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This is the second of a whirlwind three days. We are unpacking, then packing, going to the cleaners, shopping, trying to remember everything and endeavoring to get caught up on sleep. As I am saying this, I realize that this is not going to evoke a great deal of sympathy from any of you. I am excited about going to Bonaire on Monday for a month. The usual resort guests will not be there in October and so Mary Anne and I will have much more time with just each other which will be really good. The temperature will be about the same but because the wind will be much less, it will seem hotter. In October, they have a large sailing regatta and also the annual coral spawn (not nearly as sexy as it may sound). This happens at night and we have never been in Bonaire in October so we are anxious to see that.

I am still feeling excellent. I am thinking, just a walking miracle.....an answer to all the prayers from so many. Thanks....you have touched my heart and obviously God's also!!!

Joe

Paris - 1

Dear Friends,
We have been in Paris for 5 days and leave the hotel in the morning and don't come home til about 9 at night. We are having a great time and Joe is keeping up quite well. We have been to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Arch de Triumphe and others. Tomorrow we go to Versailles. We walked 7 miles each of the last two days so we are getting our exercise. Joe continues to feel just fine and he is taking hundreds of pictures. We enjoy traveling with the Carnevales - our ideas of a good time match up so well. we will attend church at Notre Dame on Sunday although we already visited it the other day. We plan to go to Euro Disney on Tuesday and we head home on Thursday.
Love to all of you and thanks for your comments about the video Cassie posted and the party. God Bless
Mary Anne

What A Great Day!

For several months, our son Kevin and our daughter Cassie and George (a friend) have been working on putting together "It's a Wonderful Life"...Joe Coburn. A celebration. It was a golf outing that began with lunch, a demonstration by the world's foremost trick shot artist, Peter Longo (who donated his time to put on the show), 18 holes of golf and dinner. Everything went off as smoothly as could be imagined. Friday the 14th was predicted to be a lousy day but after much prayer, God came through with a cloudless, beautiful day.

We had about 64 golfers and an additional 75 people that came to the dinner. To say the least, I was overwhelmed by the response. We had people come from Milwaukee, St. Louis, Georgia, Florida, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Toronto, Canada, Phoenix, Arkansas and Ohio. People that I had worked with and had not seen in years, made such an effort to help celebrate that day. Of course, as Mary Anne says, "They would rather come to this than a funeral." Yea, me too! Cassie had little bells on each table with pictures of me at all different ages on little tags on the bells and additionally made an awesome video with lots of pictures of me with great, appropriate music. She is so talented. Each one of the children got up and spoke....just beautiful. Then Kevin invited others to come to the mic if they wished and many did. It was so affirming.

The fact is that I have had a wonderful life. I have been blessed with an awesome wife, four great children, eight grandchildren and the best of friends. I have been so blessed by God. He has allowed me to be here far longer than I thought I would be after the diagnosis in July of 06. He is either not done with me or He has more work for me to do.....maybe some of each.

Monday, the 17th we are flying to Paris for 9 days with dear friends the Carnevales who we have vacationed with many times. We return home on the 27th of Sept. We are home for three days and then fly to Bonaire on October 1st and will be there for a month.

If you are reading this blog, I have been blessed by you because you are a relative, a friend someone who is praying for me or at the least someone who cares and is interested.

You have all touched my heart so. Yesterday was one of the GREATEST days of my life. For all of you who shared in that day..........THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Love you,

Joe

Prayers answered - Praise God

Hi Friends,

We just returned home from the doctors with the report of the P.E.T. scan. The report is not as detailed as the ones we got in Arizona but there are no new sites and the current tumors in the liver and lungs remain about the same. The lung ones may be a bit larger but the largest is only 2 cm. the liver ones are still partly necrotic, which means dead, so not real active. The blood results were all normal including the liver enzymes. We didn't get the Ca 19-9 back but that is not real important in intrahepatic. The doctor was pleased with the results and will keep Joe on the same IPT schedule and we are thrilled that his condition remains stable. He has some queasiness over Labor Day weekend but it is gone now.

We have added some joy to our life. We have a friend who broke her kneecap and needed someone to care for her 4 1/2 pound mostly Maltese dog. Since we lost Jake in May, I jumped at the chance so we have Gabe until we leave for Paris, Sept. 17th. He is a delightful dog and fills a spot in our hearts. Look how tiny he is! We went to see the Bourne Ultimatum last night to get Joe's mind off today and it was really exciting.
We are happy so many of you can make it to the golf outing or just the dinner. We are truly celebrating prayers answered and praying for wisdom in what God wants us to do with our time here. We thank all of you for your prayers and support in this waiting time especially. We wanted to wait for this report to blog but we called several of you on the way home from the doctor. Have a great day and God Bless you all. Mary Anne