Disney

As part of a Beckham family reunion in California, we took Juma to Disneyland with his cousins. Juma is a perfect age for Disneyland, and had an absolute blast, especially playing with Rylee and Tristan.





Some of his other cousins were a bit young to quite enjoy it...but they were very cute all the same.

new nephew

We have a new nephew, Cole, son of Cameron and Stephanie Beckham. He's in the NICU on oxygen, born a month early, but doing well and improving steadily.

cousins' weekend

Randall & Ashli and the kids came down to Baltimore for the weekend. We had a great time hanging out in Baltimore and in DC.

In Baltimore on Saturday, the kiddos played Wii while Jane napped.



Then we explored the Inner Harbor, downtown, and all its strange sites before hitting our favorite pizza place.




On Sunday, we drove down to DC where we saw the White House



and the Museum of Natural History.



By the end of walking all around the National Mall, the kids (and grown-ups) were pooped! Kate pulled out her classic "I'm so cute, give me everything I want" frowns.



And the rest of us sat down on the sidewalk and moaned.



But little Jane had sleep soundly in her stroller, so was as happy and refreshed as could be by the end of the trip.




Everyone was sad we had to say goodbye. But we only live 4 hours apart, so hopefully we'll do this again soon.

Laura in DC!

DC, Gettysburg, and Philly

Justin's sister, Andria, and her husband, Matt, and their baby, Amelia (aka Millie, Miller, Mills) came out to Baltimore to visit us for Thanksgiving. We took the opportunity to go see some amazing sights in Baltimore, Washington, DC, Gettysburg, and Philadelphia. (Well, I went to work the day they went to Philly.)

The long walk along the Reflecting Pool in the freezing cold wind up to the Lincoln Memorial:







The man himself:




The White House! There were a bunch of presidential-looking black SUVs out front, so we guessed Obama was inside. Did you know you have to request tickets from your representative at least 30 days in advance to see the inside of the White House? We didn't either. So we didn't see inside.




Lincoln at Gettysburg:




One of the many cannons and memorials throughout the 25 square mile battleground:



We got politely chewed out for letting the kids climb on this cannon, by the way.


Juma climbing on part of Philadelphia's Washington Monument

boy, have I been busy

Well, I have been super busy. I was taking 5 classes and TAing another. I helped my mom and siblings plan a surprise birthday party for my dad's 60th birthday, and I flew out to Utah to surprise him in early October. Then my first term of classes ended with a bang of finals the next week; I spent an entire weekend on campus studying. The minute I finished my last final I started writing a grant proposal, which I worked on feverishly for five days (including an entire Saturday on campus) until I turned it in about 30 minutes ago. Second term started the day after first term ended, but won't hit hard until next week when I have three assignments due Monday and Tuesday, and another grant proposal due Wednesday.

So now I have time to blog a bit while my professor lectures to a class I'm a teaching assistant for.

In Utah, I got to see my parents, almost all my siblings and nieces and nephews--on both sides of the family, since all of Justin's siblings now live there.

I got Liam to like me



by letting him play with the camera on my iPhone. He was very proud of his choo choo train shoes.



Mariah liked to pose for him.




At the birthday party, the kids had a great time playing on the stage and running around the gym and out into the hallways making their parents wonder where on earth they had gone and what they were up to. If they are anything like I was when I was a kid in a church on a non-Sunday (and I'm pretty sure they are), they were getting drinks from the drinking fountain, running in the halls when no adults were watching, and looking for unlocked rooms only to be disappointed when all they found was folding chairs.



While I traveled, Justin and Juma entertained themselves by going to museums and eating Ben & Jerry's ice cream



and going rock climbing. Juma loves climbing. Juma's the one in the green shirt and orange harness.

Vicki Lyne Beal Beckham, March 31, 1954-June 23, 2010

Vicki Lyne Beal Beckham was born on March 31st, 1954, in Logan, Utah and passed away peacefully in Merced, California on June 23, 2010, after a two-year illness. She moved to California as a young girl and graduated from Merced High School in 1972 where she performed as one of the legendary “Seven Darlings” majorettes. She met and married her husband, Rick, while attending Brigham Young University. After graduating from college with a degree in Physical Education and a minor in Dance, she moved with her family back to Merced.

Vicki followed the tradition of her parents in becoming a devoted teacher. She taught P.E. and Language Arts for 25 years in the Atwater School District. As a dedicated member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, she also loved serving in many volunteer positions. Spending time with family was very important to Vicki. She gathered her large family around her often in family reunions, trips and an annual “Cousin Camp.” She found meaning in serving others and enjoyed many life-long friendships. Vicki had a gift for finding and nurturing dreams and aspirations in others. She always had an infectious laugh and a loving hug ready for everyone she met.

From her earliest years, Vicki’s greatest passion was dance. She found joy and fulfillment in it and in sharing this love with others. Vicki had many other interests, including reading and writing, traveling the world, scrapbooking, sewing, enjoying fine arts, and water skiing. Near the end of her life she added surfing, rock climbing, white-water rafting and skydiving to the list.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Steven Olen Beal and Clara Val Larie (Preece) Beal. Vicki is survived by her husband of 36 years, Eric "Rick" Marvin Beckham, and her four children, Justin (Sarah) Beckham, Lance (Alisha) Beckham, Cameron (Stephanie) Beckham, and Andria (Matthew) Lewis; siblings, Vaun (Ann) Beal, Robin (Ronald) McCombs, and Evan (Kris) Beal. Vicki will also be greatly missed by her grandchildren, Aidan, Rylee, Juma, Tristan, Irelyn, Amelia, and Abigail and her many loving aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Steven and Val Larie Beal and Vicki Beal Beckham Scholarship Fund through Merced School Employees Federal Credit Union, account number 56048013.

The funeral services will be held at 1:00 pm on Saturday, June 26, 2010, with a visitation preceding it from 11:00 am-12:30 pm at the LDS Church on 1080 E. Yosemite Avenue, Merced, California. A graveside memorial service will be held at 11:00 am on Thursday, July 1, 2010, 26 West 600 North, American Fork, Utah.

Arrangements are under the direction of Stratford Evans Merced Funeral Home. Arrangements in Utah are under the direction of Sundberg-Olpin Mortuary, Orem, UT.

our stay in California

We've been in California for 3 weeks now, staying with Vicki. Justin's siblings have been in and out, too. Vicki was doing pretty poorly when we arrived, then had a week of good days. Since she was doing well (coming to the pool and grandsons' baseball games in a wheelchair, sitting in the backyard around a bonfire and exchanging stories with her surprise-visit siblings), we made a quick trip to Utah to visit my family and some of Justin's relatives. We had a great time there, and I even had all my six siblings and my parents in the same room at the same time for a picture. It'd been a long time since that happened. (We never did get all the grandkids rounded up for a picture, though they were all there.)




In those four days we were gone, Vicki went downhill again and surprised us unpleasantly when we got back from Utah. She has made imminent progress toward death since then, and has been mostly unresponsive for a couple days now. We expect she'll last a couple more days.

Unfortunately, our plane tickets back to Africa are for Wednesday, and though we tried, we cannot change them (all flights are overbooked through August).

This time here with her has been really nice, though, and we are glad we came when we did so we had a good solid week with the Vicki we know and love. We will always remember and love you, Vicki. Here are some pictures of just some of the great moments we had with her. (And proof that I failed to follow her advice and always take tons of pictures!)

June 2009, on the Hogle zoo train in Salt Lake City, with granddaughter, Irelyn.




July 2008, a snapshot Juma took on a car trip to the airport for a family reunion outside Seattle.



March 2008, stubbornly not giving up and hiking to the top of very high sand dunes in Death Valley just weeks before she found out she had cancer.




May 2008, Juma welcoming Grandma home after her surgery when the cancer was discovered.



August 2007, on a ride at Santa Cruz boardwalk with grandson, Rylee



Summer 2003 (?), the picture Vicki has chosen to be remembered by.

travels

We are in California, at Justin's mom's house (his dad is now in an assisted living home in Utah). She has cancer and is not doing well, so we are spending some time here with her. We hopped on the first flight out of Zanzibar we could get, and 40 hours later, made it to Merced. We hadn't been here in two years, and Justin hadn't seen his mom during that whole two years. Glad to be here.

These pictures are in chronological order, I think. So you can see as we get more tired and more worn out.

We flew through Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Rome, Washington, DC, and finally to San Francisco.

birthday party

We invited friends over on Juma's birthday Wednesday for a Bakugan-themed party. (Good thing he let me know if plenty of time that he wanted Bakugan, because party items are not in stores yet; I had to order everything online, including the edible cake picture.)




I had the lucky fortune of having access to the great reception hall downstairs from our apartment, so the kids had a gigantic room to run around in, make noise, hide, and just be kids.

The video below contains some highlights of the party, including Juma opening presents from Justin, me, G'ma and G'pa Beckham, and G'ma and G'pa Wilson. If you think you hear Justin's voice in there, you do. He was on video chat while Juma opened the special present from him.

Also, you catch a couple glimpses of my mom--she flew all the way out here to visit during Juma's birthday. I just took her back to the airport this morning. We had a great time with her here, but I think she was missing Dad enough that it was time to go home.



And here is the birthday boy himself. Seven years old, four feet tall, and as great a kid as a mommy could want. I love you, Juma!

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.

grandma's summer reading club

Justin's Grandma Beal was a great reader, and encouraged her 13 grandchildren to read by starting a summer reading club. A certain number of pages or books earned them prizes, and at the end of the summer she'd treat all her (reading) grandkids to ice cream, toys, videos, and even grand prize money. (Justin and I, already big readers ourselves, and a bit old for the club, got the satisfaction of being able to exchange books and opinions about them with Grandma.)

We lost Grandma Beal to cancer just four days before Juma was born, this week seven years ago. Justin's mom, Vicki, re-instituted the reading club for her six grandchildren.

Juma's was a little reluctant to start, but since I allowed him to read in bed before he falls asleep, he's been reading three or four books a night. That kid, like many, will do anything to put off sleep. He's already earned the first two levels of prizes:

a slurpee




and a dollar store purchase of his choice



I've also continued to read to him, especially books that he believes are a bit hard for him. Lately, we've read The Indian in the Cupboard, the entire Great Brain series, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, and How to Eat Fried Worms, all books I read when I was a kid. We've also read most of the Harry Potter books, but have taken breaks as things get a little scary for him. We are currently paused in the middle of the Order of the Phoenix.

As for me, (Grandma Beal would like to know) I'm currently reading When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists, In Fact: The Best of Creative Non-fiction, and Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, and Speak Peace in a World of Conflict.

home but sick

We got home just fine (though our luggage didn't) after a crazy, crazy rush to the airplane. I left St George in plenty of time to get to the Las Vegas airport, but then hit insane bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go construction traffic in the city. I watched the minutes tick away as my rental car came due...an hour until departure...45 minutes until departure...30 minutes until departure...and all the exits were closed so I couldn't even get off...

We checked our luggage in 15 minutes before departure, waited patiently in the security line, and rushed off to the gate, sitting down 2 minutes after departure time. Juma about had a meltdown when he realized there were no two seats together and he thought he might have to sit in between two strangers instead of his mama. But a nice man let us take his seat, so we got to sit together (thanks, nice man!). So naturally, our luggage didn't make it on the plane. I had to go back to the airport to get it the next day.

And Tuesday, I woke up feeling horrible. And I still feel horrible. I did nothing but take Juma to school, pick him up, and sleep all day yesterday. Not much more productive today.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our vacation to Utah Valley; Salt Lake City; St. George, Utah; and Phoenix, Arizona.


Waiting in the airport to head to Utah...blissfully unaware that our next airport experience would be hellish.




On the Alpine Slide in Park City, Ut.



In the desert outside St. George. How on earth did anyone decide to settle this place? It was nice to see the sun, though. It's been raining all summer here in Connecticut.



All the Beckham cousins (plus two dads) next to some 3000-year-old petroglyphs drawn by Anasazi (?) Native Americans.



Cameron and Stephanie, aka the Newlyweds, whose wedding we attended in Salt Lake. Overlooking Green Valley in St. George.



"The Beckham Boys" with Cam and Steph and some nifty "alien" petroglyphs.

fun with cousins

We've been having a good time in Utah hanging out with relatives. Juma has 20 cousins, 16 of them here in town now. I've just forgotten to take pictures most of the time.

Yesterday, we went to the Alpine Slide in Park City. This is Juma on the ski lift, with the coaster in the background.



Then we went to the zoo (try taking 10 kids to the zoo...).

Isaac, Rylee, Xander, and Laurelin climbing a rhino:



Tristan on the train:



Juma on the train:



Irelyn and Vicki on the train:



Sarah and Gwen:



Rylee and Juma:



Rylee, Juma and Isaac:



Laurelin, Isaac, Juma, and Xander:



Juma and Isaac: