BilikFamily.com

Anniversary - Today is our 17th anniversary of marriage. Where did the time go? When I was a teen, I was considered one of the last people who would get married. Instead I was one of the earliest. Down the hall sleep five little Biliks. That's another shock to those who knew me back then...

Today is supposed to be a gorgeous day. I'm taking a vacation day from work. We'll probably take the kids out for donuts. I get to take Michelle's step class today for the first time in many moons. We'll probably hit a pool this afternoon and have dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Claire has been wanting to eat there for some time. We figure it's got a reasonable kids menu and is fairly loud inside so the kids shouldn't be trouble. *grin*

Zoo - Last Saturday was another nice weather day. We drove the kids down into Boston for the first time to see the Franklin Park Zoo. It was their first time seeing the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge and the tunnel of the Big Dig. Since the Big Dig was a federally funded, over budget, over schedule boondoggle, I guess I should thank all of my tax paying relatives for that subsidy to the highway construction lobby. Having the GPS was valuable in navigating to and from the zoo. We were extra blessed when we found out that admission is half off on the mornings of the first Saturday of every month.

On our way home the GPS was a bit weird because it took us a different route home. Perhaps there were one way streets or some other reason. We must have gone through over half a dozen rotaries as it led us back to the highway. I don't mind rotaries, but the exits of many Boston area rotaries are poorly marked. It's like a test to filter the Boston natives from the visitors, kind of like Nashua's jughandle turns. For those who've not been to Nashua, there are several places, especially along route 101A, where you must bear right to make a left turn. It a source of many traffic incidents.

We stopped by the Burlington Mall area on the way home for lunch at a Chili's. I think it may have been one of the first times we took all the kids out to a 'real' restaurant chain (beyond Burger King or McDonalds). Since they behaved well we went afterwards to the large, two-story Barnes and Noble next door. That turned out to be an adventure...

Everyone was having fun as we browsed around their large children's book section. After about 45 minutes it was time to head downstairs and purchase their selections. Timothy and I led the way down the escalator. The twins were behind me, followed by Michelle, and then the girls. As I get off the escalator and help Timothy, I look up and see that the twins have decided to sit down on the (temporarily) extended step. I urge them to stand up, but it's too late. Soon they are stuck near the bottom of the steps as the steps disappear into the base of the escalator. It has a bit of a domino effect as Michelle falls and the girls try to avoid getting hurt. Michelle got a nasty scrape on her knee but it seemed that it was Claire's ego that was most injured as she felt very embarrassed by the whole thing. After purchasing the books, I had Michelle take the kids to the van while I bought her a frozen coffee drink. It would serve two purposes: resting it on her knee would cool the stinging sensation and drinking it would help her feel better emotionally.

Sunday - Sunday was pretty calm by comparison. We did the usual morning Mass followed by donuts. The highlight of that morning was finding out that our friends Tammy and Peter finally got a foster child — a beautiful 15 month old girl. They've no children of their own and had been on a waiting list. They were understandably very excited.

Later that morning we mowed and the girls had a couple of friends over. After Timothy's nap I took everyone (friends included) out to Haywards for ice cream. Otherwise it was an ordinary Sunday.

Movies - We watched two very different movies over the weekend. The first, Since You Went Away, was a movie filmed during World War II. It had three heavyweight Hollywood actresses: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, and Shirley Temple. I recognized Colbert from having seen It Happened One Night. It took me a while to remember Jones from The Song of Bernadette but her voice was unmistakable. Shirley Temple had a pretty modest role in the movie. This is the second movie I've seen of her as a teenager, the other being The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. Overall the movie did a decent job of showing the struggles of a mother and her two daughters coping while the father was off fighting in the war. Be forewarned, it's a long movie — almost three hours — with an intermission in the middle.

Claire endured it with me. She's starting to learn to like the classic movies I rent. A year ago she wouldn't have bothered as soon as seeing that the film was black and white. Now that doesn't phase her. She's starting to understand that even though old movies didn't have the special effects of modern movies, their themes, stories, and acting still makes them worthwhile. They often evoke a lot of questions from her about the era in which they were filmed.

On the lighter side we watched Disney's Shaggy Dog. It was a typical Disney popcorn movie: some special effects, a predictable plot, a moral to the story, and a happy ending where the bad guy is sent to jail and the family issues are all worked out. I don't think it'll be earning any awards, but it was fun for the family.