summer camp 6: castles

This week Juma finished his very cool castle.



It comes complete with working draw bridge



and a shark to guard the moat




a jousting knight who can actually be knocked off his horse




and a variety of people--king, knights, a mummy--to guard, watch, and rule.






In addition to the bed and dining table featured on Wednesday, Juma also added a fireplace.




It was a really fun week.

summer camps 4 & 5: sports and castles

After a week off summer camp while Grandma Wilson was visiting, Juma went to a week of sports camp--rowing, squash, basketball, volleyball, tennis, fishing, baseball, yoga, calisthenics, and kickball. He had a pretty good time, but didn't much like getting a wasp sting or a sunburn when his spacey mommy forgot to put sunblock on him.

This week he's back at the same camp as the first three weeks of the summer, building things. And, oh, he loves it. Now he's building a castle.

Day 2:



The beginnings of a drawbridge:




Day 3, with the complete drawbridge:



The bedroom with kingly bed:



The dining room:

mom's in town

My mom came to visit Juma and me for 10 days, and we've been running to and fro seeing the sights and keeping ourselves entertained.

Friday, we dropped Juma off at summer camp and then saw Harry Potter 6, which was quite entertaining. Saturday, we dropped Juma off at a babysitter's and took the train into New York City to see Mamma Mia! on Broadway. Also quite entertaining, and I've had Abba songs stuck in my head ever since. We got back around seven, picked up Juma, ate dinner, then gabbed into the night (as mothers and daughters do).

Sunday after Mom went to church, we visited Yale's two art galleries, where we saw everything from portraits of the British leisure class with their favorite dogs to 5000 year old pots from China to Buddha's footprints to carved masks from southern Tanzania.

Next, we took an afternoon stroll around a lovely city park that used to be a private estate, and is still surrounded by a stone fence that seems to belong in a Jane Austen movie. I had to be home for work after that, so we relaxed and watched Nacho Libre, giggling our faces off at Jack Black's funnies.

Today we got a slow, summer vacation start on the day. Since this is Juma's only "real" summer vacation week where he doesn't have any summer day camps to go to, he took advantage of his leisure time by watching Sponge Bob Square Pants all morning. And I do mean all morning. I had a little work to attend to once again, but around noon we took a quick tour of the Yale library, then I sent Mom and Juma off to the public library while I had another appointment.

This afternoon we introduced Mom to the Peabody Museum of Natural History, a long-time staple of entertainment and education in our family. I realized we've been going there for six years, since before Juma could say much more than "Die-saur! Raarrr!" Now it's, "No, Mom, that's a mosasaur, not a plesiosaur," and, "Hey, they moved the triceratops skulls. But where's the torosaurus?"

After those trips, we were 10,000-step pooped-out, and just relaxed the rest of the evening.

summer day camp: big ships

Juma attended a day camp at a local hands-on museum this past week. The theme for his class was Big Ships, and each day they build a small model of a ship out of wood, and learned about what the ship does. All week long, they worked on one big ship. He had a ton of fun designing, painting, nailing, and gluing.

Here is Juma proudly displaying his work.

A tug boat, complete with magnet to pull along the big ship (see below):




A "booby tender," the ship that takes care of all the buoys.




A coal carrier, complete with little bits of coal:




A submarine:




And the big ship itself, a battle ship, equipped with more guns than the entire US Navy:




The battle ship also comes with lifeboats:




And on the disheveled inside, you can see the engine (roundish, on the left), and some prisoners with guards watching them:

juma's first book

Juma wrote a book in school. The text reads "By Juma/ Matthew is my friend/ I am a police officer and Matthew/ is a burglar"


bi Juma




I am a ples afasr and Matthew
Matthew is my friend






is a brglr

SFMOMA

On Sunday, we spent the day in San Francisco, meeting up with some friends for a leisurely brunch, then going to the SFMOMA, or Museum of Modern Art.

We saw lots of Matisse



some Picasso



and some interesting sculptures, such as this one by Marcel Duchamp.



My favorite was an untitled Yves Klein piece, though seeing the jpg hardly does the painting justice. In person, it was full of movement and life, like children playing, jumping, running, and laughing.



There were also some great interactive exhibits involving lights and mirrors. Juma was delighted to poke his head into a black opening in the wall only to see thousands of reflections of himself.

This room was so brightly lit by yellow lights that color seemed to be washed to nothing but a yellow-ish gray.



Nearby, in Yerba Buena Park, we stopped at a Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial behind an artificial waterfall. Juma just thought it was too loud.

straw paintings

Juma and I made paintings using drinking straws to blow, drop, squish, and spread the paint.

Juma picked paper that looked like outer space, and experimented with mixing colors to make new colors.



I experimented with different ways the straw can apply color.


Juma says of straw paintings, "Good."