Mon Dec  9 08:06 EST 1996
Weekend Update: December 6-8

What a weekend!  You people on my list who are not from around here
may have heard on the news about the weather.  We didn't because our
power was out for almost 24 hours.

On Friday it snowed and we got several inches.  It was a slow snow,
sprinkling and taking its time accumulating, but made for a nasty commute
home for many people.  I left early from work.  My nephew's betrothed
was to come to our house with her bridesmaids but canceled because of
the snow and the traffic.  But Friday was tame by comparison.

On Saturday, the snow stopped for most of the day (except for the
sprinkle with little to no further accumulation).  Perfect for the
wedding we attended.  It was a morning wedding and a Spirit-filled
wedding.  I enjoyed it so much.  The trees, everywhere we drove,
were decorated in the white lace of winter.  The bride (Karyn Lane)
has her maternal heritage from Hawaii and her mom performed the Hula
dance for all the guests at the reception.  I know it took all of
Coleen's courage to do that, but it was wonderful and spectacular.
(No, she wasn't wearing a grass skirt!)

After the wedding, we returned home.  Our nephew and his intended was
there.  Since Erin couldn't come the night before, we were able to have
them visit on Saturday and overnight.  Hope and Tom (da' nephew's parents)
also came down Saturday evening, a day early to beat the snow.  They
stayed at the Red Roof Inn (nice room, nice price, noisy parties).

The snow started in earnest late afternoon and it was a heavy snow,
not quite wet, but nearly so.  Remember the lacey trees?  They began to
choke up with avalances of snow on them.  We kept seeing these blue
flashes of light outside our windows.  Tranformers were arching!
The power went out around 11:15 on Saturday night.

Church was canceled Sunday morning. No electricity.  We were still
without but lit the gas stove with a match to feed everyone.  We
also have a gas furnace but it has electric start and forced hot air by
fan blower.  We were fortunate that our house never got below 58 (and that
was after dark).  Jessica and I went out and filled four plastic
grocery bags full of snow and placed them in our cabinet freezer in
the basement.  Hope and Tom stopped back in after their daughter's
concert at Gordon college.  They intended to spend the night but thought
better of it since our power was still out at 9PM; they traveled home to
Northern Vermont that evening.  We found every candle and lit it.
We turned on the stove to raise the temperature a couple of degrees.
We went to bed not knowing when the power would come on.

It was past 10:30 PM when our lights came on.  I arose from bed to
check the house for all the switches that were on.  The power outage
had been starting to concern me but when the power came back on, there
were mixed feelings about ending the adventure.

----

Housing update: Joy and I have found a house in Pepperell, MA that
we really like so much that it hurts to hope to get it (because we
need to get REAL aggressive with selling our house now).  I'll tell
you all more about it when things look like they are going to happen.
Right now, we're praying that "this is it."  But Meredith Debow put
things in the best perspective, I think.  "If it isn't God's best then
*it isn't worth it.*"  That strikes the cord with me because things
are temporal.  Now let me tell you that we're still hoping that this
is the one that IS worth it!

Mark
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