots and stripes.

Mac pictures and fight cancer update

The kids and grandkids left last Saturday to fly back to India. It was a short (9 days) but very sweet trip. We mostly just did things together close by. Family get togethers, playing in the irrigation, sailing boats in the ditch and hanging out. Quote from Dilly (after going potty by himself), "I tan do anything! I am strong! I tan even fight dinosaurs!
Kirsten and Rowan, picture taken by Niko who has quite the camera eye. He always gets great shots!
Kirsten and Dilly
Another hug for little brother and big sister.
Kirsten, Rob and Grandma Coral at Faye and Javier's house.

Back to Julian and an update. He had treatments the whole time they were here, but he was still able to spend time with them around the house. We saw both doctors in the past 2 weeks and they both say that he is done with treatments at least till the end of June maybe longer. He will have more tests at that time and they will decide then. They were all very pleased about how well he tolerated having both radiation and chemo at the same time. He's tough, I tell you. His WBC counts especially are low now, but his bone marrow will slowly build them back up. He still is very tired and has postural dizzyness. We think that he's a little better each day, but it's slow. Eating is a struggle. He's able to eat, but I can give him 5 or 6 choices and get maybe one that sounds good. The radiation people tell us that it will still be working fight the cancer cells for 2 weeks after the last treatment. Of course it's hilarious how each doctor thinks that the other doctor's treatment is the worst and causing the most problems. There was a cartoon in the Sunday funnies today that was very appropriate to the doctors working together (or not!). Dr. McBride and Dr. Kukkonoor talk about having philosophical discussions about the best treatment.



We are trying to keep our sense of humor with all this. We really appreciate your prayers and cards. Thanks so much!