[MUSIC]
Gotta go.
[LAUGH] Yeah, my mom had a really big bell.
Good Monday, no time Tuesday, no time.
That's the way the world works.
Right, right, yeah.
No more, I can't not
have my water run downhill.
In fact, I think there's a
famous saying about that, like,
all something runs downhill, like.
No, no, no.
My initials are on it, that's fine.
You're like, get down.
So I'm like, get down.
Like, we're about to be in a shootout.
Hey, Robert, how are you?
And he'd be like, good.
Cuz we ain't never home.
Did I just say ain't?
No.
Quote, Taylor Swift, never wield such
power you forget to be polite.
I'm gonna quote Justin
Bieber and say, go love yourself.
A cheers and a high five.
High five.
Welcome to the Mr. And
Mrs. English podcast.
I'm Megan.
And I'm Sean.
We're here to talk about the wild ride of
raising kids and growing careers,
keeping life together in
the middle of all the chaos.
So buckle up because we're all in this
crazy journey together.
Tots, la la land, bippity boppity boop.
Is that a new one?
Bippity boppity boop.
That is a new one.
I just made that up right now.
I love that.
I love the Cinderella reference.
Bippity boppity boop.
Yeah, although she's not a boop.
She just goes boop.
And the actual song.
The fairy godmother.
Yeah, just I'm looking at our thing.
Are we centered?
I don't know.
I feel like you're more
to the right than I am.
I feel like I'm closer to you because I
look huge compared to you.
Using a different lens.
Here you go.
Cheers.
Cheers to a rare Wednesday night.
And we're gonna stop.
We're gonna call it out.
It's Wednesday night.
Highlights go out tomorrow.
We got it in just in the nick of time.
It's busy.
It's actually do it Monday.
No time.
Tuesday.
No time.
Wednesday.
We have some time.
Maybe we can squeeze it in.
Yeah.
And turns out that it was easy to squeeze
in because we had a
few cancellations because
we had the rare rainstorm.
Yeah, that was awesome.
Do we get rain here?
I wasn't at the house today.
I was at a different location.
Yeah.
We did.
So I'm hopeful that we don't have to
water the flowers today.
I know the kids will
be happy about that too.
That is such...
It's a to-do obviously.
Cheers.
I didn't even take a sip.
But I'll sip it when
you're talking, I guess.
It's such a to-do during the summer.
I love having the flowers.
It's really nice to have the flowers in
the front and the back.
But I mean, I don't remember how many
flower pots we have.
But there's a few of them.
Enough that it's not just
a quick dink, dink, dink.
We're done.
It takes...
When I do it, it's 30 minutes watering.
The whole front takes me 10, 15 minutes
to get it done right.
Then you go to the back.
It's another 10, 15 minutes.
And the kids spend how much time on it?
Oh gosh, five in the back.
Well, they do split it up
among the three of them.
But no, it is a legit 10 minutes.
Although I think I've gotten pretty
efficient on like how I do it.
So I can get it down to 10 minutes.
You've got it down.
Yeah.
It just needs...
It's so high here.
If we don't get them watered.
Well, I feel like it's almost like abuse.
Yeah.
Well, and I should mention, most...
A lot of the big pots
are automatically watered.
Yeah.
Oh gosh.
If we had to water those...
Yeah.
And then I installed one that was
supposed to work and didn't work.
And I haven't been able to...
I haven't taken the
time to revisit that one.
Because it should water
those new ones in the new pots.
I didn't know that it didn't work.
I just thought it
wasn't fully set up yet.
No, it's not working.
It's literally...
It's like Amazon.
It's like the last mile of it.
Water comes to the black
tube from back in here.
So if I undo that black
tube, water will squirt out.
It's that black tube to the little tubes
that then go up into the pots
underneath, from underneath,
that it's not making it up.
Got it.
So I just don't know if I did something
wrong there and I have not.
It's been four months.
I haven't revisited.
So 2026, that will be running so
smoothly, you won't even
know what to do with yourself.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Put that on your New Year's resolution.
I also bought more of
that irrigation equipment.
So the two front trees, I
could water those on their own.
Yeah.
And I have all the stuff to run it
straight to them and I
haven't done that either.
I mean...
I mean, what have you
been doing with your time?
I mean, gosh, I feel like, you
know, you have so much extra.
But doesn't everybody have that?
I mean, I go to Home
Depot and buy all this stuff.
Like, I got to do this, I got
to do this, I got to do that.
And I go to Home Depot to get all this
stuff to do it because I'm a DIYer.
You are.
But I think I'm a good DIYer.
You're an excellent DIYer.
And I'll go into that more here and just
say why I say that versus a bad DIYer.
But then I just don't... sometimes I
don't get to it because
I need two or three hours
to do something or even
an hour to do something.
And to make sure I do it
right, you know, it just sits there.
So I've got all these great projects in
the garage ready to go.
Ready to go.
Mm-hmm.
But you're so good at it and you're so
thorough that I think it
takes you longer than the
average... maybe the average person
because they don't...
they're maybe not as meticulous
or... I mean, if you're going to do
something, you're going to do it right.
If I can't do it like a
professional, I'm not going to do it.
You won't do it.
I'm just not going to do it.
You'll literally hire a professional.
I will hire the professionals to do it,
but I am very handy.
Yes. And this is not a pat me on the back
thing, but I'm very handy
and it saved us a lot of
money over there.
Plus, I enjoy it.
Yeah.
I think I've mentioned to you, not on
this show, but when I
put that sump pump in over
here...
Yeah.
And I had to dig down like six feet in.
This whole thing with the hot tub, I
don't know if I've
mentioned it on this show, just
this back and forth and just... just
flooded this hot tub
multiple times because I think
we've mentioned it.
The builder didn't do it right.
Yeah.
Anyways, plus the irrigation here.
I mean, the land... the land... what is
it called when you get rid of the water?
Oh, oh, like mitigation.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Like water mitigation.
But I mean, we're on a little bit of a...
you know, our property
is not level, so it runs
from, you know, east to west.
Right.
Much to the strength of
our neighbors to the west.
Yeah.
And then our water comes to them, but
it's like, that's the
way the world works.
Right, right.
Don't know where else to... I can't not
have my water run
downhill to your property.
In fact, I think there's a famous saying
about that, like, "All
something runs downhill."
No, the links.
Water.
All water runs downhill.
But I think the principle
applies to a lot of things.
Yeah.
Anyways, my point to all that was just,
as much as I love doing,
you know, home improvement
things, and I really do like, you know,
I'm getting tired of the
more manual labor ones.
Like, I'm not enjoying digging dirt.
I don't know.
Digging, like, you know, trenches and
digging six-foot holes.
That is starting to wear on me.
And you've had to do quite a bit of it.
I mean, I will say, the engineering
marvel that is the sump
pump that you put in for
this hot tub.
With redundancies and
other pump redundancies.
This is after I've already flooded it 18
times, or four or five.
Yeah, pretty sure it's now been the
eighth wonder of the world.
But I'm still not done with it.
This is a prime example.
I've got the PVC in the other garage,
because right now, that sump pump is just
going up out of a
regular garden hose, basically.
So I run that garden hose over to some
other drains that then
go to our neighbor's yard.
Downhill.
Sorry, there's no other way.
I can't put it the other way.
It runs downhill.
It would not go.
Right.
Anyways.
Guess what?
We get their water.
Yeah, we do.
And it infuriates me.
I can't believe that their water would
run into our yard, even
though they have the higher ground.
Our poor neighbors, they did not like us
building this house.
They have a lot of issues with that.
Yeah, the ones downhill from us.
And the other ones left.
They did.
We offended both of our neighbors.
That was a whole story.
Crazy neighbor stories.
We can talk about that.
We can talk about crazy neighbor stories.
Oh my gosh.
We don't have anything
to talk about tonight.
So we're just going to
come, whatever comes to mind.
I'm going to finish my story.
I've got PVC to finish that sump pump,
because I want that water to go straight
into the drain and not up out of a hose
that I have to move.
And that the people that move are lawn
move, put it right back there.
So if it rains, it's literally pumping
straight back into itself.
Like if you're going
to move it, put it back.
Okay.
What's the definition of insanity, right?
Like a sump pump draining into itself.
Yes.
I think that's the new
definition of insanity.
I love it.
Oh goodness.
So so I guess let's start with neighbors.
That's kind of a cool thing.
Everybody's got a neighbor, right?
Everybody's got a good neighbors.
Everybody wants.
Let's go back to the 80s.
Yeah.
Right.
Or the 70s or even the 50s.
Wherever people go back that far.
What's the life with some
people that listen to this.
Okay.
And I mean, there was a time when there
was the neighborhood,
like everybody got a lot.
I mean, maybe the people didn't get one.
Maybe it was still
neighborhood drama, stuff like that.
But like there was a time when like
Sesame Street was the normal, right?
Not Oscar the ground, not
people living in trash cans, but.
But the whole neighborhood thing.
Everybody was friends.
Friendly.
Yeah.
Well, and even in my lifetime, I grew up
knowing my neighbors very well.
I even know some of your neighbors
because you know them so well.
Yes.
At the old, before your parents moved.
Yeah.
Oh, sure.
I bet you know, actually most of them.
Yeah.
And they know you.
Yeah.
Because it's like, that's when you bring
in, you know, oh, I
remember being a kid and our
neighborhood, all these peas.
Let's go ahead and do it.
Okay.
So here's your house.
Who's on your, you're on a cultist.
You grew up, you're the last house you
lived in because you live
in a couple, but the last
one in Bloomington.
Yeah.
You want to call it a sack?
Yeah.
You know everybody there, right?
Yeah.
With the, well, with the exception of
like two houses that
kind of changed owners a few
times.
So I may not know.
But when you grew up, when I grew up,
yeah, for the most part, for sure.
For sure.
Like I babysat the
people across the street.
The people next door, the Amists.
Oh my gosh.
And they had a little
girl who was hilarious.
And like, I just remember I was in high
school and she was pretty little.
She was running around the front yard in
the sprinklers in red
cowboy boots and nothing
else.
It was, she's like three, by the way.
Just, just like, it was so funny.
And we're like, oh,
there's Emily or Madeline.
It was Madeline.
That was a good data point.
Yeah.
She was three.
She was troubled.
She went to counseling.
She was 19, but she was on drugs.
It was always weird.
She was just this like free spirit little
toddler who loved red
cowboy boots and not
clothes.
But yeah, one of my brother's best
friends lived there.
I mean, it was awesome.
Yeah.
So I mean, I can do that too.
Like from Black Diamond where we grew up,
one of my best friends, I
think we can say people's
names on here, right?
Like the Starkey.
So the Starkey's were right next door.
Right.
And so one of my best
friends, sorry, my mic is so low.
I don't know.
I'm back.
My mic, I had to fix my mic.
Technical difficulties yet again.
We had to call in the group and the hand
and the grip and all that kind of stuff.
Oh, I know.
They're the best in the business.
The producer's not happy with
me, but you know, it's best.
Yeah, we had the best in the business.
Best in the business.
Anyways, to our right was the Starkey's.
Right.
And I remember the
Starkey's, that was my best friend.
So I would go over there and
elementary is my best friend.
So I would spend the
night over there all the time.
They didn't have a finished basement.
I mean, like I can go all
the houses that I grew up in.
I was there since second grade, right?
They didn't have a finished basement, but
we would play down there
like He-Man and Transformers
and G.I.
Joe.
And I remember, if Mitch ever listens to
this, he's my friend.
It's funny because there was a couple of
times he, and this
might've started where I got
really anal in life, but there was a
couple of times I kept my
toys as you would guess.
Pristine, I'm sure.
Pristine.
Oh, if I could play with them in the
package, I would have.
Pause.
You still have many of these
toys in pristine condition.
And some of them, you didn't want to
allow our children to
play with because you thought
our kids might wreck
them, which they probably did.
Well, I mean, they're
historical items now.
I don't know that we should let two year
olds play with them as
good of shape as they're
in.
Anyways, pristine condition.
And I would bring some of my toys over
there to play when we play sometimes.
And because mine were so nice, there was
a couple of times
that I, and he was a year
older than me, he
switched out a couple of mine.
He's like, that's mine.
I'm like, no, it's not.
That's mine.
And I don't like confrontation, or at
least at that point in my life, I didn't.
I don't like it now
either, but I'm fine with it.
Right.
As a child, different story.
So that's when I started putting my
initials on, like on the
bottom of my GI Joe guys,
I actually carved my
initials into their feet.
If anybody remembers GI Joe's, they have
feet and they had those
holes in them so they would
stand up.
Right.
Well, in that little area, which is 10
millimeters, maybe I use an
exacto knife that I use for
a lot of my model making and whatnot.
And I etched my initials
into the bottom of those.
Some of the bigger ones I'd use like a
marker or something like
that, but clearly where
you couldn't see it
because I didn't want to ruin it.
But then I knew like, no, no, no, my
initials are on that.
That's mine.
Anyways, that was the Star Keys.
Next to them, that one changed over.
But the next to them, I used to babysit
their kid for a while.
Greatest thing ever.
I would get $5 after school.
I don't know, like
fourth grade, fifth grade.
I would babysit him for like two hours.
I would get $5 and I
would get as many pops.
No, I think I got one root beer.
I think we were allowed
each to have one root beer.
Right?
Across the street from us was the cooks.
Matt Cook, he was another
really good friend of mine.
That's where I watched Thriller when the
video Michael Jackson Thriller came out.
Remember that?
It was a huge deal.
It was like 20 minute
video or something like that.
I don't remember what it was.
It was long.
But it was a big deal.
That's where I watched
Thriller, the Star Keys.
In fact, we were good friends.
I mean, the cooks, we were really good
friends with them for a while.
That was the people we
would throw the football with.
The dads, like Neil Starkey, Jim, and
then I can't remember
David Cook's dad's name.
Matt Cook's dad's name.
But we would actually.
Do you actually have
a singer next to you?
That was like the Sesame Street moment.
We had it for like two years.
See, and we had pretty much in any of the
neighborhoods that I
grew up in, because I
moved around quite a bit during those
years where you make
friends with your neighbors.
We played Ghost in the Graveyard.
Yeah.
Because like in the house my parents just
moved out of, we had
the Olsens and they had
like a kid every single one of our kids
age for the most part.
Yeah.
We played Ghost in the Graveyard and oh
my gosh, we did it so
when we lived in the Chicago
suburbs, Wheaton, we had
the Minachos right there.
They had a kid every year.
The Minachos.
They had a kid every year of ours too.
Actually, I did not be friends with
somebody named the Minachos.
Exactly.
They were super cool.
We even went to college with the one who
was my younger brother's
age, he went to the University
of Iowa with us.
Like how, yeah.
It was just awesome.
Yeah.
We played Ghost in the Graveyard too.
That was such a fun game
and we got to stay out.
I don't know what it is, but there's
somewhere out there, there's
one of those reels or memes
or whatever, but it talks about Gen X's.
Right?
There were Latteeds kids, we talked about
it here before a little
bit, but it was totally
true.
When the lights came on, we went home.
In fact, for me, it
was when Jim whistled.
There was a whistle that went.
[Whistling]
Anybody listening knows that, that knows
Jim would know that.
But I could hear that.
My really good friend, Jim O'Malley, who
was like two streets
away, I could hear it at
his house.
I mean, it's got to be 300, 400 yards,
because it's two streets.
It's my street, another
street, and then a cul-de-sac.
I could hear it, I'm like, "Got to go."
Yeah.
My mom had a really big bell.
Yeah.
A really...
Like she'd get like a
cow bell type thing?
Not like a cow bell, like a...
Like a...
Like a Liberty bell?
Smaller Liberty bell.
Like a small Liberty bell.
It was like, I mean, the handle was long.
The handle was like that.
Give me some inches, like 12 by 12?
I don't know.
I bet the circumference of the bottom of
the bell was 10 inches?
Okay.
So...
So she would hold...
This bell would have a handle?
So it would just go ding, ding.
Was it hung somewhere?
No, it like sat up.
It was actually, I
think a hutch that they had.
That's something people...
So there's a
freestanding bell that was...
Maybe a six inches of circumference?
I don't know.
I can't remember.
And she would just bang on that?
No, she would like ring it.
Like, you know, like a
bell choir at church?
I don't know if they have these anymore.
And they did it to their chest?
Yeah, yeah.
So it was like, think of like the biggest
bell that you would find in a bell choir.
Yeah.
That's what my mom had.
And so when we were
playing at Seven Gables Park...
Yeah.
Which was probably only
like 100 yards away, right?
You clearly...
Yeah.
You know, the whistle
was louder than this bell.
But oh yeah, we'd be playing at the park
and like we'd hear
this bell and like, okay,
it's time to come home.
Yeah.
Wow.
Interesting.
I never heard that story.
Really?
Yeah.
So was that a low pitch?
Bigger bells are
usually lower pitch, right?
It was a lower pitch bell.
Yeah.
But she'd only do it once
or she'd like go crazy on it?
I don't remember a couple times maybe.
Like I bet, you know,
she gave us two or three.
You know, she's mad.
Like, where are these...
Dum, dum, dum, dum, dum.
Gibbs kids are in trouble again.
Honestly, I don't think she, she was
probably just like
dinner's ready and like she's a
mom of five.
She was probably like, they don't have to
really rush home because I'm enjoying the
quiet.
Yeah.
So last question, where
was it located in a cabinet?
Yeah.
So like, you know, the glass hutch.
Yeah.
Oh, she takes it out of there though.
She would take it out of there.
Was it on a handle?
It had a long, long straight handle.
So it really was like a choir one.
It was a total choir bell.
She used to boom.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Would she do it like that too?
Probably.
Okay.
Like, cause I know that.
Like, the church we went to, it would
bring out all the
bells for Christmas Eve.
So I think that's what it was for because
my mom was in the
bell choir at one of the
churches that we were in.
And when we moved
away, they gave her a bell.
Seriously?
I think so.
That's fantastic.
I did not know that.
I apologize if I'm lying to all of our
listeners, but I'm pretty
sure that's why we have this
bell.
Cause I think it said
like, you know, I had no idea.
RG had was so talented to like Cox,
Christie bell choir, and
then like the years or whatever.
I think they gave it to her
as a, as a going away present.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so she would ring it.
It was in that hutch that was in the
living room for a long time.
Did you have any bad
neighbors at that point in time?
Cause I know for us,
I'll just, oh, go ahead.
You owe something came to your mind.
We did.
Uh-huh.
And it's actually not super.
It's not, it's not a funny story at all.
Actually it's, um, so one of, one of the
neighbors, uh, had a, had
a kid that they had adopted
any in this, this kid was
definitely a troubled youth.
Can I reach back?
Your, your, your
earring is like backwards.
Anyway, so this was a troubled youth and
he, he actually broke
into our house and stole
money.
Well, I had the same kind of deal.
He was another troubled youth.
He was, he was, he had
special problems of some sort.
I don't know what he is, but, um, but he
would, he was from up the
street and he would come
down and like, if your garage was open,
he would just wander
into it and take stuff out
of it.
But he was, he was special at that time
before people really kind
of, you know, treated that
differently.
Yeah.
And yours is a
different kind of problems.
I know.
I remember you telling me.
But other than that, like the parents
though, I mean, they were
actually friends with my
parents and, you know, and honestly, this
kid was a friend of my
older brothers because
he was in the neighborhood.
He would play with them.
And so we were really surprised.
Frankly, we didn't even know that he had
broken in and stolen
anything until later the cops
showed up.
Um, but we did have a neighbor
who was a, a, a top gun pilot.
He was a top gun instructor.
He would always wear his top gun.
Yeah.
He would wear his top gun hat.
It was, it looked like the movie hats.
100%.
No, really dead serious.
That's hilarious.
Don't remember that.
What was this call sign?
I have no idea.
Oh, I figured you wouldn't remember his
name, but you had to
remember his call sign.
I don't think I asked
him what his call sign was.
It wasn't Maverick.
It was not Maverick.
Viper maybe.
He was more of a Viper guy.
That's awesome.
So I'm trying to think, uh, there was a
house across the street
from us that was never out
in social and they didn't do
their yard, even back then.
And the yard was growing in a nice
suburban neighborhood
in Colorado Springs.
And that drove everybody crazy.
That house constantly turned over.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
I don't think we had anyone like that on
any of our, I mean, we
had some people who weren't
really social, but yeah, that was fine.
Maybe they didn't have kids or I mean, I
grew up around a lot of kids.
So let's think then, then, so then you
get, as you, as you
progress with life, you start,
then you go to like apartments, right?
And you figure out, okay.
Don't even get me started on some of the
people I've lived next to from an
apartment standpoint.
Apartments are the worst that you
couldn't, I would, I
would, I would live in the woods
before I'd go back to an apartment.
Cause you got people on the side of you,
on top of you, God forbid on top of you.
Remember, remember our little duplex or
whatever triplex in Chicago?
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
And the guys above us, we had a bunch of
college guys above us.
Yes.
And where we had, I mean, that was a
super nice apartment.
One is super nice, but one
of them was Bigfoot, right?
Yeah.
The way he walked around everywhere.
What was that?
Oh my gosh.
And where we had like a
really nice living room set up.
Mm-hmm.
Cause I mean, it was a nice apartment.
They had a beer pong table.
How do you know that?
Were you up there?
No.
Oh, no, I was never up
there, but we could hear it.
You could hear it.
I'm just kidding.
I was like, it was like, I was like, did
we ever go up there?
That was crazy.
We didn't have, there
was no elevator in that.
I bet if they made that today, they put
an elevator in there.
Cause that was a lot of stairs.
It was.
Good thing we were young.
Yeah.
But I mean, we carried our groceries up.
I know.
I was saying.
Yeah.
That was all, that's
all, it was only you and I.
One of my sisters lived
with us for a little while.
Yeah.
But yes, I do.
Cause you could hear like the think,
think, think of the beer pong.
Oh, I remember.
I remember.
I was trying to remember if we had ever
gone up there though.
Everywhere we've gone though, in
Yorkville, then so we
lived, then we moved out to the
suburbs and we have
children in Yorkville.
We had pretty good neighbors.
Oh yeah.
Except the people on the end.
You're right.
Did you forget about the people on the
very end out of our back window?
Gosh.
Yeah.
Okay.
Set the stage.
We had lived in that, we
hadn't even fully moved in.
We didn't.
Brand new neighborhood.
So we ground up build
with whole day homes.
So people, like there's lots of people
are buying, people are
just buying lots and building
brand new homes.
What do you forget about this?
Yeah.
We talked about that another day.
That was like the most
exciting thing we had done.
Like we'd go out there on the weekends
and just look at the,
you know, what happened,
the form and the basement
when they, when they drill.
Anyways, go ahead.
So we didn't even have furniture.
We maybe only had some furniture, but we
had only been in there.
It was one of our
first nights in the house.
It was early on for sure.
Early on.
I know we didn't have drapery.
Like we had nothing to cover our windows.
So another thing we can talk about.
I sewed that drapery.
You did.
You did such a good job.
Me. It's like 20 foot curtains.
Yeah.
We couldn't afford curtains.
So you sewed.
And I, because I had to put
blackouts on the back of them.
It was white and we picked
out a curtain and I sewed them.
Anyways, go ahead.
Yeah.
And now you're a seamstress.
I've been a seamstress for 25 years now.
It's what you moonlight doing.
Seeming financial packages together.
I like what you did there.
Anyways, go ahead.
Um, but all of a sudden, all
these cop cars come flying.
And we knew because we
didn't have curtains.
And we knew because we
used like two story windows.
It was great.
Yeah.
Almost floor to ceiling.
Yeah.
And like, what's going on?
Curbs drawn everything.
I mean, there's literally like a cop goes
like into our backyard on his belly.
Yes.
On his belly with a gun like with a
pistol pointed at our
neighbors, catty cornered in
our backyard.
Oh, nobody has fences in these bad guys.
Fences weren't allowed
in this neighborhood.
So it was just wide open.
You're like, get down.
So I'm like, get down.
Like we're about to be in a shootout.
At this time, we're
like, what have we done?
This is like a nice neighborhood.
Yeah.
And what was it?
It was a, it was an alcoholic mother.
Parents I think it was
the son that had the issue.
Remember the son didn't live there.
They have like kicked out
their kind of adult son.
Son who had.
He came back in there and they were like
trying to get issues.
They always called the cops on him
because he had, he had like drug issues.
Yeah.
Even Michael now their
names are coming to me.
What?
Yeah.
I would believe it or not.
I remember their names.
That's insane.
Anyway, but yeah, it was their son who
came out who they had
kicked out and he had a weapon
and he was not, not well.
It happened multiple times.
Multiple times.
That was actually scary from the
standpoint that if, if
bullets started flying, right?
There's nothing I can do.
I mean, I can't like, I can, I can like
blockade you and I'll
take a bullet for you.
But I mean like bullets, it's not like
you can just stand at
your glass window and watch
what's going down.
People start shooting bullets.
Right.
Like we were like laying on the floor.
I know.
I was like, get down as far as you can.
Yeah.
And then you're like kind of peek up to
see like, are you still there?
Yep.
Still there.
Just a single shot to the head.
Oh my gosh.
Anyway, so yeah, I mean
everybody's got neighbor stories.
That's why, you know, it's fun to bring
up things that other
people can kind of think
through like, what are my neighbors and
the crazy people we lived with?
Right.
You know?
So that was that one.
Everybody else there was good.
In fact, some of the people that are
across the street, the
Wallace's other names, they're
up in Minnesota now.
They're super nice.
Super nice.
Wally would help me
because you were gone.
Yeah.
For a good portion of
like our first winter there.
Traveled a lot for the bank.
And so he would help me.
Oh, that's when I was
living in San Francisco.
We lived in San Francisco.
We moved into this.
So here's this.
This is insane.
Yes.
We moved into this house
like December, like 19th.
I don't know the actual
date, but close to that.
And then I was in a special
program at Wells Fargo, CMTP.
So it was a big deal at the time.
Now everybody goes through it, but it's a
big deal at the time
to get chosen for it.
And I, but it was five
months in San Francisco.
They relocated you to San Francisco and I
had to be there like January 6th.
I think was like my report date or
something like that.
So we knew this was coming.
The house was supposed to be finished by
like December 16th and they finished it.
We got in it like December 19th or
something like that,
but it was all white.
So I wanted to get some things in.
I got a house settled so
Meg, so you could be there.
So you could live there by yourself.
I mean, like from someone also that
enjoys things new, right?
You have no, I mean, you do know, because
I think I said it to
you, but it was so hard
to be like, we have a brand new house
that we've been building
for nine months or whatever
it was.
So excited.
And I don't get to break it in.
I get there.
I was literally in the house for seven
days, whatever it was, it
ended up being like seven
days.
That's it.
And I painted the entire two, uh, story
for a family room at that point in time.
I don't remember what else I did.
I got a couple of things ready and then I
was gone for five months.
So that's why I'm glad.
I was super nice guy.
I'm there still nice every now and then
they'll like Facebook.
Yeah.
We're friends with them on Facebook and
like, um, the people
behind us, actually all the,
all the neighbors other than, Oh, it
wasn't Michael and Evelyn.
It was Frank and Evelyn
other than Frank and Evelyn.
Um, like, we're still
friends with on Facebook.
Yeah.
So yeah, Sherry Mahoney was, you know,
so, oh, the Mahoney.
Yes.
Behind us.
He was an electrician.
She was super nice.
They had young kids similar to our age.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think they did very well in life.
Kendra Jordan was next door, you know, so
it's like, we knew we
actually had some really
good neighbors.
Frank and Evelyn obviously
had a troubled life, but.
Sands.
And we didn't have anybody across the
street because it wasn't even built.
It wasn't built.
But those were kind of on that other
street that was already built.
Yeah.
So we were there for, I
don't know, eight years.
We were there for a long time, seven
years, six years, five years, whatever.
I could do an app.
So something like that.
I'm going to say eight
years, something like that.
And then we relocated to the bank,
relocated me to back out to Colorado.
That's when we were on Al Roost.
And those neighbors were, you just take
our age at the time, times two.
And that was our neighbors.
We didn't fit in.
But one of them, we
still get Gary and Lou.
We get their Christmas card every year.
And they're one of the
ones that type it out.
Here's what's happening.
Oh.
Nicest people.
So sweet.
And she writes a handwritten
note to us every single time.
Because I sent her, I sent them a
Christmas card as well.
Yeah.
And oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Lou and Gary Colhane are sweetest people.
But they were really
the only people we knew.
Yeah.
On that entire street.
Yeah.
And everybody was twice our age.
And it was a neighborhood that didn't
have anybody our age.
No.
Our kids would not have been playing in
the street because
there were no children.
No.
Even though there was a park
literally across the street.
It was fantastic.
I loved that house.
We finished the basement in it.
We finished that whole house.
People probably thought, yeah.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
That's right.
We redid that whole house.
We redid the whole thing.
People had to think we were crazy though
because we had like a
three year old, a two year old
and then a newborn in that house.
A newborn.
We.
Our youngest was born in that house.
Yeah.
Our other two were
born in the other house.
Right.
The one that we were
just talking about in your.
Right.
We were just at that stage of life where
like, you know, as long
as we're having babies,
we may as well, you know, finish it up.
So anyways, I mean,
yeah, Al Roost was great.
We had a couple of neighbors there, a
couple that we just
didn't fit into and then down
here to Texas.
Yeah.
Right.
And we've been here for
literally almost, almost a decade.
Not almost.
Oh my gosh.
It's been over a decade.
Over a decade.
So we moved.
2015.
Yep.
We moved in February of, beginning of,
sorry, end of January 2015.
And we never thought, I mean, did you
ever think in a million
years you live in Texas?
No.
Me either.
Like, of all the places.
Yeah.
In fact, we joked when we had our
daughter, because her name,
if you were to put a Southern
accent with her name, it's
very Southern Belle sounding.
And so we're like, well, we can never
live in the South
because, you know, that's, that's
not really the intent of her name.
Well, guess what?
The irony is.
Yeah.
Here we are.
Well, we almost did because my
grandmother's name is Ava Nell.
Right.
And we almost named our daughter Ava
Belle, but we didn't.
Yeah.
Then it really would have been.
Which would have been very Texan.
Very Southern.
A cute little name, but she's definitely,
her name is definitely what she is.
Yes.
So.
Yeah.
And I don't think people say usually, you
know, because that
was her first and middle
name.
So I don't think they usually call her by
her first and middle name.
Things are all backwards here.
It was weird.
I mean, we never
thought we'd live in Texas.
You never thought that?
No.
I was born in Dallas.
Yeah.
Which is, which was the weird oddity.
So it's almost like, people are like,
like when I'm here, I
hate the question now when
I, when I live in Texas, people are like,
where were you born?
I'm like, Dallas.
With a huge caveat here.
I grew up in Colorado.
I consider myself a Colorado boy because
I lived in Colorado for 30 years.
Yeah.
And we moved to Colorado and I was like,
before I was a year old.
Yeah.
Right.
So I am not, I'm a Colorado boy.
So we're, so we moved to the other house,
I guess over a decade ago.
Yeah.
And that was a, that was really a pretty
nice neighborhood too.
That was a little bit of a
Sesame Street neighborhood.
It was the kids.
I mean, the kids played outside and
everyone was in the streets.
We lived in a cul-de-sac.
So we had a cul-de-sac at the end there.
We had the Urnsons and the Deepen Chinsos
right across from us.
Both of them our age, maybe a little bit,
a couple of years
older, maybe, but around,
I mean, we were the same age.
But kids our age, same stage of life.
And that was another Sesame Street.
That was a fun time.
It was.
And our kids had a blast.
It was the type of neighborhood that we
would send our kids outside.
Yes.
Our youngest and apologize to, it was the
Grisers who ended up bringing Liam home.
Sorry.
It was the Grisers who ended up bringing
our youngest home one time because he may
have gotten out, you
know, but without clothes.
Again, as a baby, as a 19 year old.
Anyway, you know, 19 now, it was just one
of those things
where, yeah, we would send
our kids out and they would play.
And it was the, those
were in and out all the time.
I almost look at those times like we were
young, like remember like Tony across the
way.
Yeah.
Right.
Like Tony, they moved too soon,
unfortunately, because they were great.
Yeah.
Tony and Kristen.
But I called him like my older brother.
Yeah.
Because like he played
basketball or Texas Tech.
Yeah.
He's a walk on, I think, there.
And then he took me a couple of times to
his gym and we'd
play, even though I hadn't
played a long time or whatnot.
He knew I was trying to play
as well as I could with them.
Like they were such fun people.
And then the Urnsons, like we went to a
ton of concerts with them.
We would do Halloween with them.
I mean, like, yeah, we really, you know,
had a nice little
couple of years of a nice
little Sesame Street situation.
We really did.
Yeah, we did.
And then we moved to this house.
Well, I'm just trying
to think, let's go back.
We're talking about neighbors.
I mean, not that we're dedicating this
whole show to basically
is dedicated to this to
neighbors at this
point, but so we knew them.
Yeah.
We had who was next to us?
Kara.
Oh, yeah, we had the care.
So we had the Helms and the Grisors.
Helms, the Helms and the Grisors.
Yeah.
The Grisors moved in a little bit later.
Super nice.
Oh, yeah.
People.
The Helms care.
Super nice.
Oh, my gosh.
So nice.
I know she was busy with
a whole bunch of stuff.
Her kids were a little bit older than us.
But how funny her
husband was like a ghost.
We never saw her.
I mean, like, I can't think of his name.
Robert.
Gosh, it's terrible.
But we never saw Robert every now and
then I'd see Robert and
be like, Hey, Robert, how
are you?
And he'd be like, Good.
They'd go in.
Remember?
So Robert's father.
Oh, Bill Bob.
Bob lived in the house.
Bob was great for a while.
Bob all the time.
But he was chatty.
Oh, gosh.
Bob was amazing.
He was super nice.
Yeah.
So nice.
But we never saw Robert.
There was some.
Like, so we saw his dad.
Some.
I think he was just busy with career.
I think he was like an I think he was a
radio voice for real estate.
He did this thing.
Like he did this kind of stuff before
this money was like a
yeah, before it was a
thing.
Yeah, he wasn't he was a real estate.
I was in real estate.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
Nice people.
Super nice.
Yeah.
So that was that was a fun.
But that was the reason.
But you talk about neighborhoods, though,
that neighborhood had
that was our first, I
think, HOA.
Yeah.
And the HOA.
That's no bueno.
Com Sean.
Yeah.
That was an issue.
So at some point, we put a pool house in
our backyard and we
did some changes in the
backyard, all of which I went through the
proper channels and
since stuff to the HOA
and got it pre-approved everything.
But here's just a side
side note on that one.
So we built this pool house in the
backyard that matched
the architecture of our
house, which was a French Chateau type.
Yes.
But along the way, while we were just
building it, I made this
one because it had like a
what do you call that thing?
It was like a tower or a turret.
It had like a tower, but the tower is
going to have a cone on
it because it matched blah,
blah, blah.
But along the way to make it fun, I made
it into like a castle tower.
So for the kids, because I designed it so
you could get up there.
So it was like 20 feet high.
And that's I always think it's fun to
have you like a lookout tower type thing.
So I made it fun for
the kids to get up there.
Well, oh, God, the HOA saw
that we had a castle tower.
By the way, it's
clearly, clearly not finished.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, it was I had a hardy board right
on the outside of it.
Right.
And they knew the final finish was stone.
So I had hardy board.
Actually, it was flexible hardy board
because it was on a curve.
So I had we had the HOA like they brought
everybody in their
mom just knocking on our
door, walking through our house,
demanding to see the backyard.
Because he had a
fiduciary responsibility.
Oh, my God.
He sent me the email.
I have a fiduciary duty to this
neighborhood to
preserve the architectural.
You know, are you kidding me?
Oh, my gosh, it was.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
We only like to talk about people.
Like if we're going to say something nice
about someone, we'll say their name.
Yeah, I want to talk smack about.
But oh, he was insane.
Yeah, I was like from that moment.
I'm like, I'm not going to live here long
term because that guy,
he was the classic HOA
president or whatever he was.
And like beside our
driveway and like tried it.
Oh, yeah.
We could see them from our we would look
out of our our
windows in the front of the
house. You could see him down the street
like trying to peek into our backyard,
trying to look over, trying to see what's
happening in our backyard.
And that was that was the seed.
Yeah, that was the seed that was like,
I'm not going to live here.
There is no way I'm not going to be
exposed to someone like
that who could tell me what
to do in my life.
I'm a grown man.
Right.
There's no way I'm going to let someone
like that tell me what I can do.
Especially within the
scopes of the rules.
I am a full roll rule follower.
That's exactly right.
You approved it already.
I'm going to finish it the way I said I
was going to approve it.
I did something fun for the kids in the
meantime while we're building it.
And you guys had to have a issue.
Yeah, like I was crazy.
So we set the record with the highest
cell in that neighborhood.
And we built this house.
You're welcome.
Yeah.
And good riddance.
All right.
Clearly, I hold a lot.
That guy but but it just does it does bug
me when people
leverage the smallest amount
of influence that they have.
Yeah, in a negative way.
Yes.
And this was this was an HOA president.
Like give me a break.
I know.
Like there's a way to handle this.
But if you want to handle
it like you're, you know,
a mob boss, bringing
down the weight on me.
You know what I mean?
It's the craziest thing.
Oh my gosh.
Quote Taylor Swift.
Never wield such power.
You forget to be polite.
I'm gonna I'm gonna quote Justin Bieber
and say go love yourself.
All right.
That's it.
Where are we at?
Where are we at here?
We're getting now I'm getting long.
Well, we're back at school.
Yes, back into the regular.
I guess schedule.
We are.
How's it feel for you?
It's a weird being here.
I've been been
working away from the house.
Right.
For the last week and
a half or two weeks.
So you're here all alone
right now, which is odd.
I'm not I'm not the I'm not the other
person in the other office in the house.
I know.
If we have to email each other, it's
always like, I love you says
the person in the back of the,
you know, in the office
at the back of the house.
Yeah.
Um.
The office around the corner.
It's it's strange.
It's so quiet.
Yeah.
Um, I like it to some degree, but
there's some good things about it.
But at the same time, I miss I miss it.
Like having someone else there, it does
help that the dog does
not leave my side all day.
You know, but yeah, it's just
back to the regular routine.
It's, you know, he goes zero to 60 from
the moment you wake up.
545 to 11 p.m.
You just go.
We lost an hour of sleep because we have
to get up at 545, which is fine.
Because when we were in
Chicago, speaking of Chicago,
Oh, my gosh.
We had to train in town.
I mean, that was a four.
What time?
I think we got up at 455.
455.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's not a good thing when
your alarm has a four on it.
Yeah.
Regular work day.
For regular work day.
Gets the train in town.
So yeah, so 545 doesn't sound horrible,
but it's only, but it's
less than an hour later.
Right.
And we're definitely
not going to bed till 11.
Because we can't go to bed.
We don't even get home till 10 almost.
Right.
From soccer practice.
So it's just like, yeah, there is no
chance to go to bed earlier.
Yeah.
Which it was canceled tonight.
Hints.
We're midweek.
Stored you always use sipping and vibing.
And vibing.
We're midweek and vibing.
To with me can bib.
That doesn't work.
I don't think so.
I don't know.
I'm really confused by that one.
All right.
Well, what do we have coming up?
Anything?
You know, I think this weekend is
actually quiet, but I mean,
starting next week, weekend,
we're going to be
traveling a ton over the fall.
Soccer.
For soccer.
Yeah.
So Austin, Colorado, I know.
Austin, Colorado, San Diego.
We got a San Diego too.
Houston.
I don't think Atlanta, I think
Indianapolis is in the spring.
Florida's more spring.
I mean, it's like insane.
Interesting.
Well, that just means
we'll have some on location.
Helping us.
Location.
The good thing is though, is that our
boys are usually playing
away at the same location.
So like both boys are playing in Austin
and both boys are playing in Colorado.
Yeah.
So that helps.
All right.
Well, I guess we're coming up on the time
that we do our word
of what this week was.
I got mine.
I've got mine.
Ready?
One, two, three.
Exhausting.
Oh, that's pretty close.
I don't want to open a cheer.
Cheers and, hold on, let's do this.
We're going to do a
cheers and a high five.
Oh, that's only
happening because we've been bit.
We've been bit.
Yeah, the exact same feeling.
We'll get caught up.
We'll get used to it again.
We will.
But it's very exhausting right now.
It's exhausting.
Your parents are supposed to come down at
some point too, right?
Yeah.
So we'll try to fit that in.
We'll try to fit that in.
That'll be great.
Yeah.
We love having people.
You do.
We just let them, just
bring them into the fold.
Anybody that visits us
knows like, "Hey, come on in.
You're going to be going to a soccer game
with us if you want
to spend time with us."
Heck yeah.
There's just no time.
Because we ain't never home.
Just get it there.
Did I just say ain't?
Nothing's ever been more
eloquent out of your mouth.
Yeah, that was odd.
It was not you.
It's not like you.
It's been a long time.
It's been a long Wednesday of the day.
All right.
Well, it's Friday,
even so it's good news.
Oh, good news.
I like that.
All right.
Look at that.
Well, let's, I guess
we'll sign off then, right?
We will.
Okay.
Should I do mine first?
What are you going to do?
My regular now.
First? Okay, you go first and I'll go after you.
All right.
My regular is just-
I thought we did it at the same time.
Okay, let's do it.
Okay, we're going to,
okay, with no countdown on us.
We're just going to
say thanks for joining.
Thanks for, thanks,
thanks for checking us out.
We always appreciate you guys.
Ciao ciao.
Oh, you win.
See ya.