Stanford Art Museums

Stanford University has a terrific collection (and free!) spread over several museums. We’ve visited the Cantor a couple different times. It’s open during the day, of course, but also stays open late on Thursday evenings, so it’s great for a … Read More

Asian Art Museum & Main library

We were all surprised by just how much we loved the Asian Art Museum. While my family is Indian, I tend to prefer science-y and hands-on museums in addition to those with Western religious art. Still, we all found this … Read More

Seward Street Slides

We were excited to check out some long concrete slides in a tiny park not far from Twin Peaks. Sadly, we didn’t check the hours beforehand…because it never occurred to me that they would have hours. Rookie mistake – city … Read More

Cable Car Museum

We loved checking out the (free!) Cable Car Museum a few days after our arrival in SF. It was a great introduction to what is, in my opinion (and certainly that of my children), the most fun form of public … Read More

Bookstores in SF

We stopped into several bookstores during our time in SF.  We lived just a couple of blocks from the infamous City Lights bookstore. City Lights wasn’t the most kid-friendly bookstore in the world (a fairly small children’s section, and, at the … Read More

Vasona is such a gem of the South Bay area. It’s a pretty big park, complete with a lake, lots of grassy areas, and an excellent holiday lights display in December (more on that below). It also provides access to the lengthy Los Gatos Creek Trail. It’s connected to the Oak Meadow Park, managed by the town of Los Gatos. There’s a darling little steam train that goes through both parks, as well as a restored antique carousel (tickets are $3 each for both the train and carousel).
Oak Meadow also has a terrific playground. In addition to the normal playground equipment, it has a play fire truck and train that kids can climb in and “drive,” as well as a real, decommissioned US Air Force T-33 jet that was designed for training purposes. My kiddos LOVE climbing in and on top of the plane!
The holiday lights display is truly one of the best in the area. There’s a walk-through for a couple of days, but I highly recommend the drive-through, as you get to see a bit more and it ends up being cheaper if you have several people. Walk-through tickets are $10/adult, $5/youth, while the drive-through is $20/car. The lights themselves are fantastic – lit tunnels, dinosaurs, and lots of holiday creatures. For the past couple of years, we’ve used this for our “Polar Express” night. It’s so fun listening to the music (synced on a radio station) and driving through all the displays. You can also ride the train through! Be sure to buy tickets several weeks in advance as they tend to sell out, especially for the prime times/days.
*For this special holiday night, we put the kids to bed, having hidden a “golden ticket” under their pillows earlier (we always make sure to have read The Polar Express book several times before this night). We give them a few minutes to lay quietly while we make hot chocolate and pour it in thermoses, then play a train whistle from our phones and surprise them. Everyone runs to the car and we drink hot chocolate while looking at all the lights. It’s the best!
X