ER

Nope, not the TV show. The actual emergency room. Justin's sister, Andria, and her husband, Matt, invited Justin to play on their company indoor soccer team last night. I went to watch. Within five minutes of starting the game, Justin was on the ground in extreme pain from a rolled ankle (and Matt had made a goal). Two guys carried him off the field, somebody got some ice, and I gave him 3 ibuprofen. He decided it was bad enough that it might be broken, so I took him to the American Fork hospital.

In New Haven there are stab wounds, gunshot wounds, 3-car pile-up injuries, and alcohol poisonings on any given night in the ER, and the wait takes 9 hours if you have something as minor as, oh, pneumonia.* In American Fork, though, there were a spider bite, a broken thumb, some sutures coming loose, and a sprained ankle. So we were happy to be in and out within 2 and a half hours.

Luckily, Justin's ankle is not broken. He tore some ligaments, and he is in quite a bit of pain.



*True story. Happened to me.

wherein half the family almost fell in a ravine

The reunion's Monday night activity was a horse-drawn wagon ride and chuck wagon dinner in Soldier's Hollow. This is where the 2002 Winter Olympic cross-country skiing games were held. The family of 43 people, ranging in ages from 93 to 3 months, loaded up on two wagons and headed up the skiiing trails to a little cove for dinner.

Justin, Juma, and I were all in the second, smaller wagon, as were all but one of the children, but most of the family was in the bigger wagon, hauled by two giant horses. The larger wagon rounded a bend in front of us, and we chatted happily (some of us nervously) as we plodded along. Justin commented how very long our trip across country would have taken if we rode in one of these wagons, and we told Juma about how some of his I-don't-know-how-many-great grandparents did just that.

Suddenly, we head the horses in the first wagon neighing, and the people screaming. We came from behind some trees to see the other wagon rolling backward, out of control, down a small a hill. Gruesome scenes passed through our imaginations--so I can't imagine what the people in the runaway wagon felt. The hitch had come undone at the crest of a hill, detaching the wagon from the horses, sending about 30 members of the extended family rolling down off the path and into a field full of pot holes. Thankfully, the wagon came to a stop after about 50 yards of uncontrolled rolling and bouncing. It stopped 20 yards from a ravine. Screams were heard; tears were shed; swear words were said. But no one was hurt.

I don't think many of the Beckhams will get near wagons or horses again any time soon.

heber creeper

On Friday night, we rode on the Heber Creeper with Justin's extended family. There are 43 of us on this reunion.

Juma poses with his silly Grandpa and his "great uncle" Jim. (I asked how Jim is related, but he's something like Juma's great grandpa's first-cousin-once-removed's husband).



Here, Juma is posing on the train with Justin's youngest cousin, Jake. Jake is 9 months younger than Juma, but a full head taller. They get along splendidly.

super heroes of the 21st century

Mini-man: "He jumps onto bad guys' heads and slaps their face."

Mr. Hose-man: "He transforms into any superhero. He squirts water at bad guys' out of his fingers."

Mr. Giant-rock-man: "He rolls rocks at bad guys and they go, 'Ahhhhhh!'"

Ms. French toast lady: "She throws french toast with syrup at bad guys and they can't see."

Mr. Chompy-hair man: "He jumps on bad guys' heads and chomps all of bad guys hair off."

air & space museum

Since we arrived in Washington, DC at 5:30pm, we missed the airplane museum. Juma was disappointed and grumpy, so our friend Erik suggested another air and space museum between Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. We were running late the day through Iowa, and pushed to make it to the museum before closing so Juma wouldn't have his hopes crushed twice. We pulled up at 4:50pm and raced inside only to be told the museum would close in 8 minutes. Justin put on his charm and got us those 8 minutes without the entrance fee.

The museum had numerous actual planes, including ones that were used in WWII and a Blackbird. Juma was in heaven, though a little intimidated by how absolutely large the planes looked so close up.



A space rocket


Another rocket

the rest

While still in Chicago, we decided to go to a baseball game. Justin managed to get some White Sox vs. Yankees tickets, up high in left field. For Juma, the best part of the game was seeing the home run and the fireworks that celebrated it. For Justin, the best part was seeing the Yankees get beat 6-4. For me, unable as I am to get excited about baseball, the best part was seeing Juma so excited. It was his first professional ("prossefinnal" as he said) baseball game, and he loved it from the train ride down there to the peanuts, cotton candy, and hot dogs, to the fouls, balls, and hits, to the 7th inning "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" stretch. We bought him a kid-size Sox hat to remember.

The next morning, Tuesday, we headed out in the morning for the 10-hour drive to North Platte, Nebraska. It's a small town almost exactly half way between Salt Lake and Chicago. We made it without incident and falling asleep at the wheel, which is astounding considering how monotonous Iowa and Nebraska landscapes are. Hilly farms. Flat farms. Hilly farms. For 700 miles.

Then we ran into some problems: we watched the weather channel. A storm was brewing across Wyoming, so we drove only to Laramie in eastern Wyoming and staying an extra night in a hotel there. (I recommend Jeffrey's Bistro, downtown.) The waiting did not help. The severe part of the storm was in the Midwest by then, but snow/rain storms were blasting all of central Wyoming. We drove through anyway--I should say Justin drove through anyway, since I'm a wimp when it comes to driving in the snow--and were in the thick of the "wintry mix" for three hours. That doesn't include the hour wait in a truck stop in the middle of the state to let the storm pass over.

We pushed on through and made it to my parents place right at 4pm to drop Juma off to be babysat. We gave everyone there a quick hello, including my newest niece, and left for the first event of our Beckham family reunion weekend, a showing of Les Miserable in Salt Lake City. Our rush was unnecessary, since our ride didn't come until almost 6pm, but that information would have been useful a little earlier. Like when I spent a grand total of 5 minutes with my family after not seeing them since January (Justin hadn't seen them in 18 months).

Les Mis was the kick-off of our family reunion in the moutains, where I am now, enjoying seeing the extended family, cousins growing up, eating way too much food, swimming, chilling, and chatting.

After the reunion is over, we will stay in Utah a few weeks, then California for a few weeks before we head out for a year-long stay in Tanzania.

finally

After seven days of travel, a 3-hour blizzard, and I'm-too-tired-to-count-how-many states, we're finally in Utah, and staying for a few weeks. More later, k?

chicago

Even though we went to bed quite late Saturday night, Juma woke up at 7am. Of course. We just chilled for 3 hours, telling Juma every 2 minutes to keep his voice down until Justin's brother Cameron woke up at 10 o'clock. By noon, we'd made it into the city. "On the blue line" metro, as Juma would tell you.

After lunch, we visited the Art Institute of Chicago. There, we saw paintings by Seurat, Picasso, and van Gogh, among other amazing things. From there, we walked through Millenium Park, then on to Navy Pier, where Juma refused to ride the ferris wheel. Next, the grown-ups had just as much fun in the Children's Museum as Juma did.





After leaving the museum, and watching a clown/pirate/ juggler/comedian for too long, we set out to look for dinner, but a sudden downpour of rain kept us from going two feet out the door. A Bubba Gump Shrimp, Co restaurant happened to be right there, so we enjoyed shrimp, steak, fish, and dessert. As Juma described the apple crisp, "You should definitely try this crust, it is definitely so, so good. Mmm, mmm."

We had planned to drive on to Omaha today, but since there's so much to do in Chicago, we decided to stay an extra day. We've bought tickets to the evening's White Sox/Yankees game, but weather.com promised rain.

on the road again

start: Aberdeen, Maryland
time: 9:00am

states: 5
movies: 4
CDs: 9
fast food meals: 2
leg-stretching stops: 3
bathroom stops even though we just stopped two minutes previous: 1
toll booths: 6
4-year-old break-downs: 0
dollars: don't even want to think about it

stop: Chicago, IL
time: 10:30pm

on the road

We're on our way. Yesterday, we drove through DC, but didn't have time to actually stop except to stretch our feet on the shore of the Potomac. Juma was grumpy afterward because he didn't get his visit to the Air and Space Museum. Poor Juma.

We hit 6 states in one day: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Virginia was an accident when we drove past the Lincoln Memorial and missed a turn and ended up on a bridge across the river. Plus we saw Pennsylvania. Does that count?

We had dinner in College Park with a friend, then stayed in another town in Maryland for the night, with other friends. Today, we plan on trekking all the way to Chicago--a good 12 hours.

(Update on Sarah's health: All the other tests came back normal. Which is a good thing, except that now we don't knows what's going on.)