The Mergenthaler Family

Last week, I left this and these people  to be with these people  doing these things. I’m loving the history lessons, stories about my ancestors, and wilderness adventures.  Thank you, Rick, for taking care of five kids, a full-time job, out-of-town guests, a broken pool pump, and a broken well pump while I’ve been exploring the east coast with the big girls.

Our house is meant for entertaining. We knew that when we bought it. We do have a big family, and we easily could fill the space with kids, but we choose to have our kids share bedrooms so that the casita is open for guests. We have a game room with tons of toys, a big yard with grass (not so common in Arizona), and a pool. It’s pretty much like a resort. Add to that the fact that a lot of super fun people live at our house and every day is a potential party.  Our kids forget how blessed we are to have this space until somebody else points it out to them. Through March and April, I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “I’m bored. I don’t know what to do.” I almost always answered, “What’s not to do?” And then we learned that we would have guests. Our kids counted down the days. Our guests were super excited to play with our toys, run in our yard, swim in our pool, and hang out with super fun people. Our house became fun again. Here’s some of what we did: Learned new tricks: Rock ...

On May 22, Rick and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary. Our kids took care of each other while we spent the weekend in Sedona and Flagstaff. We expected a quiet getaway with peaceful hikes and sight seeing. Unfortunately, it was Memorial Day weekend after a two month quarantine and we were not the only people looking for a place to go. Sedona was packed. We went to hike Devil’s Bridge and found cars lining the road for a mile before and after the parking lot. We skipped that hike, which would have probably been more like standing in a long line at Disneyland and drove through Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff. The canyon was beautiful, but still packed with people. Slide Rock was closed because it was full to capacity and cars were parked along the road at every scenic point.  Fortunately, Flagstaff was much less overrun. We went to an excellent Mexican restaurant and found a nice evening hike called Fatman’s—perfect for the two of us who just gorged ourselves with sopapillas an...

Andrew turned 13. He wanted Bluetooth ear buds, a smart watch, and sugar cereal. It turned out that the smart watch and ear buds were garbage, so he returned them and got a guitar. He has been playing and playing and playing. He carries his guitar with him everywhere. His quarantine hair is turning in to 90’s Heart Throb hair. We love our newest teen.  Ricky turned 16. Social distancing is the perfect excuse not to go on a date. He’s excited about getting his drivers license. On his birthday he applied for a bunch of jobs. He landed an interview at Albertsons last week. After going to two different stores and being told they weren’t hiring and he didn’t have an interview there, he finally figured out his interview was at McDonald’s. Aside from being a half hour late, the interview went well and they hired him. He starts work next week. This is him driving me to the interview.  We love our happy, fun, energetic, guileless guy. 

Oh, those poor seniors! I have heard that phrase so many times in the past few months.  There are seniors in high school who were ripped away from their last prom, last athletic events, last day of school. And there are senior citizens all around us who are at risk for contracting a virus that could be a death sentence for them.  In both cases, people have strong and opposing opinions. First, high school seniors.  I have one.  Actually, she graduated way back in November 2019, but still. I have one. When she reads sad social media posts about all the things her peers were looking forward to and they now can't have, she is not much moved. Because, for her, it's a huge relief that these expectations--senior pictures, graduation celebrations, senior prom, blah, blah--magically disappeared. No longer does she have to explain that she is absolutely not interested in going to prom or that she could care less if she has professional pictures taken or she doesn’t want to g...

This is the last email we received from Emily way back in March 23. I got busy and forgot to add it to the blog. She arrived home three days later after an all-nighter in the Miami airport. Big news guys : I am coming home and will b e released upon my return because I've served for 17 months. I'm not exactly sure when I will get to the US because we haven't found any flights. We have been in quarantine since last Wednesday (hence my becoming suddenly active on Facebook since it's one of the only ways we can do missionary work now).    It's been a really emotional week. My heart feels broken, but I know that feeling will fade with time. What won't fade is my love for Suriname and Bonaire: the people I have met and come to love, the culture, the missionaries, my mission president and wife, all of it. I am beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the Lord in theTrinidad Port of Spain mission. My gratitude has often brought me to tears these past couple...

Boredom creates space for creativity. At least, that's the idea that came to me about two months ago, long before COVID-19 forced our family into a boredom experiment. Some of our children were spending a lot of time on their devices. I worried the hours they spent passively partaking in entertainment through screens would limit their progress academically, socially, physically, and spiritually. I wanted to try a screen time lockdown for an hour or two each day, hoping that when they weren't being fed entertainment, they'd purposefully seek out good things to do. I like this scripture: "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.  And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward." (D&C 58:27-28) The word, "anxiously" stands out right away. Is anybody else feel...