Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?: September 2006

What We're Watching at Home

Jenny and I get to watch only about 2-3 grown-up (I was about to say "adult"!) movies a year now. Since we only have one TV in the house, the kids usually watch what ever they want on the Disney Channel or from our growing DVD collection. As the boys get older, they've been watching less of the Elmo/Baby Einstein programming and more feature-length cartoons.

Lately, I have been purchasing about 1 movie a month for the boys to watch. These are two of their recent favorites. Mine, too.

We've had this for only a few days, but its already a Brewster Boys favorite

We've been watching Bambi for nearly a month

What's Happening?

I've been busy at work, and at home. I hope to update the blog shortly. Thanks for your patience.

Sacramento Trip Report, State Fair Edition

Once again, we headed up to Sacramento to visit the California State Fair over Labor Day weekend. This time, we added the California State Railroad Museum to our schedule. It wasn't as hot this weekend as it was in August, but we still avoided the heat by staying in the hotel room during the hottest part of the day. We spent two evenings at the Fair, viewing mostly the livestock areas but occasionally going on a ride or arts display.

During our visit, I discovered that the Fair and Railroad Museum have something in common other than being in Sacramento. It turns out that both of them had then-Gov. Ronald Reagan as a patron. In 1968, Reagan opened the fair at its permanent home, the Calfornia Exposition Center. Two years later, he spearheaded the initiative to build the museum on the historic site of Old Sacramento.

Our view of the California State Fair from the monorail

Then-Governor of California Ronald Reagan established the Cal Expo Center at Sacramento as the permanent home of the Annual State Fair

Once again, the Brewster Boys stopped by the Placer County farm display

This food stand sold the infamous deep-fried Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich

"Red Dresses", a prize-winning quilt on display at the Arts & Crafts pavillion

"Birds of California", another prize-winning quilt

Holding their State Fair souvenirs, the Brewster Boys get ready to sleep after the first night at the State Fair

Russell also takes a closer look at the award-winning turkey

Punky to turkey: "Gobble, gobble"

One of the Brewster Brothers' duck friends

An award-winning rooster at the Cal State Fair

Inside the chick nursery

The llamas were a friendly bunch

The longhorn cattle were at the Fair that weekend

Punky and Russell try out some scooters

Russell and Punky check out the whirlpool tub display

The opening of the Mane Event, the nightly horse show at the State Fair

Sacramento Trip Report, Railroad and Old Town Edition

At the Railroad Museum, we met a remarkable man in his 80s who was an retired employee of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and had met Reagan along with a group of his railroad colleagues. He was dressed in his conductor's uniform, and his eyes shined brightly when I asked him about his career and meeting with Reagan. Virtually all of the museum guides were retired railroad employees who volunteered their time to show people the railroad cars and answer questions.

I wish I had more time to spend at the museum, but Russell was not in the mood to tour the locomotives and passenger cars so we breezed through most of the displays and headed upstairs to the toy train displays. As it turned out, both Russell and Punky loved the Lionel trains and could have stayed there all day.