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.

Kids visit from India and Jules update

Kirsten, Rob, Rowan and Dylan have spent the last 9 days with us in Phoenix. They live in India and we haven't seen them for a year. One of their first nights here were spent at Faye and Javier's house playing with, "my cousins, they boys" as Rowan calls them. She walked into the door in one of her rare shy moments, hiding behind my legs. We walked into the boys room, they showed Ro and Dil how to play pool and the shyness was gone in about a minute. From there it was rough and tumble fun and games all evening.
Ro and Dilly with Papa. A quick update on Jules: He finished radiation yesterday (Friday) and had his last weekly Chemo on Thursday. The day Kirs et.al arrived (May 20) he was supposed to have chemo, but his counts were too low (platelets). I drove him to radiation and chemo that day because he was dizzy, went to school a little late, left to pick up the kids from the airport, dropped them at home and returned to school. I would have gotten a sub, but alas, none was available. It always takes about an hour to get the blood work results back before they start chemo, so I just dropped him off thinking he would be there all day. As it was they gave him some fluids which helped him feel somewhat better. Mainly he is just energyless and feeling washed out. However, the timing of having to miss one chemo was perfect. He was able to enjoy their visit. They will do another ultrasound in about a month and Dr. McBride (radiation) will decide what's next. He goes back to chemo in 2 weeks and we will see what they say. Right now we are on hold and happy for it. The kids left today,but we had a great visit. I will put more pictures up in the next day or so.
Niko teaching Dilly how to fight with foam padded swords
Niko teaching Rowan how to fight. Notice the fancy leg movements. Later in the evening Maceo was playing hide and seek in a dark room with them resulting in many delighted squeals.
This is Rowan with her sting ray. She got to touch a real sting ray at the aquarium in Salt Lake City and was very proud.

Hangin in there, shower cat, baby shower

Here's Jules on Saturday the worst day of his week. He looks good, huh. He gets washed out over the weekend after chemo on Thursday. He has 2 more weeks of radiation. Eating is getting a little more difficult, but he is still eating. I made him power bars (I can give out the recipe if you like). I made up the recipe, wrote it down cause I knew that I wouldn't remember what I put in them. There were about 30 or so bars and there are now only 2 left. I guess they are good. He sometimes has popcorn for dinner. Pretty much eating whatever sounds good to him or that he thinks he can get down, concentrating on high carb, high protein, high calorie.
He decided to clean out the rain gutters and trim the Palo Verde tree in the morning. After resting and watching the horse race which took about 3 hours for a 2-3 minute race, he cleaned off the patio in the afternoon.
Not bad for feeling washed out. I guess it's called mind over matter, guts, bravery, toughness
This is Merlin soon after he and I took our morning shower. A little scraggly, but clean! I'm trying to break him of the habit of drinking out of the toilet bowl, but not because I'm worried about him getting sick from it. Did you know that there are many, many more germs on desks than on toilets? Toilets tend to have less germs because we wash them more often than most desks, or pens, or phones. So why, do you ask am I trying to break him from drinking out of the toilet? Because he puts his front paws into the toilet water as he drinks and leaves cat paw prints around the house. Sounds cute maybe to a cat lover, to have cute little cat paw prints around the house. Maybe it would be cute if they were painted on and not adding to my dirty house!
This is Faye and Javier, Niko, Nathan and Maceo. Jeremy is 16 now and doesn't always go on trips, you know how teenagers are. His friends are around his Mom's house so he spends more time there. Anyway this is the family that Baby Jules (Juliana) is due to join the end of July. Can you picture those boys holding her, baby sitting, changing diapers? They will probably have long conversations about wet burps, vomit and poop.
Faye's surprise baby shower at school. It was very sneaky and she had no idea they were planning it.
She got so many cute little girl clothes!
Faye and I at the shower.

Colors Meet Sky

Each day I go outside and see the peach faced love birds and goldfinches on the sunflowers in my garden. I am surprised by joy anew when they suddenly fly all at once, their bright colors meeting the blue sky. The sky above the sunflower patch is filled with bright yellows, reds, greens, and blues for a couple seconds of awe and delight. I've tried to take pictures, but am not fast enough. You'll just have to imagine it in your minds eye.
These are some of the tiny Goldfinches. They love the tiny little seeds they get from the dried sunflowers. This picture even shows one of the seeds that they like so well. They are much smaller than the sunflower seeds we eat.
This little guy is really getting into it!
The Goldfinches almost are invisible among the bright yellow sunflowers.
The parrots are bigger. They bend and make the sunflowers dance as they hop from one part of the sunflowers to another.




I have been enjoying summer and time off work. May was very busy. We enjoyed Kirs, Rob and the kids visit and had a great time with Max and Maxine from Oz. I will get back to both of those visits in future blogs. Then came the end of school which was very stressful this year because our AZ schools have had major cuts in funding. I decided to come back another year even though I will have 2 schools. We nurses fought the good fight, but too much had to be cut. It was a very sad and depressing time. We had our grandsons Niko and Maceo (Faye and Javier's 2 youngest) for 3 days in early June so they could have a get-away in San Diego. We rode bikes, played in the ditch, went to see the movie "UP" with the boys. The last week or so I've got to spend quality time with Ryan. That is a whole long story in and of itself. First of all he was in a car accident. The wheel from another car came off and hit the wheel of his car. Of course the driver, had no license and prob no insurance. The driver fled the scene on foot and the police are allowed to take up to a month to make the report. However, as bad as that was, he wasn't hurt and it got him to finally realize that he was in financial crisis and could no longer support his girlfriend who chooses not to work (or is always going to but never does). He told his girlfriend to move out and she broke all his vinyl record collection before the police arrived. He decided to move from his apartment due to bad karma, a gas leak, no hot water because the hot water heater was venting in the kitchen (the gas company shut it down) and a landlord who never follows through with promises to fix stuff. So we started looking for a new apartment. He wants to live downtown to be in walking distance to his 2nd job at the Dodge Theater in downtown Phoenix. He found a studio he likes and can afford. It has wood floors, a tiny kitchen, but is actually large for a studio. He will save about $100 per month. It looks south into downtown and is a couple blocks from the Dodge Theater. Next week we will help him move into his new place. Things are looking up!

Fun with "My cousins, the boys"

We had several get togethers with Faye, Javier and "the boys". It is always great fun. Here Dilly and Rowan (you see only her hand) are up in the boys tree house.
Nathan takes the kids on a wheelbarrow ride, almost as fun as Disneyland!
A treehouse and wheelbarrow ride, what more could you ask for?
This was our first gathering
Niko, Maceo, Rowan and Dilly playing with the Fisher Price toys I saved many years for my grandchildren. I also have Leggos and a several boxes of blocks. I love getting them out when the kids are here.

Wearing Nana's Hat

For the love of Trains!

Dilly loves trains and anything else that has wheels. He especially loves Thomas the Train which he actually got to ride on later when they were in Utah. We rode a number of trains while they were in Phoenix. Dylan's eyes would get big and his mouth would open like an "O" in excitement and adoration. We rode the light rail in Phoenix to go downtown and see the sights. Actually the guys, including our friend Chris, were going to go to the NRA convention and see the exhibits but there was a 2 hour wait just to get in. They ended up joining Kirs, Rowan and I for lunch instead. The light rail has always been crowded every time we ride it, but I'm not sure how many are paying customers because no one ever asks to see your tickets. They are going to raise the rates in July and are thinking of selling the naming rights!
I set up the train at home when everyone else was at the store. We really had a fun, exciting time. Rowan was the engineer and Dilly the tunnel (he stood over the track) and conductor. At first Rowan would speed up so fast or reverse directions without stopping that the train went off the tracks about 40 or more times. All in all she was a great engineer. I had steel wool in the box for cleaning the tracks (the kids asked me what it was for and I told them). At one point when I was talking on the phone, I looked over and there was Dilly rubbing the steel wool on the tracks and sparks were flying 6 or 8 inches in the air! I dropped the phone and ran over and turned off the electricity to the tracks. We had our own little train fireworks compliment of Dilly.
We also rode the train at Encanto Park Kiddie Land. After riding this train Rowan and Dylan pose in front of the engine. Being at Encanto Park reminded me of fond memories. Encanto Park with its lagoons used to be the only place with water (except the canals) in Phoenix. We went there a lot when we were kids so Mum could sit by the lagoon because she was homesick for water, any water. Encanto park is very large and is a great place to explore as a kid. There are many bridges going over the lagoon, you can rent a boat or just explore the park. My favorite place in the park (other than Kiddie Land) was a large area where there were tall reeds. There were tunnels and paths through the reeds like a maze. It was really fun like finding your way in a jungle and trying to find the way out. We played chase games, pirate games and I had my favorite route. I know that area is no longer there, I suppose for safety reasons, but we really had great times in that maze! Kiddie Land has been revamped, but much is the same as when I was a kid and our kids were kids. We've had many a birthday party there over the years. The carousel is exactly the same, the train has a new engine, but most of the track and train is the same, the roller coster has the same track, but has been changed into a dragoon roller cooster instead of the plain one we had.
This is Kirs, Rob and the kids riding in the train at the Scottsdale train park.
This is the train at the Scottsdale train park.

Grandparents tour

Kirs, Rob, Rowan and Dilly were here from India in mid May. I took 5 days off school! We had a great time doing fun kid things. We went to the Children's Museum which was like old home week because this was one of their favorite stomps when they were staying with us last fall. We went to the Train park in Scottsdale. Here Dilly and his Dad are riding on the carousel. He wasn't sure he liked it at first, but he did ride it twice, so I guess it grew on him.
This was a train museum which was an engine and train cars used by 4 different Presidents. Dilly was very upset because we left this big train w/o it going anywhere. This is a hand cart in the museum.

Rowanisms: I need to wash my hands I was rubbing woshin (lotion) on them. When spitting at Dilly while saying "Swiper no swiping" (3 times like Dora the explorer says), Kirsten says, I don't think Dora does that! Rowan says, " Well I do!" Being a pirate, "tiber me shimbers".
Dillyisms: Oh, tay! DaDa let's dough! MaMa hold lellow parpar (parrot). DaDa, wide (ride) twain. RoRo dak my base (Rowan take my space). HaHa gan now (Hungry again now). TeTe TaTa (teeter-totter). Cincinlela (Cinderella)