Subject: Weekend Update: March 19-21
Date:    Mon 3/22/99  9:27am

I took a vacation day on Friday to jumpstart our weekend where this
Metcalfe Family was hither and yon bouncing in and out of each other's
lives in various locations in this Commonwealth.  

Emily and Jessica left home last Wednesday to attend the regional
Festival of Life, which is Eastern Nazarene College's event to
introduce people in grades 7 through 12 to college life.  Of course,
all they really get is the demo version.

On Friday, I had the luxury of sleeping until 8AM, but I had planned
three objectives for the day, which was to have lunch with David Sahw
(who was at FOL), dig up some red raspberry plants to add to our fruit
treasures, and to bring Miranda and her friend, Melissa Christmas,
home for the weekend.  Joy wanted to come along but she had her hands
full that evening with an uncooperative children's musical rehearsal.
I'm not sure if the kids were more poorly behaved or Joy was less able
to cope (as she so often capably does) due to some pre-procedure
chemicals she has circulating in her bloodstream.  Anyway, by the end
of her objectives, she really wished she had come to ENC with me.

(Hey Bill, saw my first robin Friday in Abington; Dad pointed it out.
I saw the same Robin in Pepperell on Sunday.)

Having acheived my objectives with the added benefit of being with my
parents and helping Emily to work out the recovery of her coat that
she left at an arena in Weymouth, some of us returned for a relaxing
weekend at Metcalfe Manor.  What I mean to say is that Joy and I
ushered in the first day of Spring with a full day of yard work, and
we have the cuts and scrapes on our hands and body to prove it; battle
scars.  Joy uncovered our beds of crocuses.  I burned a lot of tree
trash.  (Not leaves; they're prohibited.)  The kids were as far-flung
as ever, with Andrew and Emily in Nashua for a quiz meet and Jessica
returning from ENC late because of an council meeting.  Fortunately,
we put Mandy to the taxi service so that we could ache and moan to our
hearts' content all evening having used the muscles that have been as
dormant as the plants all winter.

We took Mandy and Melissa back to school after church Sunday evening
taking the longer way around Boston because of a tanker truck
explosion that closed down the highway through the middle of Boston.
I bet even Harry in Australia might catch a report of that on his news!  

We stopped in to Sharon Knox's lovely home and lo and behold she had
stenciled her living room walls with the very same stencil we chose
for our living room.  Steve reminded me that Sharon did it first.

This weekend was likely to be tamer than the one that is coming up
because of my neice's senior recital and the Crawford family members
that will be arriving for the event.  But as I think of it, I much
prefer this to the terrible February I had!  We're outdoors again and
looking forward to a spectacular year!

Mark