You don't have to be big.

It was a dark and stormy night....

Not actually stormy. But really dark!

It seemed like a great idea to do service raking an elderly gentleman's leaves in November. The weather is usually crisp and pleasant, and the leaves are usually about done falling. The kids are usually ready to get outside and so something active. Bingo!

I just forgot about Daylight Savings Time...or, the lack thereof. So when we showed up at 7pm to rake leaves, it was pitch dark outside. It was also unseasonably cold, a whoppin' 30*F. Yeah, it never gets that cold here in November.

But we're not wimps. Oh, no. We put on our headlamps and went out to save the world from messy yards! I think Mr. Stan (our benefactor) was a little confused about why we wanted to come rake leaves in the dark instead of a nice Saturday morning. We didn't really have a good answer to that one... :)

I'll say, these kids are fabulous leaf rakers. They raked all those leaves in about 45 minutes.

After we were done, we sang a Christmas carol to Mr. Stan, then went and had hot chocolate. We decided it would be fun to get to know Mr. Stan better, and voted to go back after the new year to listen to stories. It sounds like he has some interesting ones!

On the way home, all the kids were full of excitement about our service, and getting to go back and listen to stories next time! I realized that it didn't matter that there were only a few kids. We have a good group of kids that support each other, and we can do a lot of neat things that bigger groups can't do. People ask me pretty frequently if we still do activities with our old ward so our kids can have a bigger group to do things with. When we were called to the branch, we made the decision to move 100%. We weren't going to have one foot in the branch and one foot back in our old ward. Do I feel like my kids have missed out on experiences or opportunities? Nope.

So hooray for my fabulous little group of Activity Days kids. I can't wait to go back and listen to stories, too.

While I wait for my drivers to install...

I know, I already wrote once today. But I've got some time to kill while I try to troubleshoot our new computer. And since the story of this computer is related to our ASL adventure, I'll tell you all about it while I wait for some drivers to install.

How, you ask, do you call a deaf person?

1.) Don't call, just text or email.
2.) Use a video chat like FaceTime or Facebook Messenger.
3.) Use a VP (video phone).

VP is an old system. It was being used by deaf people before the rest of us had any idea video chat existed. The government largely pays for and regulates the system, and it allows deaf people to have a phone number just like anyone else. When Joe the Hearing Person calls Sally the Deaf Person, Joe picks up the phone and dials, just like normal. This connects him to an interpreter, who signs to a video phone in Sally's house. Sally then signs back, and the interpreter tells Joe what she said. This is called VRS (video relay service). VRS is awesome, but if Joe the Hearing Person happens to know ASL, he'd probably rather sign directly with Sally.

As it turns out, Sally can call her deaf friends directly by video without the interpreter in the middle. So you'd think Joe would be able to get a VP phone number and call Sally directly, too. But since the government pays for a lot of things in the VP system, they only allow actual deaf people to use it. So, Joe has to use Facebook or Skype instead to reach Sally directly by video. Or he can call through VRS.

The VP system is changing rapidly - most younger people prefer video chats like Facetime or Facebook or Skype. But there are still a lot of people who use VP. And VP has more reliable quality, which we've struggled with in FB. So, we'd like to have VP access. Some fabulous branch members have tackled the system admirably, and have finally found a way for us to get VP in our home! Basically, we're forwarding calls to the branch president's office to an app on our computer.

The downside is that it doesn't run on Linux, which is our OS of choice. Of course. We have Windows on our computer...we have both OS's installed, but it takes 10 minutes to switch, and by then nobody wants to talk to us any more :)

So, facing all these complications, we decided to get a new computer. It's our VP computer. It runs windows, has a fast processor and a nice webcam. All it will do is be a VP.

But the stupid computer (woah, Sam is going to get mad at me for that strong language!) won't connect to the internet! So now i'm here, installing a new driver (with a flash drive, that I had to drive to Staples and buy because my kids have lost all of ours) for the Network Adapter, trying to get it to work so I don't have to send it back and try again.

Hmmm....I just wrote all of that before the driver finished installing. Oh wait, the computer froze.

The world of Video Chat hates me.

Another bossy-pants in the family

Yesterday in church, Jane was being a bit of a handfull - babbling along, yelling "NOOOOO!" when I didn't let her climb all over the podium, and other such disruptive stuff. You know, normal for an 18-month old :)

But she cracked me up one time. She was babbling along in a somewhat loudish voice when the baby in the row behind us started imitating her (or maybe just making his own sounds...who knows.) Jane heard it, turned around and said, "SHHHHHH!"

Things I'm thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

My aged grandfather sent us an email this week encouraging his posterity to change their prayers from 90% asking/10% thanking to the other way around. Have you ever tried to think of 9 things to say thank you for just so you can ask for one blessing? It's definitely a good exercise, even if it's tough sometimes. But this has me thinking of some of the things I'm thankful for.

1. I'm thankful for people who help me improve my ASL. Today I was talking to another mom after church. We were both hearing - she's an interpreter - and it would have been easy to speak English, but I appreciate that she signed with me, being patient with my weaknesses. In nursery, another hearing teacher slowed down his signing when I didn't get what he'd asked me, instead of just talking. I'm grateful for that.
2. I'm thankful for the Primary Presidency in the Capitol Hill ward! Our Primary starts about 15 minutes after theirs ends. Sometimes, we feel a little harried trying to get in, get all our lesson materials together, and get the Primary room ready. They have a big Primary, ours is less than half their size. So we have to fold up a lot of chairs :) They have always been so kind about getting kicked out of the room quickly. But a few weeks ago, they noticed us folding up chairs and started folding up the chairs for us before we get there. This is what the room looks like every week when we arrive - it brings a tear to my eye when I see it, because it's just an expression of love and service. 
   
3. I'm thankful for all of my kids' teachers. Today at dinner, we were discussing some of our great lessons that we had today. Man, my kids have some awesome teachers. The teacher-student ratio is fabulous - sometimes, they get 100% of that teacher's care and effort! (Sometimes they have to share with 2-3 other people in their class.) My kids never got lessons especially for them before - their teachers were always thinking about some struggling person as they prepared. Now these fabulous teachers are preparing lessons especially for my kids and their needs! Wow, it's fabulous!
4. I'm thankful for the chance to be the "Branch President's Wife". I get to see the hand of the Lord in the branch more than usual, and it's very faith-promoting. I see the Lord inspiring and strengthening the Branch President. For example, Marriner had a stomach virus Friday night, and still wasn't feeling tip-top Sunday morning. He went off to church without having eaten much since Friday. He was the only member of the branch presidency in town today, so he kept busy. His very last appointment of the day happened to be tithing settlement with our family. He did the whole thing in ASL, which just takes more brain effort than speaking English. I watched him teaching each of the kids, helping them understand tithing and what it means and thought, "Why isn't this guy exhausted?" And I realized the Spirit was giving him strength and capability to fulfill his calling. It was pretty fabulous to see. (It was fabulous to see him eat a big dinner tonight, too!)
5. I'm thankful for the gift of tongues. A few weeks ago, Lillian's Primary class talked about gifts of the Spirit. She was surprised when her teacher used her as an example of the gift of tongues. My kids have never learned a language before, and they don't realize that one doesn't usually learn a language very well from hanging out for a few hours once a week for a year. 
6. I'm thankful for the other sisters in the Primary presidency. They are with me through my best and worst, and they've been the best friends a person could ask for.

Scouting for Food

Our family helped with Scouting for Food today! We had a lot of fun. But first, here's some background.

Scouting for Food takes place the first two weekends of November every year. The first Saturday, Scouts deliver notices to neighborhood residents, telling them about the food drive. The next weekend, the Scouts pick up food from porches and deliver it to the local food pantry. It's one of the most fun service projects - jumping in and out of cars, running up and down driveways, and often riding in the back of some leader's pick-up truck :) Often, our troop will split duties - Cubs will do it one week, Scouts the next.

Now, Lige is a member of the ASL troop (whose number is long and I can't ever remember), which meets combined with his old troop (Troop 47) for most activities. Next week is ASL temple day in Philadelphia, so it made sense to have the ASL kids do flyer distribution this week and the other kids do pick-up next week.

Only it was a tough week for our troop - there was a stake youth activity, someone was taking the SAT....so, like a lot of things when you're in a really spread-out and small group, it ended up just being Lige and his dad. This opened the door of opportunity to some of the younger Merrills, who always thought SFF sounded fun, but never got to participate. In fact, ALL of the younger Merrills got to participate :)

Since the big kids had to leave at 9 for the stake youth activity, we started at 7am. It rained all night, and at 6:30, it was pitch black and rainy still. We were nervous. But by 7, the rain had stopped and it was starting to get light enough to go out without scaring neighbors :) By 7:20, when Sam, Martha, Jane and I actually made it out the door for reals (Why doesn't Jane have shoes on yet? Sam - you need a sweater! I know it was hot yesterday, but it's cold now! Where are the flyers? etc....) it was a beautiful clear morning. Hooray for delay!

The big kids took the hilly areas toward the front of our neighborhood. The littles and I had 200 flyers and 4 long, flat streets to cover. I put Jane in the car, Sam on one side of the street, Martha on the other, and had them run down the street putting a flyer on each door (the flyers were giant post-it notes. Best thing ever.) I jumped out and opened fences and such as needed. I'd like to point out that Martha is only 3, and she did a fabulous job. By 8:45 we'd done 3/4 of our assignment (guessing from how many fliers we had left) but morale was sinking, so we went back to the house to send off the big kids and get some Halloween candy. As soon as the big kids were gone, Sam and Martha were ready to go again (to my great surprise!) Since we now had Lillian on our team, we decided to see if we could knock out some of the streets that the big kids hadn't been able to get yet. We took a bucket of Halloween candy with us. Marriner had switched cars with us, and since his car had no car seats, I let the kids ride au natural (I mean, not REALLY au natural...just car seat natural!) We were driving about 5 mph the whole time, so I didn't feel like it was terribly negligent of me :) Sam and Martha (ok, and Lillian too) enjoyed chances to ride in the (usually forbidden) front seat. You know, for the 100 yards at a time that we rode between streets! Ha!

So, equipped with our party car and a gorgeous day, we ran up and down streets for another 2 hours. This time Lillian took one side of the street and Sam and Martha teamed up on the other. If Lillian got done first (almost always) she'd loop back and work her way up the street. We always made our life easier by starting at the top and working downhill :) And when we finished a street, we ate Halloween candy while we drove to the next street. It was a great setup.

Probably the funniest part of the day to me was Martha freaking out over a cat on the porch. The most mellow cat I've ever seen in my life was probably pretty confused about why some little girl would scream like that at the sight of it! Now that I think of it, the owner of the cat was probably somewhat confused about why a 3yr old girl was screaming on her porch at 8am...

We finished at 11:00 on the dot - the kids had a well-deserved sense of pride at how fast they went. We finished every street in our neighborhood - 800 houses total. Sam, Martha and Lillian probably did half of them. We came home and looked up how far they'd run. Just going down the streets was 3.1 miles. Add in the up and down sidewalks and steps, and I'm sure Lillian topped 5 miles. But I really just feel so proud of little Martha, who ran her first 5K, including a LOT of stairs. She completed it in only 4 hours, with plentiful stops for riding in a car and eating Halloween candy. Why don't we all do 5K's that way??

My only regret of the day is that we sort of trashed Marriner's usually clean car. Jane entertained herself in the car by pulling giant post-it note flyers off and scattering them around. Martha at some point dumped out a box of pink nerds on the back seat to make it easier to share with Jane. Sam and Lillian climbed over the seats with their wet and dirty shoes liberally...but hey, when Marriner sees the carnage, he'll be reminded of his amazing kids and their great act of service to the community. So he'll think it's cute...right? Besides, I think the girls left him some nerds.

Eavesdropping, being a fan-girl and Tagalog

A few quick stories from this week...

We were eating dinner yesterday when I wanted to say something to one of my children without the other child knowing about it. You know these sorts of conversations :) My mom and dad had them all the time in French. At some point we learned that "crème glacée" means ice cream, and that cramped their style a bit.

In our family, we've naturally used ASL. And it's been so wonderful, because I can talk in secret to anyone in the family, but it takes enough effort to pay attention to ASL that nobody else usually pays attention. When we were pregnant with Jane, Marriner and I sat and signed for 30 minutes about the new baby and nobody caught it. They were just trying to avoid eye contact so we wouldn't try to make them practice ASL with us :)

Well, things have changed. My kids have started using their eyes more. Not once but TWICE this week I've been trying to have a secret conversation about someone in the room and that person has looked up and caught the conversation. So much for our efforts at secret service :) (Yes, they WERE efforts at secret service, what other kind of secrets do you think we'd be talking about?!?) And even though it was really annoying to have our plans foiled, it tickles me pink to see the change in my kids. Both that they're looking up and trying to communicate, and that their receptive skills are good enough for them to eavesdrop. Ha.

On Sunday, we had some visitors at church. One couple was familiar to us, they had both done some translating and interpreting for the church. Marriner and I laughed after church about how gushy we get when we meet some of these people - we just want to run up to these people (who have no clue who we are) and exclaim, "I love the way you translated _______!" or, "That song you did in General Conference! Wow!" We try to keep the fan-boy and fan-girl reaction in check, but when we get home, we squeal like teenage girls and wish we'd gotten their autographs.

In other language news, I got a phone call that freaked me out yesterday. The caller ID said, "Emilia Deguzman" - a friend of ours from my previous life as a Tagalog speaker. I admit, as the phone rang, I almost didn't answer it - I haven't spoken any Tagalog in so long! But I did answer, and had a great time talking to an old friend. I'm still way better at Tagalog than ASL. I wonder if that will ever change. Well, Tagalog, don't be jealous - I spend more time studying ASL right now, but you will always be my first language love :)