OMIGOSH--the bathroom is almost finished!!

Today has been a red letter day in the life of Project Smith. Micah & Patience Long arrived mid morning ready to start tearing out the old vanity, and toilet. This prepared the way for Charley Smith to fix the old floor and prepare it for the new vinyl. The vinyl looks like wooden planks and is way cool! It really makes the bathroom floor look old. Then Micah and Patience returned to install the new vanity and sink, plus they put up the new medicine cabinet. But not until Bob & Sue Adams had to make a Home Depot run and purchase another medicine cabinet, as the original one had a major defect!! Once they returned with the medicine cabinet, Micah and Bob installed it. Thanks again guys for all of your hard work and for taking your day off to help us out!!

So everything is installed and ready to go. Micah is planning on building me a new storage cabinet to slide in front of the hot water heater. Patience told me that I should have Lynsey take pictures and post them on the blog, so I'll try to do that. Thank you Patti Ann for babysitting the little ones while Micah and Patience finished putting everything together. It really looks nice--all shiny and new!!

Bob & Sue picked out the white vanity, sink and cabinets, in addition, they picked out the flooring and really did a great job. Thanks again and enjoy your vacation, as you relax for 2 weeks in California!!

In addition to the bathroom up and running, our pool was being spruced up by Preference Pools, thanks to Art Adams. The guy was practically at our pool all day digging out leaves from the winter months and adding chemicals to make it look sparkly clean! He even cleaned the tiles, our pool will be in shock of the treatment it is receiving. Thanks again Art, we really and truly appreciate you for doing this for us!!

A major prayer request::: Steve is having another CAT-Scan tomorrow (Thursday) at 6:00 p.m. at Mercy. This scan will let us know if we are winning or losing the cancer battle. A very scary time for both he and I.
I keep praying that the Lord will heal Steve and that they won't find any evidence of cancer in his body. This scan will also tell us whether treatment is helping or not. Please pray that whatever the scan shows--that the Lord will walk ahead of us and prepare us for the news!! That we can make wise decisions in handling what lies ahead of us. The Lord has been with us each step of the way and my prayer is that the Lord be especially close to us, as we face this news together and with our families!! I still pray for a Miracle!!

Steve is feeling pretty good, only weak from the long hospitalization. He is still one of the strongest men I know emotionally! We talk about everything, we laugh, we share our thoughts, and most importantly, we cry together about life's uncertainties!! It's funny, we should all look at life this way, because no one is assured of another day. Yet we all live like we have unlimited days ahead. The pure act of being so vulnerable with one another is almost cleansing in a way--we don't want our days to be filled with regrets!!

We are looking forward to him being stronger by Sunday and hopefully able to attend Palm Sunday services. We haven't been in church together for months and really hope that we can attend during the Easter season.

Thank the Lord for friends who come along side of us in praying for us, in friends who labor for us, for friends who have contributed financially to us during this very expensive time of travelling back and forth to Portland, and for friends who bring us meals. All of these very meaningful gifts are so joyfully received, as we know that God is in each act of giving!! Thank you can never be good enough, but unfortunately at this time, thanks is all we can say to you. And May God bless you richly for thinking of us during this very difficult time!!

mj and Steve