BilikFamily.com

Weather :

• Saturday noon: 55°F
• Sunday noon: 17°F

Man! What a difference a day makes! Last night when we went to bed, it was still rather warm. A few hours into the night, the winds stirred up as a result of the new cold front that quickly moved in. Late Sunday morning I fired up the snowthrower to get rid of the overnight accumulation. It wasn't much, but it had a very strange consistency due to the overnight temperature shift.

Music - In the strange world of family life, I started out the day asking fellow weblogger Bill White about the Renaissance music of William Byrd, but within a couple of hours I found myself buying The Lazytown CD via the iTunes Music Store. The two styles of music could not be more different. My younger kids love Lazytown. (I suspect women love Sportacus) It really gets the kids up and dancing, so having the music on the family computer gave them something to enjoy on a bitter cold morning. They also spent some time chasing each other on their motorcycles and playing with the stability ball. Several of the girls' friends came over so there was playing with the piano, baking with the EZBake oven, playing hide and seek, etc.

Titanic - At the recommendation of movie reviewer Steven Greydanus Michelle, Claire, her friend, and I watched "A Night to Remember", a 1958 movie about the Titanic. We all agreed that although it was filmed decades ago, it seemed in many ways even better than the blockbuster Leonardo DiCaprio / Kate Winslet version of 1997. While I often enjoy classics, it takes a lot for Michelle and Claire to get into them. Claire automatically groans when she finds out a DVD I rent is still black and white. The movie did a pretty good job for not having all the advanced computer generated graphics that the '97 version had. I thought that they spent more time on developing a broader range of characters, from peasants to ship staff to the rich. They also spent some time discussing the various places things went wrong that could have made a difference.

Door - After finishing the movie, Mighty Timbo and I head over to the local hardware store and picked up a Schlage door latch. The one on the front door had something binding it so that it wouldn't close easily unless you turned the knob as you closed the door. It made things rather difficult when you want to exit out the front door. When it's 10-20°F outside, you want to make sure the door has no problems closing!

We wrapped up the evening with dinner from KFC, watching Michelle conquer the boss stage at level 2 of Frogger: Ancient Shadow, and giving the twins a bath. Tomorrow I have off for MLK day so I get to attend Michelle's Monday step class for a change.