Fountain Swimming and Hoover Tower

 When Moojie was up in the city for a week of tennis camp, Pai and I took 5 of the little kids to Stanford for a visit to the top of Hoover Tower. Tay got her words a little crossed and called it the "Hoover Damn Tower" which kept Pai and I laughing for the better part of the week.

As soon as the kids saw the fountain below, they starting begging to take a swim.

 Even though Caroline doesn't have sisters, she has the best girl-cousins who take her into the sister fold every time they see each other. I'm so grateful for that.

 Seeing Portola Valley from the tower was a treat.

 What started out as just dipping their feet in, turned into a full fountain swim.

The kids declared it one of the best days of Summer, and it certainly was.

Stanford Campus Tour

During our first week in California, the little kids went up to the city for a night leaving just me and Moojie with the day to ourselves. I seized the opportunity to get in a serious Stanford campus tour before tour groups descended upon it. It's normally a little more bustling that what you see here.

Moojie has been to Stanford many many times, and in fact the last time we were there he spent the day in a stem cell lab to see science in action.

 This visit was different. however, because Moojie starts high school in a few weeks and college is actually something to start thinking about. Plus, the campus is " a real city" as my niece Anna calls it, and is so big that it would takes weeks to walk the whole thing. We started at the quad and Moojie was instantly in love with the place, and picked up on all of the familiarities of home- palms, red tile roof tops, the exact same trees we have in our garden at home, and of course, the ever captivating arches. Perfect weather didn't hurt.
 






We walked over to the Rodin sculpture garden where we were disappointed to learn that the early morning get up and go culture of the Bay Area does not apply to the Stanford Art Museum. An 11am opening time is worse than Portugal!  The garden itself could occupy a whole day so all was not lost.

It's hard not to love this place. In fact, when the tour was over, marked by my inability to walk any further, Moojie remarked that he didn't know how anyone would want to go any place other than Stanford.  Mission accomplished.

Stay tuned for part two. I returned with Pai and 5 of the cousins for a visit to the top of  Hoover Tower.