A Good Cause

Okay, fun story! The Arnold family who lives up the road from us have been on vacation for a little while. Their 12 year old son Andrew has liver cancer and they went on a super great vacation to Florida. I think they were hitting DisneyWorld and going on some kind of cruise. Teresa, the mother, told me that they have never even flown before so this was a real adventure. All 5 of the kids got to go, well, not kids, teenagers, and I hope they had a great time.

Their neighbors Cheri and Michelle arranged for their basement to be finished and furnished while they were gone. Can you believe that? Amazing. So to make a really long story short, a lot of people in our ward and community have been working for about 10 days on this project and Cheri said that so many people have donated work, time, and fun things like an amazing air hockey table and everything else in the new basement to the cause. Cheri said she couldn't believe how great the stores around here have been with donating supplies. I wish I would have been able to help more, but with 2 rambunctious sweeties and a husband that isn't home very often, I was a little limited. But I did get to help a little today and yesterday just spiffing things up.

Here is the finished project, well, half of it. The big family room was finished for the Arnolds and they love BYU so that was the theme. The other half is behind me in this picture.

The big BYU flag was signed by all the BYU football players earlier this fall for Andrew and Cheri had it framed for them. The other half of the room is a small downstairs kitchen. The tile work that was done is beautiful! It was so fun to see this project just cruise. I had been in their basement a few times before and the family room was just the concrete basement walls and floor. And look at it now! I saw it on Saturday, just 3 days ago and it had just been taped and textured. Look at what can happen when people want to do something good!

Michelle got a whole bunch of fun camping stuff for Andrew's bedroom because he LOVES camping. I couldn't get it all in, but she got a family heirloom flyrod and basket hung up, new sheets and comforter, cute little lantern light, the raw logs, and the fun bed tent.

Here is the upstairs living room. The new leather sectional sofa had to stay upstairs because it would not fit down the stairs. So they put the old one downstairs and are keeping the new one upstairs. It looks and feels so lucious!

The Arnolds were supposed to get home tonight around 8:00. I wish we could have all seen the look on their faces!

Kelsey came and helped a little today and she told me tonight, "Mom, maybe when we go to Grandma Ellen's house for Thanksgiving they will come and finish our basement too!" Kelsey and I have been planning our basement, if only Matt would agree with us!

By the way, my friend Brittany finally let me see her new little baby! She posted pictures on her blog since I really can't go see her, RSV season! She is a doll. Go see. She'll make you cry, just so you know. She always does that to me.