Google and Great America

George, Scott and Zoe at Google Headquarters

Some of the iconic statues adorning the courtyard

 Palo Alto is a beautiful city and we feel lucky to have our daughter Zoe and her family live there. The weather was very nice (as it was in Tulsa) with mid 70's during the day and cool at night. George works at Google so we had the pleasure of visiting him there and having lunch. He chose the traditional Asian restaurant (they have over restaurants on campus - all free) and it was great. Outside in the garden we enjoyed statues of the icons of google world. This has become a tourist attraction.
Our grandsons, Nick (10) and Tommy (6) were in school this week. The Palo Alto school system is wonderful and they live only blocks from their school. But on the weekend they had a flurry of activities. We all went to a really fun Halloween Party at their Aunt Kyrie's, all in costume. Nick was Merlin and Tommy a Knight. George and Zoe came as Star Trek's Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura. Scott and I weren't very prepared but managed funny hats to sort of look like Mrs. Santa Claus and Indiana Jones.
On Sunday we took the boys to Great America Amusement Park and we all had a great time, although it made me really appreciate how good the Disney Parks are.

Tommy carved his pumpkin in the park with his Cub Scout
Troup

 The boys favorite attraction by far was the foam pit! It reminded me of the corn box in Tulsa. Sometimes the low tech simple things allow the most creative fun.
As always it was very hard to say good-bye to both families. We sure wish our kids were closer to us, but they've chosen great places to live and flourish.

Nick rides behind me in a small roller coaster

Scott and Nick had a boat to themselves for two trips
over the Waterfall - Yahoo!

Hang on!

Tommy loved skippering the radio controlled boats

Nick and Grandpa on the Centrifuge

Slushies and Snoopy

But the big hit was the Foam Pit

They both had a fabulous time and got
totally soaked from head to toe

That's Nick rising from the foam for a breath

We had a lot of fun just watching them play, but we
weren't tempted to join them.

Afterwards they rinsed off in a water
attraction and then the full body dryer 

We finished off the day at Round Table Pizza. Luckily
there was a video game to play with while we waited.