All Aboard the Choo-Choo Train

School is in full swing, and the Brewster Boys are very busy during the week. Russell is especially swamped, given the extra hours each day he spends with his autism specialists. That's why we've decided to take the boys out on weekends as often as we can. It doesn't have to be a big deal, just a break from the hectic pace of their weekdays.

This weekend, we went back to Tilden Park in Berkeley to ride on the train and the merry-go-round. I think they really enjoyed themselves.

The train enters the station

Onboard the train, the boys anticipate a fun ride

We rode in a box car this time

The boys scream with delight as we entered the tunnel

Punky insisted on riding the giraffe on the merry-go-round

A Very Punky Birthday

Here are some pictures from Punky's birthday party at his preschool, as I promised earlier. We bought a Madagascar cake from Safeway.

There's a lot of artificial color on Punky's cake!

Punky and his preschool classmates prior to the candle-lighting

Jenny with Punky on his big day

Last Weekend Before School Starts

It was a very busy Labor Day weekend for us. We decided to end the summer with plenty of activities before Russell's official first day of kindergarten on the day after Labor Day. Jenny and I also had our quarterly date night on Saturday, thanks to Jenny's mom who agreed to watch the kids while we had Mexican food and saw "The Nanny Diaries".

The highlight of the weekend had to be taking the kids out to see their first big-screen movie on Sunday. In this case, it was the IMAX film "The Living Seas" at the Chabot Science Center in Oakland. While the movie was only 40 minutes long, Russell and Punky sat in their seats through the whole movie and clearly enjoyed watching schools of fish swimming across the huge IMAX screen. Afterwards, we winged it and scored a miniature train ride at Berkeley's Tilden Park. Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera with me.

On Monday, we visited Children's Fairyland in Oakland. This small-scale theme park was supposedly the inspiration for Walt Disney to create Disneyland. Russell had already visited the park during the summer with his classmates at summer school, so he bugged me several times to take him back. Both Russell and Punky loved the tiny rides and storybook exhibits with slides, treehouses and miniature gardens. I've posted some pictures below.

Tomorrow is Russell's first day of kindergarten, so we ended the day early so that Russell could get some rest for the big day. I'll let you know what happens.

Russell and Punky in the front of the "Old Lady that Lived in a Shoe"

This was the first time the Russell and Punky rode on a merry-go-round without us!

The Brewster Boys clearly enjoyed watching themselves in the trick mirrors

They even sat still during the puppet show presentation of Aseop's Fables

Russell gives one of the Seven Dwarves a pat on the head while Punky counts them