The Brown's Week

Jason, Dylan, my father in law, and I spent last week in Moscow working
on our new house, in order to have it ready to move into on the 27th.
The lady who lived there before had a cat and ferrets, so first thing we
did was tear out all the carpet and pad, or what was left of the pad, and
paint Kilz on the floor to block out the smell. That didn't take care of
all of the smell, but it's not nearly as bad anymore. Jason and Dennis
tore out and rebuilt the front deck, which was really wobbly and rotten,
and Dylan and I painted the new deck. We also pulled staples from the
floor, spackled the walls, and spread a skim coat of cement on the
kitchen floor and sanded it to get it ready for new linoleum. It had
carpet glued to it. We picked out new linoleum and carpet, and it should
be installed before we move. So that was a lot of work. The rest of the
kids stayed in Rigby with their Grandma Brown. We found out on Monday
that my angel mother in law, on top of the MS she's been suffering with
for 20 years, now has breast cancer. Dennis knew she was waiting to
hear. We didn't know and never would have gone to Moscow and left the
kids with Laurie if we'd known she was dealing with that. We tried to
leave right then to go back home, but Dennis wouldn't and Laurie didn't
want us to. She said it wouldn't change anything and she wanted us to
get done what we needed to before we left. So we stayed. It was a rough
week emotionally. Laurie is either a really good faker or she's really
not as freaked out about this as the rest of us are. She had a port put
in to receive the chemotherapy, which will probably start next week. She
still has to go to the oncologist and have a full body scan to see if the
cancer has spread. It's a big lump -- 6 centimeters -- and growing fast.
Please remember her and Dennis in your prayers. We got back to Rigby
late Friday night, drove home Saturday morning and stayed just long
enough to unpack the car and shower, then headed down to Malad for the
Brown reunion. It's been crazy around here, and won't get any better for
at least a couple of weeks, until after the move.