Just a quick note. 

My partner and I went to see Robot Dreams with the 11 and 9 year olds about a week and a half ago. First, the movie is awesome! It stays almost true to the book in that there are very, very few words at all. More in the movie than there ever were in the book, but still. The whole thing was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it.

The oldest kid wasn't there because she was attending summer camp up on the orthern edge of the penninsula. 

After the movie, my partner and I went off to do errands in one direction, the 11 and 9 year old headed  towards the house on BART. And! Guess what?

They ran into their older sib on the bus home. There routes coincidentally linked up for the last leg and they hopped on the sam bus she was on. About a stop later, they all realized it.

Public transit and independent kids are pretty awesome! We got to do our errands. The kids got to go do what they wanted, and they ran into each othere anyway! Without transit, I doubt we could have even seen the movie because we'd have been making camp pickups and whatnot. Woooo MUNI and BART!