Each team member needs to get on film in front of something that distinguishes their location. Dad - palm trees in SoCal. Peter and Alec - temple square or Wasatch Mountains (fresh snow last night). Steve - The Mall or any other DC monument. Sarah - Independence Hall or Rocky statue. We should each introduce ourselves finger-spelling our names and using our voices, Dad, Alec, Peter, Sarah, and then Steve, only signing (using voice if comfortable). Because we each are coming through process differently we should document it as best as possible, keeping in mind that they often show the "teams" in the airports waiting/sleeping or on the planes doing what people do on flights. We only have 3 minutes so I anticipate heavy editing but we should show a clip of Stephen on I-94 to Philadelphia, a clip of Peter and Alec boarding flight to Denver with service to Dulles/Phila. A clip of Dad leaving California either to join up with us or on his way however he makes it. We could make it fun but showing scenes of us racing through to "catch a connection" or talking with a ticket agent about getting us on the flight (we really may be begging or we could just ask if they'd participate and we could ask for seats as close to the front of the plane as possible). In Philadelphia (or wherever we end up on the East Coast) we have to have a scene with us running out of the airport and throwing our stuff into Sarah's car or Steve's car and busting it down to the CBS studio. On the way we can do a quick explanation of why we want to be on the Amazing Race and why we should be on the Amazing Race. Finally, we can "camp out" if we want but I'd rather just act like I'm going in to turn in my application at the studio and skip the "camping out" scene to close it.

Drawbacks

1. Each person has to get on camera in their location (Dad and Steve's video camera availability in question)
2. Editing will be a trick, we don't want discombobulated but we do want to show the effort that we went through to get out there
3. Sarah's part if small and we don't want her "cut" because she lives in location (she is our mentally unstable component ;-)

Just an idea: matching team shirts screen printed with our team name? could extend the ASL theme buy graphically portraying names on shirt.

Open to feedback and modifications, looks like I just received an email from Peter perhaps detailing his idea.