Well, our oldest and his family left this morning for home (in Texas). We went to the California Science Center yesterday to see the Space Shuttle Endeavour. It's currently in a temporary building sitting in its 'landing' position but the plan is to eventually erect an exhibit where it will be displayed vertically attached to a propellant tank and the side-mounted solid booster rockets along with a gantry where visitors will be able to see the shuttle from several different levels. At the moment you can walk all around and under it but it's too high up to actually touch.
Afterwards we went to Chinatown for dinner and then walked around looking in the shops and buying some little items for the kids.
One thing I did manage to do while they were here was to give the first chess lessons to our 8 year old granddaughter. I taught her checkers a few years ago and she's gotten pretty good at it now. And she taught me how to win at 'Battleships' so I figured it was about time that she was introduced to chess. We only had time for a few games so I spent the first two showing her the basic moves and pointing out the rules as we went along, correctly poor moves on her part and showing how alternate moves would result in different actions. By the third game she knew all the moves for the different pieces and was starting to learn how to defend her King and the way that Knights and Bishops could attack other pieces. I suspect that if we would have had another hour or so she might have started to really understand strategy and how to use multiple pieces together to force an outcome as well as gain a better understanding of exchanges and how to use them to weaken your opponent.
Anyway, I gave her a cheap chess set I had laying around the house and told her that her father at least used to know how to play and that he should brush-up himself and keep her practicing for the next time I see them. She's a bit young to find a chess club (if they still have those in schools) since she's just in the 3rd grade, but who knows...
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