Last Wednesday, me and the kids went on a campus tour of Stanford. It was great! There was an hour with an admissions counselor and then an hour walking around campus on a student-led tour. I met up with Kirk Bertsche, a research scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (originally SLAC=Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), who I met at the ASA conference the previous weekend, and he came along on the tour and then later showed me and the kids SLAC which is a couple miles away in Menlo Park (I didn't get any pictures - darn!). At any rate, both kids really loved Stanford! Me too. The saying on Sam's shirt means (in Latin) Seize the day before the eyes of God (or, in the presence of God). It's from when he attended Holy Trinity Episcopal School.
A close up view. This is all done in tile! And it was destroyed in some sort of disaster like 3 times... and redone. The story the tour guide told about it was pretty amazing. It was created by the wife of the man who founded Stanford (Leland Stanford) in memorial for him (the University was founded by the couple for their son who died young). Kirk and I snuck away from the group and peeked inside - O.M.G. ... it is absolutely stunning inside!
A shot of the Old Union at Stanford. Before the tour, we ate lunch at Jimmy V's sports bar which was actually quite good! It is in the Athletic facilities, because that was the closest place to eat on campus near the Student Center where the tour started.
Savi in the Stanford hoodie that she bought, standing in the lobby of the Donatello (where we stayed). 
After we got back to San Francisco, we met up with Paige and headed to Chinatown for dinner. San Fran's Chinatown is the biggest in the nation! This is a phone photo of the Chinatown gate at Grant and Bush.
The kids at one of the statues at Chinatown Gate. The eyes are painted with a fluorescent color and in Paige's photos the statue's eyes glow! I think they did that on purpose... I think I took this pic without flash though so you don't get the effect.
We shopped and had dinner at a little hole in the wall that got good reviews on Yelp (love the app! Very handy. We avoided one nearby that had bad reviews...). That is Paige, Lu and Sam on the left side of the picture. 
Some cool looking lanterns outside a Japanese restaurant. It's actually not in Chinatown (a couple blocks away) but goes with the theme. :)
This is Savi and Paige by the Polyhedron Fountain at Caltech - California Institute of Technology - in Pasadena (phone pic - apologies for poor quality!). We lived there for two years because my ex-hubster was a postdoc there. Sam was born in Cali (see photo below for the apartments we lived at where he was born - yes a homebirth!). The kids have seen Caltech campus before because we stopped by 5 years back when we went to LA for a day and a half en route to Australia, but they were younger and not thinking about colleges! 
Savannah by the Gene Pool.
Paige looks comfy in the grass at Caltech!
Where Sam was born! I actually hated this apartment sooo much. It was a roach motel, and no matter what they did to treat them they would just go next door and come back. My ex refused to move for the two years so I was stuck there (probably why we're divorced - ha ha). A woman's home is her haven, and I find great pleasure in having a simple, colorful, peaceful space to live now! Anyway they have painted the outside and it looks even nicer than it really is. Even Savannah said, "I can't believe I lived in such a ghetto place." LOL! Across the street when we lived there, the building had windows shot out and there were gunshots on occasion. A guy was killed down the street. It's only a few blocks from Caltech but I guess it's the less-safe side... Maybe it's different now.
The last night I was there we had a barbecue for Renata (Paige's roomie) returning and my farewell. This is Paige, Bruce, Kim, Renata, Randlet and me! It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of laughs!! I even impressed Bruce with my 49ers knowledge (well I may not really have impressed him, LOL, but we can thank Doug for teaching me more about football and knowing more about the 49ers from watching it for 2 seasons now).
1 comment:
Great pictures hun:-)
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