(light music)
It is an exceptionally rare day.
It is the three days of
fall that we get in Texas.
The Yeti of like Texas,
like everyone's looking for it,
but no one ever actually finds it.
The Chupacabra.
It's a Chupacabra.
Sickly yellow.
It's a sickly yellow color.
Oh my gosh, it's one of the best smells.
The smell of those dried leaves.
We made houses out of leaves.
Ah, it's in my eye.
Different experience.
Wow, this is a cartoon
in the making, right?
Corn mazes, pumpkin patches actually.
Yes, we did real hayrides.
You know what, I think we could probably
set off the roof, because
Christmas is still magical.
Turn that Christmas music off.
I don't wanna hear another jingle bell.
Oh my gosh, homemade applesauce.
And I think they're overrated.
You don't wanna put that out there.
Oh my gosh.
Rum Chata is our new pumpkin spice.
Chupchap.
All right, see ya.
That piece of cotton just
flew right into our house.
Like a cottonwood tree piece of cotton.
It's all right.
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.
No check checks?
We don't have to check check,
because we're doing it outside.
We're on location.
Yep.
Again from our backyard.
(laughing) At some point our
viewers will see every angle
of our backyard.
That's right, that's right.
This is another angle
of it, but we're in it
because it is the three days
of fall that we get in Texas.
It is an exceptionally rare day.
Yes.
Where you're like,
what, high 60s, low 70s,
no humidity, no wind.
No bugs.
This is, I don't know,
whatever, the Yeti of like Texas.
Everyone's looking for it, but no one
ever actually finds it.
Chupacabra.
It's a chupacabra.
The Texas Tasmania, I don't know.
There is a Texas something.
The Chupacabra.
I think it's the Chupacabra.
The Chupacabra.
I said it right the first two times,
then it really.
It's a tough word.
Chupacabra.
Chupacabra, I got that time.
Yeah, fall.
I've said it a couple times about this.
My favorite season of the year, by far.
By far.
Summer's great.
Winter can be fantastic
with the holidays and the feel
and all that kind of stuff.
Spring, new beginnings, the
first flowers and tree buds.
All great.
Hands down for me.
I'm totally with you.
Fall.
Fall guy all the way.
I know.
I don't know why that is,
but we both come from places that fall.
Right.
Real true fall, I think.
How's Minnesota's?
It's just earlier.
I mean, it's a shorter season
because it gets cold.
Like it's the opposite of Texas
where it just stays
hot here so long there.
It can get cold really quickly.
So, I mean, sometimes
you have a great fall.
Sometimes you're like,
oh wow, it's now
snowing and it's October.
Great.
Well, I mean, there's enough people
around the United States.
I'm sure around the world too,
I don't actually know, but I'm guessing.
But around the United States for sure,
I was one of the ones blessed that,
where I grew up in
Colorado, the leaves changed.
The coming of fall, the perfect timing,
all the leaves, we had the aspens,
primarily the aspens.
Yeah.
Here you have some oaks that do it.
Yeah.
I don't know what else.
There are some
seasonal leaf changes here.
Not as many, but like I
know on the East Coast,
they sometimes, I went on a drive,
happened just happenstance on a work trip
years and years ago through Virginia,
just rolling hills.
And I took pictures
probably at some point.
Might've been before
iPhones, maybe at the beginning.
Yeah.
I don't know where that picture exists.
But I remember you sending it to me.
I think I sent it to you.
Yeah.
I was like, this is gorgeous.
Yeah.
Because just the oranges
and the yellows and the reds,
just rolling hills and patches.
And that's how it was in Colorado.
We would go for drives in the mountains
and just see the aspen trees at the time.
I mean, I'm sure at some point,
I mean, because aspens actually,
they got a disease at
some point in Colorado
and large acres of them died off.
Really?
They got burned off and whatnot.
And if I was speaking out of turn here,
I remember that to some degree,
like being an issue later in life.
Yeah.
So I don't know if that was
the case back then or whatnot,
but I just remember we would go
and it would just be just
mountainsides of gold and red.
Yeah.
It was incredible.
Yeah, yeah.
And in Minnesota, where I grew up,
and even down into Chicago and stuff,
you do have the changing of the leaves
and it's the reds and
the oranges and the yellow.
I mean, it is gorgeous
because they have so many
maples and oaks up there
that those are the ones
that turn more into the reds.
Obviously no aspen, but.
There's like a red oak just
down the street from us here
that does it and they get blood red.
When the sun's coming
through that tree, it's incredible.
It's incredible.
It is.
And ours kind of go from
green to brown and then fall off.
(laughing) You know, and you're like, but.
There's kind of a
definitely yellow, a sickly yellow.
It's a sickly yellow
color up there, yeah.
Before they fall off into our pool.
Exactly, and then spend hours skimming
them out of the pool.
It's fantastic.
That's right, that's right.
I mean, at least up
there, it's the reds and.
I mean, I, oh my gosh,
is one of the best smells.
The smell of those dried leaves.
And like when you're
jumping in leaves as a kid,
like we would build piles as tall as us.
Boys, walk through.
Walking slowly doesn't do anything.
We don't wanna like give you.
That's funny, our kids
don't see us do the podcast
very often, so we had two
of them walking up there,
doing this just off camera over here.
Just like this slow, like.
They're like, what do I do?
Eyebrows up, and it's like, well,
there's one door over
there, one door over there.
There's doors everywhere you could go,
but they wanna walk
like slow, small asses,
like right behind, like
tiptoeing, like looking at us.
I know, I know.
Well, we do have a big open door.
Just walk through.
(laughing)
But you were saying we
were talking about the trees.
The trees, the color changes are like
the curtain to fall though, right?
Fall just, there's more
to it than the colors.
Like I loved that.
And I don't wanna gloss
over what you just said.
I never jumped in leaves.
Oh my gosh, really?
Leaves were, we never had leaves.
Leaves didn't fall like that in Colorado.
Okay, okay.
Cause we had, I mean, outside of Aspen,
which I think they did lose their leaves,
but not like oak stew or maple.
Oh, they're smaller leaves, right?
Very smaller.
They shut down, but they never pile up.
In Illinois, that's a thing.
Oh my gosh, yes.
The amount of leaves that fall,
they have to get swept to the streets.
Oh yeah, yeah.
I mean, we would get
piles that were eight,
10 feet kind of long,
and they would be four
feet high, I mean, easily.
And you would just jump in them.
You're like, I don't even know
that I'm gonna find the bottom.
I mean, you could easily,
completely bury yourself in leaves.
We made houses out of leaves.
You can't really stack them,
but you know what I mean?
Like in your imagination as a child,
like over here in the pile is my bedroom,
and the kitchen's gonna be over there,
and you like make these
homes out of the leaves.
Oh my gosh, we would
jump in leaves for hours,
and then the parents
would rake them back up again.
Usually they'd leave the rake nearby,
so you could rake them up
again into a really big,
yeah, yeah, into a really big pile.
Oh my gosh, but that smell of the leaves
is, it just takes me back
instantly in a childhood.
That's interesting.
I don't have that memory,
because that's a, I think
that is a true Midwest thing.
Yeah.
You know, where you have
these big trees that do it.
We get a lot of leaves down here,
we can get big piles
here, but not like there.
I remember going back, and when we lived,
so when we lived in downtown Chicago,
like near Wrigleyville,
we lived in an apartment,
so we didn't have trees.
Correct.
Or a townhouse, or
whatever it was, condo.
And then we moved out to the suburbs,
but those suburbs were
cornfields turned into suburbs.
Suburbs, yeah, exactly, homes.
We were taller than most of the trees
when we first moved in, right?
So those trees didn't really like,
but I remember going
into like Naperville,
or the next ones down in,
where they had these big
mature trees and whatnot,
and they had those piles,
but everybody like raked
them out to the street,
and then a truck specifically designed
to come get the leaves came through.
It had a huge tube
that sucked the leaves in.
(laughing)
And I'm guessing it chopped them up,
and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, I'm sure.
I mean, that might be
different than when you grew up,
but I saw that, and I
was like, wow, this makes,
I mean, that's a
totally different experience
than what Carl and I, we had pine trees.
Pine trees didn't do that.
No, no, they're evergreens, right?
And jumping in a pile of pine needles
doesn't sound pleasant.
Yeah.
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
different experience.
Totally.
You come out looking like a porcupine.
(laughing)
This is a, wow, this is a
cartoon in the making, right?
It is, it is, but it's that
crispness of the air, right?
When you go back to Colorado,
maybe even Minnesota
for you, I don't know,
but in Colorado, that,
the coolness in the air,
coming from the mountains,
because the way where we lived,
the winds always came over the mountains,
and it just blew that
mountain breeze down into
where we lived,
everybody on the front range.
And that was just, that in
and of itself was magical,
those cool nights, because you could,
it would be a beautiful
day like today, 70, 80s,
you're in shorts, but
at night, you'd put on,
I mean, like, this is it, we're like,
we're jonesing for it, right?
Clearly jonesing for it.
We're in long sleeve t-shirts.
Right, right, because these days,
well, they don't happen here.
And I wouldn't say that we had that
crispness in Minnesota.
It's really pretty
humid there, but there is,
there is something about
that changing of the season
where all of a sudden you're like,
oh, the sun goes down and it gets cool.
Like, you're like, it's
a different temperature
than it was during the day.
And I would say that is
unique probably to the front range
of like just, because
even in the middle of summer,
it does that.
Yeah, I mean, for me,
and I don't know if there's
other people that are
Coloradans on here or whatnot,
but you know, there's some things,
it's not real, before reals were a thing,
I think I showed it to you,
we were living in Colorado.
Yeah.
You know, it was like all
these like stereotypical
Colorado things, like
people from the front range
are from Colorado do, you know,
like Denver, Colorado Springs area.
Yeah.
Maybe down to Pueblo before Collins,
but they were all just right on.
I mean, he'd been down
ahead like taking all that pride
and like wearing shorts in a three,
in like a three quarters zip, you know,
or like this, like a little hoodie,
like long sleeve t-shirt.
Yeah.
With shorts though.
With shorts.
Because that's totally
appropriate, you know.
Completely, like.
That's exactly what you're
supposed to wear in Colorado.
You know, probably at the
time there were some Tiva's
or some Birkenstocks.
Birks are made to come back.
Yeah, we've got
multiple Birks in the house.
You don't have Birks, the kids do.
The kids do.
You don't have them.
No, no.
They would make mine
look like Shrek feet.
It's a bad look.
(laughing)
It's fine.
Yeah, short and fat.
Yeah.
Short and wide, yeah.
So there's that, and then, you know,
the other part for me,
obviously for our kids even,
like it's ushering in the holidays.
Yes.
The greatest three months of the year.
I know, our kids are
really stretching it this year.
Oh my gosh.
We talked about it briefly, but.
Yeah, we were, okay, so
this week we were making
Halloween cookies.
So we've actually extended, you know,
the Christmas, everyone
does Christmas cookies.
Well, maybe not everyone,
but Christmas cookies, right?
And we do the cutouts.
Sugar cookies, cutouts, yeah.
Yeah, you cut them out
and frosting, all of that.
Well, we extended it,
I don't even remember
how many years ago,
five, eight years ago,
to include Halloween cookies, right?
Because we have Halloween cookie cutters.
So the exact same thing as Christmas,
just different cutouts.
And so we're like, we
should turn on Halloween music.
And not joking, our oldest kept playing,
like Christmas music.
Every single time it
was like, all of a sudden,
a Christmas song would come on.
And you're like, we
don't need Ocomo come,
Emmanuel, right?
Ow, oh god.
Like, it is.
It has the one, yeah.
This October, Emmanuel
will come in December.
I'll get a couple, and
it's beginning to look a lot.
No, it's not, it
actually isn't, for the record.
Yeah, we still have green leaves.
Again, the sickish green.
I'm starting to get the sick leave there.
Yeah.
It's funny, because
maybe I'm too hard of a dad,
which may or may not, the
jury's out on that one still.
But I do have kind of a soft rule
that we don't listen to Christmas music
until after Thanksgiving.
Right.
I think that's
probably 80 to 90% of the US.
I think so. That's the rule, right?
And the reason for me,
there's a real reason.
It's not because I'm
trying to be Scrooge.
Right.
It's because it's special music.
Yes.
And if you listen to it all your volume,
it loses the magicalness,
because Christmas is still magical.
100%.
Whether you're first grade,
or you're coming in
your fifth decade of it.
Right. Right?
It is still so magical.
Yeah, and that's part of it.
But you know, that's why you
put up all the decorations.
You build something that's magical.
That magic is, you have to make it.
Right. Right?
And if you dilute it,
it's not as magical.
I totally agree.
So that's why you
should tell them, I think,
like, hey guys, we don't listen to music.
We're just letting them do it.
I know.
Well, they don't, they'll play it,
and then I'm like, stop
the music or whatever.
If they're listening
to it in the showers,
I don't stop that,
because I'm like, I'm--
Yeah, no, you should march up there,
knock on, just bang it on the doors.
Yeah, no thanks.
Like--
Turn that Christmas music off.
It's like, off, no.
I don't wanna hear another jingle bell.
(laughing) I mean, oh my gosh, our
youngest was belting out
some Kelly Clarkson song the other day.
It was so funny.
I mean, it really is fantastic.
I get a lot of just laughter out of it.
Yeah.
You're right, you
don't want to skip over.
Like, the fun that fall
is, and even Thanksgiving,
our family loves Thanksgiving.
I'm hearing more and more
over the last couple weeks
how excited the kids
are for Thanksgiving.
And you're like, okay, like--
Yeah.
Thanksgiving's awesome.
(laughing)
You know?
Yeah, well, it's a week off of school, A.
True, true.
It's been thrown off
the last couple years.
We're in a pretty good
tradition of going to Minnesota
back to your parents'
house and doing that.
That's just been thrown off with life
getting busier with our kids.
Right.
I mean, it has nothing to
do with want to go back there
or not to go back there.
But I mean, this,
Thanksgiving, for instance,
we're in a whole other
state the weekend before
Thanksgiving for soccer.
Yeah.
And not that we can't not
potentially make that trip
back there, but we may have
soccer practices back here
that week of Thanksgiving.
It gets to the point
where it's the kids' schedule,
which everybody knows
at this point in life,
run your life.
Yes.
Like, you know, outlook, you might have,
you probably have more
kids' stuff on your outlook
than you do work stuff on your outlook.
And you have a very
busy nine to five outlook.
Well, eight to five.
Sometimes seven, 30 to six.
Right, right.
But the kids' schedules are
crazy, so because of that,
it's like, well, with all
the craziness that we have,
to make it out there for 48 hours,
to eat turkey with you guys,
I'd rather just FaceTime and say,
hey, love ya, hope your turkey was good.
Right, because it's hard.
And, I mean, we'll be in,
in like a six week timeframe,
I think we're in like, we're
on how many different flights?
Six different flights
or something like that?
Or five, four or five?
Something like that, yeah.
I mean, that's, like, I
just kinda wanna be home.
I love my--
It's like we were
talking about with San Diego
just last week, I wanna be home.
And right now, some
of those are split up.
You know?
Yeah.
And that makes it even tougher.
Yeah, and we were talking
about that this morning,
about just how, as a
parent, it's really hard.
We're at the ages
where we need to split up.
We can't all go, because every child
has their own thing going on.
And so it doesn't make sense
for us all to go to San Diego
or all to go to Colorado.
But what that means is
that one of us has to miss
something in the other kids'
lives that they're not with.
Yeah.
And there's a feeling
of, at least for me,
I don't know if it's inadequacy or just,
I don't usually have
FOMO, fear of missing out.
But I do in that case.
I do when it comes to
the kids and big things,
like Halloween.
We will be split up for Halloween.
And that's never really been the case.
It's always like I've been
involved, to some degree,
in the whole thing.
It's like death by a
million cuts for that, right?
Yeah.
As the kids get older, little by little,
Halloween, it's like kids are here,
we're doing pre-Halloween stuff here.
And then one year it's like, oh,
maybe one of the kids
wants to go to their kids
to do pre-Halloween.
They stayed here and then,
oh, but maybe they're gonna
trick or treat with some
friends in the other neighborhood.
So it's like little, little like that.
Last year, our
daughter, we didn't see her.
She didn't even carve pumpkins with us.
She was at a party
and the pumpkin carving,
there was literally, the
only time we could do it
was the night of Halloween.
There was no other time to do it.
None.
And have them still be right.
Because you can't carve a
pumpkin seven days earlier,
it won't last.
If somebody knows that, sure, send me a--
Yeah, if there is some type of treatment
you can put on the
pumpkin that once you carve it,
it keeps it nice for
multiple days, great.
I'd love to hear this.
But we don't know it.
Hack.
And so, you just kind of expose yourself
to this lack of the
full family, you know?
Yeah.
Until eventually, sadly,
they're gone the whole time.
I mean, they're in the same city,
but it's like we talked about it.
We're being subbed out slowly but surely
for their friends to be subbed in.
Which is normal and
natural, and it's okay,
and it's good to see that.
But it's hard, and this one isn't that,
is why it's even harder, right?
It's because extracurricular activities
are making a choice between, well,
do we split the family?
Do we leave one behind?
Those are hard decisions to make.
Yeah.
Especially when you do it so much
as an economic
consideration there as well.
Yeah, I mean, you're
balancing the economics of it.
But then also, I can't have this kid miss
what's important to them to go
just to be with the other kid
because it's important to the other kid.
So it's that balance, and I
don't know if we strike it
perfectly all the time, but it.
So the one thing on Thanksgiving,
then just back to that
one, I do feel bad though,
because the kids are at the age
that they've had some
interaction with cousins.
And I know there are
people that have really strong
cousin connections, you grew up that way.
I didn't necessarily grew
up that way because I was,
I was a male, almost all female cousins,
and I was either five
years, at the very least,
or older, or eight years
younger than all of them.
So I was an island by
myself, for the most part.
There's one other boy, cousin Brian,
who was, I think he was
10 years younger than me,
or nine years younger than me,
but significantly so.
I was 17, he would've been eight.
Right, right, you're
like, we're not hanging out.
Anybody, let's go.
Anyways, so I never really
had that connection there,
but our kids are getting that connection
as hard as it is,
because we don't live
anywhere near any cousins.
No, no, we're a plane right away.
Yeah, but you grew up
near enough, a drive,
and the family got together a lot
when you were younger, I think.
I mean, every, every Fourth of July,
and then every New
Year's really was when we did
Christmas with my dad's family,
because there were so
many kids in my dad's family
that they just made the decision to say,
hey, you go with your
other side of the family
over Christmas, or do
what you do for Christmas,
and then we'll get
together the week after,
and spend, and we'll
pretend that New Year's
is our Christmas.
And that's what we did all growing up,
and I went to college with my cousins.
It was, our best
friends were our cousins,
even though they lived a state away.
I tell this story to
paint the picture for people.
When my older brother's best friend
from high school got married,
my aunts and uncle and
cousins who lived a state away
were invited to his wedding.
Like, that's how close we were.
That's how ingrained we
were in each other's lives.
And it was really cool, and so it's,
it's super cool to
see that with our kids,
and how their
friendships and their connections
with their cousins are, but it's hard,
because, again, this is,
we're a plane ride away.
We could drive it, but it
would be, what, 12, 13 hours,
something like that, I mean.
Well, I think higher than that, but.
Yeah, I was like,
anyway, so, but it's hard,
and we're just trying to balance it all.
Yeah, I think that's the toughest part,
because they want to see their cousins,
and it's like, well, you
know, I mean, it's tough to find,
I mean, I hate to say it, but
it's tough to find that time.
It is. You know?
And I don't know, I
don't know how to do it.
Even taking that to
soccer, we still don't,
I mean, there's still
so many school activities
and all that other kind of stuff,
that it's still tough to find that time.
But soccer would help.
I mean, then, for like
Thanksgiving, for instance,
we wouldn't be traveling
the weekend before and after,
and then suggesting taking
48 hours to go there, too.
Exactly. Or it's like,
just be at our home base.
Right. Everybody's welcome here.
It's absolutely right.
In fact, our oldest has suggested that.
Yeah, yeah. He's like, well,
you could throw it out there.
I don't know if that'll be received.
I don't know how that would be received,
but that might be, yeah, yeah.
Part of it, too, we're both homebodies.
I mean, I think we love, I
don't want to speak for you,
I love to travel.
I think it's super fun and exciting,
but if I am gone too much,
I still need, as extroverted as I am,
I still need to come back to my home base
to feel centered and, you know.
And so, having that
time, like a staycation,
a good long weekend of a staycation,
oh my goodness, it's amazing.
I feel restored after it.
Oh yeah, I'm sure staycations are,
once you discover
staycations, they're fantastic.
Yeah, yeah.
And we built our house for that reason,
honestly, that was one of
the things we were kind of,
maybe we built our house for that reason,
that there's no, we have everything here
that we would want.
We built it to be here,
you know, to enjoy it,
for the kids to enjoy it,
for the kids to have
friends over to enjoy it,
to have people over
to enjoy it, you know.
And we often joke, I mean,
we're blessed because of it,
but because we were able to build a house
the way we wanted to,
but there is no hotel,
and we've been to some
nice resorts around the world.
And there's sort of maybe Boer Boer,
where we're over the water, you know,
and that's, you know,
you're looking out the window,
at those crystal blue waters,
but I'm looking at the
crystal blue water right here.
Right, right.
Not outside of Fiji, but,
or the waters of Boer Boer, but,
none of them are, I mean, like,
we're trading down from
our own bathroom, you know.
Well, when we were
designing, I should say you,
I say we, the royal we,
meaning I had a, it's all him.
You signed off on it.
I signed off on it, right?
I'm sure we threw
things back and forth, but.
But, I mean, you would actually pull up,
I mean, we looked at our pictures of
the over water bungalow
that we stayed in in Boer Boer,
and tried to pull in
pieces that we could,
of those things, and
of these fancy hotels,
and fancy homes, to build this one.
So, I mean, it really
was like a compilation
of what we liked the most around.
That's why we went with
the spa feel out there,
that's why there's a
master courtyard off of that.
You know what I mean?
If you've ever been to
the house, you've seen it,
but, I mean, it's hard
for us to go somewhere,
that's why the
staycation's fantastic for us,
and why we do like to come to our house,
because it's so comfortable, and we're
blessed to have that.
But, it's really difficult to go
somewhere that, you know,
it's the ocean, or, you
know, there's something else.
Because there's no amenities, you know,
that I think you get to a certain point,
that it's tough to buy more amenities,
you know what I mean? I agree, I agree.
That are gonna up your level of comfort.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So then it's the experience
outside of those amenities.
That's exactly right,
that's exactly right, yeah.
Like who you're in Rome, right?
Like that's probably a perfect example.
The amenities, not
quite what we have here,
but the experience of
where we were at was--
Yeah, and that was cool,
because we were experiencing
what living in like an
apartment in Rome would be like.
Yeah.
You know, and now I
wouldn't wanna do that
for longer than the, you
know, time we were there.
But that was cool to see.
Right.
You know, but again, I
appreciate where we live.
Right, exactly.
Even though we weren't a two minute walk
from the Coliseum, or a five
minute walk, whatever you were.
Yeah, it was really nice.
Yeah.
It was really cool.
But all that to say is
like, that coming back to home
is centering and we
aren't home very often.
Right.
And even Monday through Friday,
outside of a Friday night, we are,
or outside of working
hours, I should say.
So we both work from home,
but outside of working
hours, like we're not home.
Yeah.
I believe that when we're working hours,
I mean, you got your office,
which is almost right behind us,
and then my office in
the front of the house.
We're in the office the whole time.
We don't, I don't know
if people are under any,
I don't think nobody's ever
talked about it, obviously,
but you know, don't ever
be under the impression
that it's like, oh,
we're just hanging out
in the kitchen with each other.
Oh, we have lunch together
every day with each other.
Yeah.
Never.
No, I mean, you can
count on the one hand,
the number of times you've done it.
Probably one hand, the
number of times you've done it.
Two years.
Hey, you're out here
about the same time I am.
And one of those times
you went out to eat, I know.
I know.
Yeah, yeah.
So it doesn't happen very often,
but it just reinforces like
then when we do have that moment
to be home, it's really good to have it.
Yeah.
Just watching our dog just nonchalantly.
So I was gonna bring up,
one of the things, you know,
you have these things
that you buy or you build
for like convenience or
for luxury and whatnot.
At this house, we've got
these big sliding doors
that open up the family
room to the outdoor area
where we're at right here.
And our pool is just over to this way,
to the rest of the backyard.
And you have these big
sliding doors that open up,
you know, bring the
outside in, inside out.
In today's like the
first day, like two years
since we've lived here.
Since we've lived here.
Had them all the way open
and kind of left them open
for a little while.
Right.
Which is so goofy because
we got another one on that,
on those over there that
we can do the same with.
And we never do those things.
We don't.
It's crazy to me how many
things we have in our lives
and people have in their lives like,
oh, I'm gonna use this.
This is like luxury type things,
like our extra just luxuries.
Extra luxuries that
you end up never using.
Never use.
Like it'd be so nice to
have blah, blah, blah.
And then you spend
money on it and you're like,
I never use blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, I never use blah, blah,
because it's a little bit extra.
Or this, like just
opening this up is nice,
but the reason we can do it today is
because there's no wind
and there's no bugs we
were talking about earlier.
Right.
Because generally,
especially this time of year,
I see all these leaves on the ground.
We open this up,
whoosh, right into the house.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
You're like, wait a
minute, we can't do that.
Yeah, and I am too
much of a clean freak to,
even closely.
Oh, I know.
Even that makes me a little
itchy just thinking about it.
Right, right.
But it's funny because in Texas,
like you don't open windows here.
I grew up in an environment,
like windows were always open.
I mean, not always, middle of winter, no.
But like most of the non-winter days,
like you have a window or two open
or you have the sliding glass door,
your front door's open,
you have the sliding glass door on it
and you're just getting that breeze.
We don't ever do that in Texas.
It's too hot or too cold.
There's not those in between days.
It's always too hot or too cold.
And I don't know if it was
our age or where I grew up,
but we didn't even have
AC or anything like that.
So the house was always,
it was a screen door at the
very least was always open.
The screen door to the front door,
we had a screen door on the front door,
so the front door would be open to that.
And then usually the back sliding door
would have a screen door on it too.
Screen door on that?
Or you'd have the swamp cooler.
Yeah.
I don't know if it's a swamp cooler.
I've never heard that before, but okay.
But it's just the attic fan,
where you click on and
it's a big fan of the attic
that just draws air into the house.
It's like a Colorado thing.
It must be a Colorado
thing, it's a cool house
because we didn't have air conditioning.
That air conditioning was
not a thing when I grew up.
Yeah, and I think it
was where you grew up.
Probably could be.
Because it is not humid.
I think they have it now maybe.
Maybe people have it, I
have to call people there
and see if you have air
conditioning at their house
in Colorado now.
Right, there's no
humidity there, it's very dry.
Right, right.
And I think that is a part of just,
I know, we have a little
puppy who wants to come up.
She usually likes to sit on our lap,
so she'll make an appearance.
I think that's part of where you grew up.
There's no humidity there,
so you don't need the air
conditioning to take that out.
Whereas in Minnesota, even
though it may not get as hot,
it definitely is so humid.
That piece of cotton just
flew right into our house.
Like a cottonwood tree piece of cotton.
Yeah, it's all right.
Right into it.
As long as it's not a bun.
So, and then the last
thing, for me at least,
with fall was sports, like fall sports.
Whether you play them or you don't.
I totally agree that.
They're the best.
I mean, football
starts, basketball starts,
and that was basketball season for me.
Right, so indoors.
I mean, just starting to come in,
walking out of a
basketball practice with wet hair,
whether a shower or sweat,
and it's just like
getting cold and freezing
and you're in your
sweatsuit, with your bag,
breath coming out.
You can see the breath
coming out of your mouth.
I mean, like that to me,
I mean, those are just some
of the best days of my life.
Oh yeah.
But I mean, that aside,
because that was,
basketball was so important to me
back then, it was just,
it was everything to me.
It was identity, it was my psychiatrist,
it was everything to me.
But that aside, football season,
I mean, come on, that's,
you don't have to be a football fan,
to be like football
season is pretty awesome.
It really is.
And I just, I love to
even just have football on
in the background.
I'm not someone who likes
the TV on or music playing.
Like I do like quiet when,
because there's just
always noise I feel like.
So the few moments that
I get where it's quiet,
like turn off the TV
if no one's watching it,
stop the music if no one's listening.
But football, I can have on all day.
Like to me, it was on all
the time on the weekends
when I was a kid.
And so to me, it takes
me back to those days of,
I didn't really watch
it when I was a kid,
but I had brothers, so they played it.
Oh my gosh, I could just
have football on all day.
It doesn't even
matter if I like the teams.
It could be my two least favorite teams
and like, I'll still have it on.
Why not?
Yeah.
I mean, it's just
like the quintessential,
I don't drink beer, but
it's like beer and chips
and just hanging out type things.
It's like, I don't know,
it's just something so,
I don't even want to
say American about it,
but there's just something so like,
good old fashioned, almost sentimental,
almost nostalgic about
like, just an afternoon,
sitting around with
friends, watching football,
eating, you know,
eating snacks and drinking,
your drink of choice, I don't know.
You don't get to do it all the time,
but I mean, like when
you can, it's fantastic.
Agreed.
I mean, we're sitting
here today right now,
only, well, no, we had
the rest of the day off,
but we had some
cancellations in soccer this morning, so.
A nice, easy day, but half the time,
probably last Sunday,
well, I was in San Diego.
And you may even had a game
that day too, I don't know.
Yeah, no, but what we were
doing is we were decorating,
like we finished
putting up the decorations,
and usually that's our
day to kind of catch up,
but it was, yeah,
there's so many good things.
So, there's just so many
good things about fall.
I mean, I know, we didn't
really have any traditions.
When I was younger, we
went to the mountains
and looked at the, you know,
we'd just do a drive
through the mountains,
which is always a fun
time, I love the mountains.
It was funny when your parents
were here like two weeks ago,
I don't know that they remembered that,
I know they know I'm from Colorado,
but I don't think they remembered, like,
I grew up, I lived in
Colorado for 33, 35 years total.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't think they remembered like,
oh, he is a Colorado boy.
I consider myself a Colorado boy.
I was there for 30 years,
really before I moved away full time.
We were back and forth
a couple of times on it,
you know what I mean?
But it's like, that is in me, you know,
I know they have some kids there now
that have lived there
for quite some time,
your brothers, but it's
funny because I was like,
oh my gosh, I don't
know that they consider me
a Colorado boy as much as they consider
them a Colorado boy.
But I lived there, I grew up there.
That was my old, yeah, like, 30 years is a long time.
I camped and did all the Colorado stuff.
I grew up there.
Yeah.
But my point to that was,
oh, but my point to that
was we didn't really have,
you know, going into the
mountains was just magical.
It was spiritual for
people that grew up there
and people that love the
vacation there, they get it too.
They get it.
Because you guys vacation there.
That's partially why I'm sure your
brothers relocated there.
Totally.
Your sister lives in
another mountainous area that,
you know, how could you blame her?
She's gorgeous there.
Gorgeous.
You know, very similar.
Yeah.
But what, did you guys
have traditions for fall?
You guys would like make
applesauce and stuff, right?
Oh yeah, yeah, because we
would always go apple picking.
Yeah, don't have that in Colorado.
So we don't have that, no.
And so you would go and
you would just get bushels
of apples and sure, we would make
homemade applesauce.
Are they red apples?
Red.
Okay, certain type?
Macintosh usually.
Okay.
Uh-huh, oh my gosh, homemade applesauce.
It's one of the best things ever.
I mean, I could almost
eat myself sick on my mom
and my grandma's homemade applesauce.
It is good.
It is so good, but yeah, we
would make that apple butter.
I don't think most people
even know what apple butter is.
I'd never heard of it.
No, it sounds weird.
There's no butter in
it, just for the record.
For those watching that are like, I've
never heard of this.
I think it's called that
because it's actually a jam
or whatever that, it's more
of a saucy jam kind of a thing
that you put on instead of butter.
But I mean, it's apples--
But it's like jelly.
It's like a more
liquid jelly, maybe, apple.
Apple and clove.
It's calling it apple butter is weird.
It is an odd name.
I don't know, maybe a
Midwest thing, who knows?
But yeah, it's like
apples and cloves and cinnamon.
I mean, it's really good on toast.
But we made those.
I mean, my mom would
always have fresh apples.
I remember going out to the garage
because that's where you keep them
because it could stay kind of cool.
And just getting a
fresh apple, oh my gosh,
a freshly picked apple is so good.
I don't know that
I've ever really had one.
Even when we lived in Illinois,
we did get to do some of
the more Midwestern type
traditions there when our kids were
younger, corn mazes.
They had pumpkin patches, actually.
We had kind of some
pumpkin patches in Colorado,
but nothing real.
I don't think that's the
right climate to grow pumpkins in.
But Midwest, there's a
lot of pumpkins out there.
And that was fun, right?
Going to an actual pumpkin
patch and picking pumpkins
and the corn mazes.
Now they do those big
festivals, not in festivals,
but it's a whole thing.
Like carnival type,
yeah, it's a whole thing.
You gotta buy a ticket to get into it.
Exactly, and you're like, what?
I just kind of want to pumpkins.
If I had to have a
parking ticket to go do it,
I'm not gonna--
No, no, this truly was in
the middle of the field.
And they would take you out on a hay,
you'd sit on hay bales and they'd take
you out on a tractor
carrying a trailer.
It was a hay ride,
something you guys did?
Was that like a thing?
Yeah, that was totally a thing.
So you did real hay rides.
We did real hay rides.
High school's always do
the fake ones and stuff.
Yeah, no, no, no, we did real hay rides.
Too many.
Yeah, oh yeah,
because you have to go from,
you had to actually go
out into the orchard.
And oh my gosh, picking apples,
I mean we'd almost eat
ourselves sick on apples
like while we were picking them.
Because you can just eat them while
you're picking them.
It's like, man, that one's not good,
I'll give it another one.
Yeah, there we go.
It's fun, we always look
forward to Apple Picking Day.
So no other?
That was prime, I mean we would make,
we would do cutouts, like cutout cookies
and carve pumpkins, all
of those kind of things.
Obviously we carved pumpkins.
Yeah, when was your first snow in
Minneapolis usually?
Usually it was in November,
but we did have the
Halloween blizzard when I was in,
I can't remember if it
was seventh or eighth grade.
And oh my gosh, that was--
How much snow?
I think we had like 36 inches overnight
and then it continued to snow for,
I mean we were snowed in for days.
Did you trick or treat that night?
Yeah, yeah, I took my sister,
because she's eight
years younger than I am.
So I was in seventh or eighth grade,
I can't remember which,
but she's kindergarten.
And so yeah, she needed to go out,
and I dressed as a
witch and I took her out.
She actually slipped and fell,
I remember I feeling so bad.
But I mean it was just
warm, wet snow, it was so fun.
It was just coming down though,
accumulating, yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and
actually my older brother,
one of his good friends,
his mom was on a work trip,
and she was a single mom.
She couldn't get back
in for like five days.
He stayed with us for five days.
School was canceled most of the week,
five days, holy hell.
Because then it continued to snow.
I mean you couldn't even see,
you know this being in Colorado,
like when you can't
see out of the windows,
because drifts are so big, it was so fun.
Yeah, big snow drifts.
Those are some of the best
memories of winter, right?
And then you got to huge snowfalls,
and those drifts would
be like over a fence,
you know, halfway up a house.
I was just telling your
parents when they were here,
one of the biggest snowfalls I remember
was when we sled off the roof,
because it was so high.
Yeah.
I mean like can you
imagine high enough to be like,
you know what, I think we
could probably sled off the roof.
No, no I can't.
Not at this house, but
you know, at a normal house.
I mean yeah, it was awesome.
But those snowfalls were so fun.
The older I got, I
felt like it was always
the first snow of the
year was on Halloween.
Really? Yeah, it was always cold.
Maybe there's a couple of nice ones,
but it was cold, a couple nights,
couple times we lived in
Colorado with our children.
Yes.
I mean they had all
their big puffer jackets
under their costumes.
Yeah, that's how it was though.
It was always cold on Halloween.
Yeah, but these are the ones that are.
Oh, thank you.
It was always cold on Halloween,
so we always have to
have our costumes big enough
that we could have a
snow suit on underneath.
Yeah, yeah.
And so my dad would always
take us out with our neighbor,
because she was one of my
good friends growing up,
and we'd go trick or treating,
and both dads would walk,
they'd stand in the street,
they had a beer in each pocket.
So they did that.
Oh, 100%.
So that's what I was just thinking about,
like we kind of do the
drinking thing too, a little bit.
A little bit, yeah.
They would eat, so my dad and
our good friend John Hudson,
yep, they would walk out and they had a
beer in each pocket,
and they'd take us
around all the neighborhoods.
Oh man, I remember
coming home just bitterly cold
some nights from trick or
treating, but man, it was fun.
I thought you were gonna say coming home
and they were just blasted.
I don't think two beers,
like a full grown man
blasted, but you know.
And the cooler they
were pulling behind her,
but two in the pockets were quick access.
Heck yeah, yeah.
I don't think they were gonna,
it was too cold to take a
cooler, they'd make a freeze.
It's so funny, because here, it's cool.
Sometimes.
But plenty nice enough
still to bundle up just slightly
but everybody here has
golf carts and whatnot
or just walking around, but everybody,
all the parents are drinking.
In fact, they're handing out shots at
some houses and stuff.
It's like I don't
know that I need a shot,
but having a nice little zipper on the
way, that's not bad.
I'll take it.
Yeah, our oldest
drives the golf cart now,
I just kind of get out here and there.
We refill every now and again.
Did your parents ever dress up?
No, no, my mom never went.
I don't ever, well, maybe she did,
and I just don't remember.
It was my dad who would take us,
but my mom stayed home
and handed out candy.
Yeah, I don't remember my
parents dressing up either,
but we've dressed up a couple times
because we've gone to a couple parties
and then maybe went out afterwards.
I don't know, I dressed up
once, two or three years ago
is the last time I dressed up, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
And then, and I felt a little like,
I felt uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah.
Because not a lot of
parents are dressed up
and I don't know, I
think you did an easy shirt.
I did an easy shirt,
but you were pretty easy
because you had a top gun jacket on.
Yeah, but I had
jeans, I had a t-shirt on,
but it felt like too much.
You're right, it was
really just a top gun jacket.
Right, right, otherwise you were wearing
your regular clothes.
Yeah, that's probably true.
Maybe it was because I was wearing boots
that I'd never wear.
Oh, that was probably it.
And I just felt very awkward
like I was trying to be like,
yeah, so, but we don't
dress up very often anymore.
We've done a couple of fun
ones here or there, but not.
My favorite that you did, I mean, again,
you've dressed up
just a handful of times,
but the clown walking on its hands.
It's a blow up.
The blow up of the clown.
I'm gonna pull that one out again.
Oh my gosh, that was so funny.
I mean, everywhere we went, they're like,
oh my gosh, look at that.
I took pictures with people constantly.
I know, people are like,
can we get your picture?
Yeah, it's a blow up,
you know how they have like
those blow up like
transverse Rex's that people are in?
This one's a blow up
clown, but it's a clown
that's upside down,
that's literally standing,
it looks like he's
standing on one, on his hand.
It looks like he's doing a
handstand when I'm walking
because my feet are in his hands.
So it looks like he's
doing walking in a handstand
and it's really good.
And so like, if I stood
on like one arm or one leg
and kind of lean to the side,
it would look like
he's standing on one hand,
you know, like balancing.
So funny.
And people loved it.
Oh my gosh, it was so funny.
Yeah.
It was so funny.
You got really hot in
there though, right?
Yeah, cause I was drinking a sipper
and then most of the night,
there's a couple of times I spilled it,
but I did, I got really hot in there.
Yeah, I think I started
handing you like waters
through the slit every now and again,
cause you're like, you know, I'm dying.
It did get really hot there.
Cause that was one of
our nicer Halloween.
He was pretty warm that one.
So, but we do have
Halloween come two weeks.
We'll maybe talk more
about that in next week
or something like that,
cause it'll be one
week away at that point.
We're going to do it
in Colorado this year
for most of the family.
Yup, yup.
I mean, you got it, right?
Cause we have soccer the next day.
Yup.
So we'll have to get an early start.
October 31st for soccer
games on November 1st.
I know I talked about
that last week, but.
I know.
Anyway.
Well, what do you got
coming up this week?
Anything good?
You know, no, no, not really.
I think we're just back at it.
The kids had this week off for fall break
and so next week it's
back to the regular grind.
Yeah.
I feel like you've been
grinding hard at work lately.
Is any, any end of the, any
light at the end of that tunnel?
I feel like you've just
going really hard lately.
Yeah, it's been really
busy and I wish I could say,
yeah, I do, but this is
kind of a busy time of year.
Yeah.
So it's, it's pretty
much from here till February
or early March.
That's kind of the tough time of year.
So it's what it is.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
You just stick with it.
(laughs)
Well, we'll get through it.
We've got a whole bunch of
cookies to help us do that.
Yes, we do.
Thanks to you and the kids.
Oh my gosh.
And only a few breakdowns.
Oh my gosh.
I really do like need to
take some deep breaths before,
because before we, it's the
decorating that gets them.
I was like, is it always like this?
Like we were, we were
decorating them yesterday.
I was like, holy moly.
A fight breaks out every time.
Every single time.
Remind me of what
church was talking about.
How like a whole bunch of church people,
like leaders of the
church were playing like games.
Yeah.
And there's a bunch of
competitive people in it.
And they're like, you're
not following the rules.
That's not the rules.
And we're like, we're gonna
be appointed a buzzer person.
Because if someone broke
a rule, you get buzzed.
And that person got
over zealous, you know?
So that just kind of
reminds me of like, you know,
when we made cookies, you know, you guys,
it's like, maybe we need a buzzer.
I think we need a buzzer.
People are like, you're
getting out of bounds.
Too many sprinkles.
Oh my gosh.
I bought new
sprinkles before we did this.
They used two entire new
things of sprinkles gone.
Gone.
Seriously?
Gone.
Yeah.
I was like, okay.
Well, we just got back
from the dentist two weeks ago
and no cavities, so.
I don't know, between now and Christmas,
like I don't, I think
the chains are really low
if we actually have that again.
There's been no cavities this whole year
since I've taken them.
Since I've been there.
Have you had a cavity when you took them?
Yeah.
Okay, so maybe I
should take them more often.
Maybe you should take them more often.
I like this.
I like this a lot.
All right, well, let's think of our word.
All right.
For last week.
What sums up last week?
All right, I've got mine.
Ready?
Yeah.
All right, here we go.
There's no chance, by the way,
of us getting the same one.
Okay.
One, two, three.
Pumpkin spice.
Yeah, no there's not.
Didn't I say pumpkin
spice for a couple weeks ago?
I think you did.
Yeah, that's a re-gift.
You re-gifted it.
You reused.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You gave it as a gift.
You re-gifted it to everybody else.
Yeah, I re-gifted it to everyone else.
(laughing)
Pumpkin spice for you, huh?
Pumpkin spice,
because I feel like
the kids are getting into
that seasonal spirit.
I feel like, hopefully not Christmas yet,
but getting into that, it
was a little more relaxed
because kids were home.
It just felt more pumpkin spicy.
Yeah.
But progress definitely.
Yeah, we checked some boxes last week,
and we were just making progress,
little by little on things.
Yep.
You know, it's always good.
Progress is good.
Yes it is.
Progress is good, people.
With pumpkin spice.
Oh, progress with pumpkin spice.
Pumpkin spice progress.
Ooh, pumpkin spice progress.
Although I gotta say, I'm
gonna be a hater right now.
I don't like pumpkin spice coffee,
or lattes or whatever they are.
Not what I thought they would be.
And I think they're overrated.
You don't wanna put that out there.
Really?
You think that's gonna get me hate?
Like, I'm a hater?
I mean, there's pumpkin spice,
everything from drinks to candles.
I just don't like it in coffee.
I don't like the pumpkin spice latte.
Anyway, that's just
Megan's hot sports opinion here.
The last time I had one,
I got it at the Citadel
Mall in Colorado Springs.
Is everything still standing?
Probably not.
It was 25 years ago probably.
And it was not standing
well last time I saw it,
but okay.
Yeah.
This would spend more than
two decades since I've had one,
but that was like,
it was like a big deal for
me to spend six bucks on it.
So I tried to really enjoy it.
Loved it.
Cause we got that
pumpkin spice coffee in here,
and it's not great.
Cause I was like getting into the season,
like a year ago or
two, and I bought that.
Yeah, and I was like,
ooh, I'm excited to try it.
And I was like,
Ooh, let down city.
Yeah, I really, maybe it's just,
I expected it to be better than it was.
Well, we've replaced
pumpkin spice with Kahlua.
(laughing) No, not Kahlua, what's
the other one in there?
Rumchata.
Rumchata is our new pumpkin spice.
We're getting into rum,
almost getting into rumchata season.
Oh, VR in rumchata season.
And that's some hot cocoa?
Yeah, you can add that down
with anything that's warm.
Yeah, you can.
You're doing good.
Warmth or salt?
It does.
All right, well let's
get these people free.
Well, have a great week everyone.
Catch you on the flip side.
Ciao ciao.
All right, see ya.