Subject: Weekend Update: February 27-March 1, 2003
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 17:03:56 -0500

(Only time for one pass today.  Hope the typos are not rife.)

On Friday, Jessica came home with two of her bridesmaids so
that Joy could fit them properly in the dresses she is making
for them at cost of material.  Two other bridesmaid may get
potato sacks if they are not sufficiently attentive to the
approaching deadlines.  Brooke and Maryanne were suitably
grateful for the cost savings, but moreso after the ladies
went out on Saturday morning to the Bridal shop and saw the
cost of off-the-rack models, and the cost of use-once rental
tuxedoes.  Jessica settled on and ordered the wedding dress,
tuxedoes, and flowers for the wedding, all significant
milestones in the process.  Joy took some pictures (which I
cannot share at this time).

I was off on a different errand Saturday, with Andrew and Emily.
I picked up a new aluminum handle part for my snow thrower, and
the superstitious among us will know that it was the fact that
I repaired my snowthrower that afternoon that meant that our=20
area got rain and not snow on Sunday. The other part of my
errand was to buy my last Coke Slurpee for a while.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday just two days from now.  I will
be setting aside my Coca-cola consumption until Easter Sunday
morning on April 20.  This year, seven people in our church,
including me, were asked to write short devotionals for the
days of the Lenten season.  Poor Melissa Andrew was up through
the 10 o'clock hour on Saturday night, printing and stapling
these devotional booklets because the final draft wasn't=20
submitted to her unto Thursday afternoon.  I dropped Emily
and Andrew off at the church for the Pine Car Derby giong on
in the gym and went to help Melissa with last-second edits and
proofreading.  She did a great job of adding graphics, providing
a second edit, and formatting the text.  The writers also did
a fine job, too.  If you want a copy (sorry, not formatted as
Melissa did for the print job), you can access it here:

http://www.lowellfirstchurch.org/uploadedFiles/LentenDevotionalAdobe.pdf

Joy was tired enough on Saturday night that I took her out to
eat at the fabulous Chef Denny's, which was near the Christmas
Tree Shoppe that she wanted to go into.  Meanwhile, Emily invited
a bunch of her friends over for a movie that evening.

I hardly saw Miranda all weekend because she was up and out
early on Saturday morning to help Melissa move into her new
Lowell apartment.  She ate dinner over at the Papes and didn't
come home until after Joy and I had gone to bed.

On Sunday after church, we all gathered in the gym for a 40th
Birthday party for Paul Hunt.  I welcomed him to my decade,
though he clung to 39 until 5:30PM.  Kristin Hunt gave me a
recordable DVD to record the Winston Cup 400, and I did as
asked, but alas, the race lasted longer than the DVD and it
ended with 14 laps to go.  Fortunately, Paul got home in time
to watch it live, being one the biggest race fans I know.  I
can only hope that there was a non-injurious wreck for him
to freeze frame.

Mark