Juma's school adventures

Last week, Juma's school had an International Day celebration, where each class, K through 3, performed on stage, highlighting a certain country. Juma's class had Japan, and performed the Coal Miner's Dance; a classmate's mother taught it to them.

Right before the dance, Juma surprised us and played the xylophone in front of the whole school! We didn't know he had such good rhythm--he was perfect.



Sorry the picture is blurry, but it's the best one of the dance: Look for Juma with his Japanese headband and (Sarah's) white shirt. (The kids were told to wear white shirts, and the only one we could find was mine. Then it turned out most of the kids didn't wear white anyway. Oh well.)



Today, the mayor held a Halloween Parade, but made the theme Go Green! Juma's class dressed up in newspaper hats and carried placards with reminders to recycle.





They marched downtown, and his class spontaneously started chanting, Recyle! Recycle!

report card

Juma brought home his first report card of first grade, and he did awesome (of course he did!). He got perfect marks on math, and while his reading level is expected to be at a 6 right now, it's at a 14. His behavioral marks were also perfect, and we are very proud of him. Way to go Juma!

We decided this deserved a reward, so we let him watch Walking with Dinosaurs, a movie we'd been holding on to as a reward for general good behavior at home (measured by filling up his "sticker chart"). When we told him he could watch the movie, he got the biggest grin on his face and exclaimed, "Thank you! Thank you! Oh, I love you! I love you so much! I'm so excited!"

stage 5: Texas & Lousiana

From New Mexico, we drove into the big desert of western Texas, dipping south into El Paso. We'd planned to drive into Cuidad Juarez across the border into Mexico--Justin's grandma was born there. But we decided trying to get back through with all the stuff in our car--it was packed to the gills--might be a problem at border patrol. So we contented ourselves with looking across the street at Mexico instead.

It didn't look much different than El Paso, really.

Driving on through the empty parts of Texas, we decided to head a little north toward the Dallas/Fort Worth area, 'cause, you know, why not?

No, really, Justin has an aunt who lives there, and her youngest child is a boy Juma's age (but a head taller). We spent the night there, and let Juma and Justin's young cousin, Jake, play the next morning until Jake had to go to his first day of kindergarten. Again, we didn't take any pictures of this stage of the trip. Don't know what we were thinking...

So on to the next day, when we drove down into Louisiana and stopped somewhere in the middle to camp where it was hot and humid and green, everything the South is supposed to be in August.



Then it was south to New Orleans, a city we've always wanted to visit, and pretty much gave us our first incentive to drive 2000 extra miles through the country to get from California to Connecticut. So we couldn't miss it.






We just had time for lunch, though, as we wanted to make it to the panhandle of Florida that night. We picked a place with classic Creole fare, and ordered crawfish etoufee and fried alligator. Yum. (I was wimpy and ordered salmon, but I did try the other dishes.)

Here's the alligator: Juma devoured it.

stage 4: the southwest

The next bit of our car trip across the country brought us from Phoenix, where we stayed with some family friends, to somewhere near Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we camped. Somehow, we completely failed to take any pictures where we camped that night, but it was a nifty little place in the shadow of some great rock formations, set amid numerous desert plants. We got there just in time to set up the tent before dark. Which is true of most of our camping on that trip.

Update: Just kidding. Justin did snap a picture with his phone at the campsite. Here's me, in the morning, all sleepy-eyed and bed-headed and in my pj's.




Of course, southern Arizona is characterized by its many amazing saguaro catci, found only in the Sonoran desert (never mind that Texas often uses it as as symbol of that state, even though there are none to be found that far east). We stopped at a truck stop just to take this picture:




Somewhere in there (but it's all becoming a blur to me: the west was a hot, dry blur, and the east was a wet, green blur, but still, all a blur) we saw some absolutely awesome ancient cliff dwellings, made by Native Americans about 1000 years ago. This dwelling was five stories high, and the bottom story was at least a couple hundred feet off the ground. Totally astounding that people could do that, so long ago.