one minute

For school Juma performed a few different tasks, seeing how many times he could do them in one minute.

His stats:

hop: 140

write his first name: 12

bounce a ball: 87

draw circles: 48

be cute: infinity

tickets!

Whew! We finally bought plane tickets to go to Zanzibar. Plans have been in limbo for a while, but I finally got approval to do my proposed project from both Yale and Zanzibar, so it was just left to us to decide what dates to leave. Juma's school, the rainy season, my project time line, and the price of tickets all influenced when we bought.

We leave May 28 from California and return July 1 to California.

It always feels so BIG when we make the purchase. The cost is pretty prohibitive, of course, but it also feels so final: We ARE leaving for Africa on May 28 and we WON'T come back until July 1. Mini panic attack.

Breathe, Sarah, breathe.

t-ball

Juma started playing on a T-ball team with his cousin Rylee, and Uncle Lance as a coach. Lance couldn't make it one day, so Justin and another dad stepped in. The kids are pretty good at throwing, but catching needs some work--but it's pretty entertaining to watch the kids throw themselves all over and flail their arms around.



Juma gets quite serious out there.

privacy

Well, if you are reading this, you figured out how to log in. If anyone you know who is a reader can't figure out how to get on, or didn't get an invitation (I may have some old email addresses), have them contact me at sarah dot beckham at gmail dot com.

private

We want to switch our blog to private, which would mean you would have to receive an invitation email from us, and then sign in in order to read the blog. Of course, I'll send these emails to family and the friends whom I know read it (some of you may need to supply me with an email address--Ashli, Ace...). If you find the blog is private and you haven't received an invitation, shoot me an email at sarah dot beckham at gmail dot com. I may have just missed you on accident.

We haven't had anything weird or scary happen that is pushing us to go private; we just want to protect Juma and ourselves, and we'd like to be more aware of who reads about our lives.

I'll make the switch in the next couple days.

Everyone: Please send me an email address you want me to use to invite you. You will need to use that email address to sign in whenever you read the blog.

fun with photo booth

My Mac came with a program called Photo Booth, that uses the computer's built-in camera to take snapshots. It also has some crazy effects, like bend and swirl and mirror that remind me of fun house mirrors. Juma loves to play with it, and when I visited his cousins (when I flew to Utah for my grandpa's funeral), I introduced it to them. Their fun was inversely proportional to how much they shoved each other around trying to get their own heads in the shot. Enjoy.

grandpa

My paternal grandpa passed away yesterday. He was 91 (?). He'd been sick for some time, and I took the chance to see him last November, assuming it would be the last time I would get to see see him. It was.

I am flying in to attend the funeral on Monday.

I spent many Sunday afternoons of my childhood at grandma and grandpa's house in Provo, playing in their backyard and all over their house. I sometimes "helped" Grandpa out in the garage, where he had a work room, building furniture from wood. He was very into photography, in addition to carpentry, and he took many pictures of his whole family--his wife, five sons, their wives, and 36 grandkids. I lost track of how many great-grandkids long ago.

death valley

During spring break, we took a road trip down to Death Valley, the hottest and lowest place in the Western hemisphere. Luckily, it's still spring, so the temperature only reached 95 degrees while we were there. We had a great time, and saw all sorts of amazing geological features, including

Artist's Palette, though the pictures don't do justice to the beauty of the colors




The Devil's Golf Course, full of strange, rough salt deposits



Mesquite Sand Dunes, where the dunes are high and the sunset gorgeous






Zabriskie Point, where borax was once mined




Manly Beacon, named after a man named Manly who didn't get lost because of the beacon




Salt Creek, salty, hot home to a species of pup fish




and Badwater, the lowest point in the hemisphere (282 feet below sea level!)



Who knew there was so much to see in Death Valley?

easter morning

arrived home at 5am

Have you ever traveled for 29 hours so you could work (read: bang your head against the wall trying to get a statistics program to do something it doesn't want to do) for 17 hours?

I do not recommend it.


But at least I got to see a few old friends, which did make the trip worth it.