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.

working

Here at the Beckham house we are excited that Justin got a full-time job, working for a package delivery company. (Not sure how that works on actually naming employers. This is a private site, but still...)

It's been tough with him gone all day, and it will only get worse as we get closer to the holiday season. He's been training all week, and today was his first day out on a real route in a real delivery truck. Unfortunately, it was also a very rainy day, and the brown coat the issued him didn't have a hood...hmm. Hope he didn't get too soaked (he's still at work).

stage 3: the middle of Arizona

After the Grand Canyon, we took the long way (the only way) up and around, almost all the way back up to Utah to get around that big-freakin' canyon and across the river:






We took all day to make a six-hour drive to Phoenix, because there were just so many cool natural and Native American sites to see on the way. One place we stopped on the Navajo Reservation there were dinosaur tracks in the red rock:




Juma was in heaven. We also stopped at a couple sites with 1000 year-old ruins from Native American populations who thrived in this desert for centuries:

the case of the missing car

Last night, Justin tied on his shoes, packed up his sports bag, and headed out to play basketball with some friends. I didn't expect him back for a couple hours. But a couple minutes later, he walked back in...

"Sarah," he asked, "Did you move the car?"

Realizing the implications of that question (either we are really, really forgetful about where we park, or the crime rate in this town finally got to us personally), and was reluctant to answer, "No...Did you?"

"We parked it right outside, right?" he continued.

"Yes." But a case of a whole car gone missing takes some time to settle in, and my brain wasn't ready to accept the suspected truth. "And you put the club on it last night, right?"

"Yes."

We started to go through all the possibilities. Housing sometimes tows cars for not having the right sticker, but we just put ours on a few days ago...We weren't parked illegally or in the way of snowplows (no snow yet!), so they wouldn't've towed it for that...Could it be?...Stolen?

Now, we don't use our car that often. We use our feet, bikes, and buses to get around town. But for a weekend away, or to shop for non-grocery items (we get our groceries delivered), it is pretty much essential. Still, to have the car stolen--UGH. It's a violation of our right to property.

And we like that car. It's taken us on two cross-country trips; it has a ever-so cool rack recently installed on the top; and when we call it a grandma car, we mean it affectionately: It actually was owned by Justin's grandma.

Just look at our trusty, faithful, cool car, here serving us well in Lousiana:




Naughty words ran through my head.

After standing outside staring at the parking lot, which didn't magically bring back our car, we went inside to call the cops.

The cops informed us that, thankfully, our car had not been stolen, it was just impounded after all. By the tax department. Apparently, our property tax statement had gone to our old address, and we never got it...And since it was due two and a half months ago, the city saw fit to impound it. ("Failure to receive a notice is not a reason to fail to pay taxes.")

And get this--the tax department stays open until 10pm. What government office stays open until 10pm? The kind that tows your cars, I guess. So Justin (my hero) rode his bike downtown, paid the taxes and overdue fee, then rode to the car lot and got the car back for another hefty fee. Sheesh.

But at least we have our car again.

stage 2: Grand Canyon

We said good-bye to our families in Utah and headed south down 89 to the Arizona and the Grand Canyon. None of us had seen the Canyon, so we were excited. On the way, we stopped at Fremont Indian State Park



and saw some amazing petroglyphs (carvings in the rock) and pictographs (paint on the rocks). None of which you can see in this picture unless you click on it to see the bigger version:




In the evening we made it to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. It was amazing and gorgeous, and a little scary. Parents of a budding scientist that we are, we took the chance to talk geology, the power of water on rocks, geologic time, and in which layers exactly could trilobites and sharks be found. (Juma's on a trilobite and shark kick lately.)

school

By the way, both Juma and I started school last week, so we've been busy. (Justin is very busy applying for jobs and getting the house unpacked and in order.)

Juma is thoroughly enjoying first grade (yes, first grade already!) and has kids in his class he already knew from before, so that helped a lot. We got him into the school we wanted him in (it's not just a matter of going to the local neighborhood school here), and it's within walking/biking distance, so we've been getting lots of exercise.

As for me, I write my first paper tomorrow, and am trying to find time to learn Arabic, read two scholarly books a week, write the occasional paper, work on my thesis, and still be a good mommy and wife. And not go insane through all of that. So far, so good. But it hasn't even been a week yet.

stage 1: Utah

Our trip started out with a long day's drive from California to Utah, but we had the time to stop out in the middle of the salt flats west of Salt Lake and write our initials with rocks:




The first overnight stop on our two-week road trip across the country was Utah, where all of my family and some of Justin's family live. There, Juma had a great time playing with cousins, such as the day we went rock climbing (except for the whole part when Juma has a complete melt-down five-minutes in):




and the day Juma "flew" a helicopter at a children's museum, with cousin Mariah:




We also did a little fishing in Provo Canyon (no luck actually catching anything):




and, along with a bunch of cousins, rode ponies at the petting zoo:




There was also the party for my sister, Jody's, recent marriage, where Juma got to play with all of his Wilson cousins--especially the two boys his age, Ammon and Ethan:




And, of course, he got to act his age with his closest cousin, Ammon: