Sign Language

Well, I have a new assignment at Church. It's not exactly a calling, because I haven't been set apart. I've just been helping out.
There is a new member of our Ward who is going deaf. She was born "hard of hearing" and recently received a cochlear implant, but it didn't work, so within a year she will be completely deaf. There is a woman in the ward who is very good at Sign Language, so she has been interpreting for her. Now, I am by no means great at Sign Language, but I did take 5 semesters of it at BYU, so I SHOULD be very good. However, it's been over 2 years since any of my classes, and let's just say I'm a bit rusty. I thought about not saying anything and just letting this one girl interpret forever, but it's a very demanding job, plus I would really like to get better at it.
So, I've been interpreting! One week I did the entire Sacrament Meeting, which was SO hard! I knew I didn't do a very good job, but thankfully the woman didn't miss too much because she can still hear a little bit, plus she can lipread, so I didn't feel TOO bad when I messed up. I figure I have to start somewhere. Thankfully it was a fast and testimony meeting, so the doctrine wasn't too deep, so I was able to remember most of the signs I needed.
Now I mostly interpret for the hymns and the prayers, including the Sacrament prayers. The sacrament prayers are hard because they say them so quickly, so I still need to practice those. But every week I'm a little more confident and I'm really happy that I'm practicing this skill. There is also a Sunday School class every week taught by the interpreter where we just learn Sign Language, so that more people will be able to eventually help out. That has helped a lot too, and I'm really enjoying it.
A lot of people don't consider Sign Language to be a "real" language because it isn't spoken. People also tend to think that it's just English, but using your hands. It's not! It has it's own grammar rules and everything. For example, if someone said in English "I can go to the store for you", it would not be signed "I can go to the store for you." ASL's grammar rules make it so that I would sign "For you, store I go can". It's a challenge to remember! It's especially difficult to interpret because you get so focused on translating a certain sentence or idea that I completely miss the next part because I'm still signing the previous thing they said. But that's a problem that all interpreters face, I think.
Anyway, so that's my new assignment. I'm still serving in YW, which I LOVE. As it happens, we are camping this weekend because that's what the Laurels really want to do. Granted, it will be in the YW president's back yard, but still... it will be great because I like sleeping outside and everything, but I also love clean bathrooms... so this is a perfect medium.

You Can Fly!

Abby has been doing so much flying in her short little life so far... it's especially amazing to me because I never went on an airplane until I was 17! When Abby was 6 weeks old we flew to Las Vegas for a wedding in St. George, and then when she was 12 weeks old she and I flew to Utah to visit Emma and Molly and Mike. Then, in July she flew to New York/Pennsylvania to see Grandma and Grandpa Siebach. The day after we got back from THAT trip, we flew to Phoenix to see Garrett's extended family, and then from there we flew to Mexico for a week, then back to Phoenix, then back to Atlanta. Whew! Just writing all that made me tired. Thankfully, we are home for a while now, and then next time we take a plane trip will probably be around Christmas and New Years, which is when we are planning to go to Utah to see the family again. And I am so grateful that Abby is such a good flyer! When she sits on my lap she gets fussy or bored pretty quickly, but if I have a toy or two that seems to keep her occupied. But before each flight I always go to the gate counter to ask if there are any empty seats. If there are, usually the flight attendant moves me so that I'm sitting next to an empty seat, and that way I can put Abby there in her car seat, and that's a DREAM!! She usually sleeps the entire flight if she's in her car seat and I LOVE it.

Beach!

We had a GREAT time at the beach on Tybee Island. We were in two GREAT beach houses (ours had an elevator!) and we were really living it up. We spent all day at the beach, and then all night playing Wii! It was so fun. Everyone from the Woodbury family was there, so it was a nice little family reunion.

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Blessing Day

We finally blessed Abby this last Sunday at the beach house. It was so nice and thankfully she was very good during the whole thing (she wanted to show up her cousin!). Garrett gave the blessing, and included in the circle were Grandpa Woodbury, Jared, and Jesse (the 2 brother-in-laws). Before we started the blessing we sang “Families Can Be Together Forever”, which is one of my favorite primary songs (we also sang it as a big family on the day that Garrett and I were married, right before we left our wedding reception, so it’s pretty special to me). Anyway, for a little bit there we weren’t sure if we would be able to bless Abby outside of sacrament meeting, but thankfully we got permission from the Bishop. At first when we asked he was a bit hesitant to let us, but then he looked in the handbook and saw it was ok. I am so grateful, too. I just think that doing it at home is so much nicer because we could do it around Abby’s schedule, and it’s just so much more private and special, in my opinion. I mean, I love baby blessings and I enjoy them at Church, but it’s not like the entire ward is dying to hear the blessing. I just think doing it at home has so many benefits and it’s just so nice.

Ka-Boom!

Garrett and I had quite a scare this last Monday night. We were sitting at home watching Arrested Development when all of a sudden we heard a very loud CRACK, then a BOOM and the entire house shook. We just looked at each other in terror and I was seriously so scared. Honestly, I don't think I have ever been so scared. Garrett later said he thought someone was breaking into the house but I thought a tree had fallen onto the house. It turned out that both of us were wrong, but I was close. A huge branch fell from a tree outside our house and landed on the power lines (and cable lines and phones lines) that were going from the street to our house, ripping down a metal conduit pole on our house, and also ripping the meter off of the side of the house. Strangely, we still somehow had power, but it was so scary to have the live power lines on the ground outside our house! So we called the power company and finally around 11:45 that night they came and said they had to cut our power off, which was ok since we were going to go to bed anyway. The next day we cleared the branches and had an electrician come fix the meter box, and then Comcast and BellSouth and the power company each had to come and fix their lines. It was a long day but thankfully everything got done in good time, because we had to head back to Savannah later that afternoon.
This picture below is from after we lost power. Yeah yeah, Emma, I'm sure you probably don't like it. Is it as creepy as my old facebook pic?

Happy (early) Father's Day!

I know, I know, Father's Day isn't until NEXT week, but we needed a weed eater NOW! So Garrett and I went shopping and got one! First I looked at Consumer Reports, which I do before we buy practically anything that's going to cost more than $20. They rate everything on that website! Diapers, cars, washing machines, and even diets! (By the way, apparently the most successful diet plan out there is Volumetrics, and Weight Watchers comes in second place) So anyway, Garrett put that weed eater to work as soon as we got home and everything looks so much better! We have been in Savannah for the last 3 weeks so when we got home our lawn was looking pretty sad, but it looks good now.

And the greatest part about going shopping is that the stores are air conditioned! Yes, we have AC at our house and we do use it, but the stores are so much cooler and just walking from the car to the store nearly kills me. Every time we go outside the heat just hits us like a brick wall and it's so miserable. I would just sit by the pool in Savannah and sweat would be dripping off my face. It's gross. So anyway, on Saturday we went to Big Lots to just walk around and to look for the weed eater. And to enjoy the AC. (Emma... I love how in your blog you say that when you are bored, you and John go to the mall and walk around.... and we go to Big Lots! I know, Garrett and I are so ghetto. It's awesome).

That's all for now. Abby is getting her 4 month shots on Tuesday, and then we will head back to Savannah so Garrett can get back to work! And we have a very busy week and weekend coming up, so there will be lots to blog about.

Road Trip!

On Saturday we drove home from Savannah for a long weekend. We needed to take care of our yard and pick up our mail and pay our bills... you know, all the grown-up stuff that everyone loves. The 2.5 hour car ride gets kinda boring after a while, so I decided to take some pics! The ones of Abby are kinda weird, though, because I was sitting in the front seat and just reaching over the carseat trying to get a good shot, but I couldn't see.

We also saw tons of smoke from a fire in a field near the road. Luckily the road wasn't blocked off though, because we only know one way home. And it's annoying because although Savannah and Augusta are the second and third biggest cities in Georgia, there isn't a highway that connects them, so we take back roads through sketchy towns. So if our car ever broke down somewhere on the trip (knock on wood!), it would not be pretty, because we also don't get cell phone reception for most of the trip.