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All aboard the chaos express! If you’ve got a ticket for this ride, you already know it. It’s the one where there’s never enough time in the day—kids’ schedules outpace yours, work demands keep piling up, and oh yeah, the laundry, dishes, mowing the lawn, and bills aren’t going to handle themselves. Let’s not forget staying connected with friends and family, even though you planned to be in bed by 9 pm…but it’s now 11 pm, and tomorrow starts before the sun does. Sound familiar?
We’re right there with you. Welcome to The Mr. & Mrs. Inglis Podcast, hosted by Shaen and Meghan Inglis—a weekly show where we dive into real and honest conversations about the wild ride of raising kids, growing careers, and managing family and friendships in the middle of life’s beautiful chaos. So grab your ticket and join us for a weekly dose of camaraderie, connection, and a reminder that you’re never in this alone.
Follow and subscribe to the Mr. & Mrs. Inglis podcast and visit our channel and our website at shaeninglis.com to check out and follow our other podcasts. You can also follow Shaen and Meghan @ShaenInglis on Instagram, YouTube, etc. Feel free to share the Mr. & Mrs. Inglis podcast with someone who would enjoy and benefit from our weekly discussions.
(upbeat music)
Am I the only person that feels this way?
The other parents
feel the exact same way.
Their life's just as chaotic.
So I mean, we really rip off the band-aid
of just chaos and
throwing this into the mix.
Yeah, 30 minutes.
Now that might get annoying
for 30 seconds, hopefully.
I'm gonna be obnoxious, yeah.
It's not too annoying, so
apologies if that annoys you.
But it's just good
fun, it's just good fun.
Yeah, and I'm gonna be completely
honest, I think I, and
it was pretty obvious
on New Year's Eve, I struggled with this.
I struggled with changing.
But you know, that was
just, it's a new element
in our lives that we're
just gonna have to get used to
to some degree, and he's like, oh yeah,
they were totally making out in there.
(laughs) I don't recall.
I'm like, great, I'm
looking forward to those days.
We're your average next-door
neighbor that you never see.
I would say that's one area of our life
that our cup probably
needs to be a little more full.
Here, as much as our
schedule won't allow,
and that's a horrible excuse,
but I know that the schedules
during these times of your
life are sun up to sun down,
and even after that,
there's just no time for that.
I think most people
pretend that they've lost,
that they don't.
Yeah, part of what we're
doing here is cataloging
what we're doing well and
what we're not doing well.
Right, because I think
there's times when we do
that really well and we can celebrate it.
And there's days when you
lay your head at night going,
man, I wish I would
have done that differently.
Fast forward literally two weeks.
I mean, what has it been?
15 days since that time?
I blew out my name.
One pound a year from this point on
is a lot of weight to gain,
and I'm just not ready to be,
I'm just not ready to
give in on that one yet, so.
What's the saying, it takes a town?
Oh, it takes a village.
Oh, it takes a village, yeah.
Maybe sometimes an entire city.
We definitely don't
have all the right answers,
but we've managed to trip through life
and make it this far.
If you're not laughing,
then you're probably not doing it right.
But what we realize as you mature is,
you really have no
idea what you're doing.
Welcome to the Mr.
and Mrs. Inglis 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.
Okay, all right, well here we are.
We're sitting here in the chairs.
You excited to do this?
I'm excited to do this.
All right, well, let's
jump right on into this.
This will be the first
episode of Mr. and Mrs. Inglis.
Yes, which is exciting.
You know, I've never
listened to a podcast before.
Out myself right away.
So it'll be a little bit trial by error,
but you are an expert on this now.
So I do feel like I'm in good hands.
Well, you started
right off lying to people.
You have listened to a podcast,
because you listen to mine.
Because I am, by expert, your opinion.
I've got nine or 10
episodes under my belt now.
Yes, morning cereal.
You are correct.
I have been listening to
morning cereal every weekday.
That's right.
Since you launched mid-December.
That's right, that's right.
At least one listener a day.
It's actually more than
that, which is surprising.
Which is fantastic,
without any advertising yet.
That's right, yeah.
I think you've done a fantastic job
and I look forward to
listening to it every morning.
Well, that was a really good
plug that we did not plan on.
So welcome everybody to the first episode
of Mr. and Mrs. Inglis.
I'll start, do we wanna
start with the introductions?
We can start with the introductions,
yeah, let's do that.
All right, so I am Meghan.
I have a little bit about me.
I was raised in the
Midwest, Minnesota specifically,
for the most part.
And I am one of five kids.
Yes, that is a large
number in today's standards,
but it was a lot of fun growing up.
It was a crazy household.
My parents did, from what I could see,
a phenomenal job of
managing all of the chaos
that came with the five kids.
I'm a graduate of the University of Iowa
and I've spent the last
20 years of my career,
primarily in corporate
America in various finance roles.
I did have a quick
foray and I did help Sean
when we were
self-employed for a little while.
And I know you'll probably go
into that a little bit more.
I was kind of your
maybe right-hand person.
Maybe at some point, but yeah,
definitely my right-hand person.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've been your right-hand
person for the last 20 years.
So we met 20 years ago, we've been
married for 17 years.
We have three amazing kids.
You'll hear a lot
about them on the podcast
because we will unpack
quite a bit about raising kids
and being married, but that's my intro.
I'll turn it over to Sean.
All right, well done.
Well, I am Sean, the other half,
the lesser half of Sean and
Megan, Mr. and Mrs. Inglis.
I am almost a
Midwestern boy, but not quite.
I grew up in Colorado,
which I've come to find out
is not the Midwest,
but the Rocky Mountains,
which is fair enough.
Grew up in Colorado Springs.
I also grew up in a little bit of chaos,
one of four children in a blended family.
So we'll get into some more of that fun
and the antics of that household
as we get further into this.
But I was in Colorado
for 30 years almost.
Then I ended up graduating from the
University of Colorado
at Colorado Springs.
And then later in life, I got my MBA
from the University of
Kansas, so Rock Chalk Jayhawk.
So we always laugh in our household
that as long as we're
cheering for the Hawks,
we're okay, right?
Generally, Hawkeyes
during football season
than the Jayhawks
during basketball season.
Although I will say now
that we have a football team,
which I think we always have,
we're actually just kind of winning now.
Didn't make a bowl this year,
but anyways, it's fun to
watch both Hawks play football.
So as Megan mentioned, I
have been entrepreneurial
my whole life.
I've had over a dozen
companies bought, sold, started.
Not all of them were great successes
and not all of them were failures either.
So trials and tribulations do that,
but ultimately pretty good, I think.
So outside of those
entrepreneurial endeavors,
I've been in corporate
finance my whole career.
I've been 25 years, quarter of a century,
which is crazy to think about that now,
in banking and finance.
So that's the skinny kind of on me.
We'll get into that more and more
as we get along in this process.
Obviously not trying to make a whole
podcast just about us
because that would be
boring to some degree here,
but maybe it's a good
opportunity to get into
why we think we should
do, why we're doing this
and why we think you might be
interesting for other people.
Yeah, and as you can
tell from our introductions,
we're very hopefully relatable people.
Hopefully we look and
sound a lot like people
that you're friends with and
you journey through life with.
And that's ultimately why
we wanted to create this.
I've been fortunate
enough in my time as a wife,
as a mom, as a working mom,
to have people who
consistently share their experiences
in raising kids, how to
work through marriage things.
And sometimes they did it great,
sometimes they didn't,
and they were willing to share it all.
And it was such a
learning experience for me.
We often say in our house,
it doesn't have to be your
mistake to learn from it.
And it also doesn't
have to be your success
to learn from it.
And so we wanted to
kind of share our story
and share our journey along the way.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I mean, hearing people talk about it,
talking with other people,
just helps you kind of
get through it, right?
Just knowing that you're not alone, that,
oh good, I'm glad I'm not the only one
that feels that way.
Because so often I feel
like you go through life
and you and I are close enough
and I'm sure other
couples are the same way.
But at some point you
start thinking in your head,
like, am I the only
person that feels this way?
And come to find out when
we're sitting on the sidelines
at soccer games or whatnot
that, no, usually you're not.
The other parents
feel the exact same way.
Their life's just as chaotic.
And it's nice just to kind of hear that
and reverb that off of other people.
And learn from maybe what they did
and how they can, they're someone that
you can journey with.
And we hope that we can be someone that
you can journey with.
Well, and we also feel that
we have all the right answers.
(both laughing)
I wish.
Yeah, no, that's not the case.
We learn by trial and
tribulation quite a bit as well.
But we have, we've
made it through 20 years,
as you had mentioned.
And I think that that's a
testament to some things.
That we've learned to figure things out.
We've learned to make it
through the hard times.
We've had a lot of good times.
And that's, as we kind of look back
and lean on those different experiences,
sometimes you have to lean harder.
Sometimes you gotta lean in harder,
but you make it
through and it's a journey
and we're learning every day.
So the point ultimately
here is just kind of for us
to share kind of what's been happening
over the last week or so.
I think we're gonna try to
make this a weekly podcast
and just share kind of
what's happened over the last week
and what we went
through and how we got there
and how we learned or we
failed at some of the things.
Maybe we'll have a
timeframe where we can vent
because I don't wanna
make this whole thing.
I could make this a
whole hour about venting
and what made me mad this whole week
and this guy driving and this referee
or whatever it might be.
But the point is not to
make it that way, right?
We're gonna try to share some things
of what we happened this last week
and maybe hopefully it's
entertaining for everybody
and then kind of ending with looking
forward to next week as well.
That sounds great.
So we've had, and this is a very
content-rich timeframe, right?
If we're gonna talk
about going through a journey
and happenings, well, we
just wrapped the holidays.
So there have been a lot of happenings,
at least in the English household over
the last month or so,
that are highlights and
maybe a couple lowlights
that we'll walk through.
Well, the holidays are
always best summed up for me
just like that
Christmas vacation scene, right?
When they're waiting for
all the in-laws to arrive,
everybody's sitting around normally
nonchalantly doing what they want
and then the doorbell,
you know, "Doom-doom."
And it's like, "Oh my God, here we go."
Because that's what it is.
As soon as the holiday kind of rips open,
you're on a fast ride.
Exactly.
And our kids use the term,
I don't know if this
is out there all over,
but it's seat belt strap in.
That's kind of how I feel
like the holidays have been.
And so, you know, we kick
off our real holiday season,
we do a lot of the decorating,
but the official start to the time off
and the family timer-owned
Christmas and the holidays
is a family ski vacation.
So I mean, we really rip
off the band-aid of just chaos
and throwing us into the mix.
You know, yeah, and it's funny because
that started out as,
I'm a Colorado boy, Megan used to
vacation in Colorado,
but you learned to ski
actually in the Midwest.
They're like bunny hills, I mean, but a
great place to learn.
But you're a better skier
than all of us at the start.
I mean, I grew up in Colorado
and I skied maybe once
before I was 18, right?
And that was, if
anybody's from Colorado Springs
watching this, the
Broadmoor used to have a small,
like bunny hill there, basically.
And I skied there probably
when I was seven years old.
But after that, I mean, when we truly
wanted to dedicate ourselves
to skiing and getting our kids on skis,
we had to wait till they
were old enough to do it.
But once we ripped off that band-aid,
I mean, you were obviously the best skier
out of all of us for a while.
And then I've kind of
been able to catch up
and the kids have all caught up because I
would say you're more,
you're the most
conservative skier though, too.
So we were a little more risky on this.
So we've been doing this for a while.
And the point here is that you've been
doing it for a long while.
Yes, I've been doing this
for almost 40 years now.
Yeah.
And I will say just before we get to the
kind of the punchline
of this whole story here, that the ski
vacation started off as,
hey, this will be a fun time.
Let's just do it once or twice.
We're not going for a long time.
It's just three days that we're just
going to literally hit it hard.
We're going to fly in the
night before, ski all day,
you know, sleep all night because you're
exhausted after first one.
Ski all day the second day
and ski all day the third day
and leave early and hop
on the flight back home.
So it's literally it's
not an enjoyable vacation,
but it's just a fun one, though.
It's a fun one.
And it is a fantastic way to bond and
engage with your kids.
Our kids open up when you're sitting on a
chairlift without iPads,
without telephones.
Your kids talk to you and
you you're out in nature.
So whether you're a skier or
not, getting out in nature,
I think really did
help even the relationship
and the conversations
that we had with our kids.
We've had some great vacations.
I know we're off tangent
here, but you're right.
I mean, we go camping in
Colorado as much as we can.
We go whitewater rafting.
Getting them out there and those elements
away from being plugged in
or just getting unplugged, I guess is
probably the better way to say that,
is fantastic.
And the kids, even though at the time
they may be reluctant,
once they get into it, they love it.
And those are some of
their best memories.
Yeah, I think they would all agree that
it's the best memories.
I think they also love it now because
they are all better skiers than me
and they can just wait
for me at the bottom saying,
"Come on, mom, hurry up."
You know, they can out ski me.
So to that point, the
reason we got onto this,
now we're drawing it
out here a little bit,
but Megan is always the
last one down the hill
because she's a conservative skier.
She's making sure everybody's safely
getting down the hill, right?
And now all the kids are good.
We're all in blacks or whatever, but we
mainly do blues pretty hard,
looking for jumps and stuff like that.
So we try to stay
together as a family still.
Anyways, we're on one of the back bowls.
You had to take quite a
few lifts to get there.
This last time, it's on the second day.
And if you've seen the Instagram page,
you kind of know
where this is going, but--
I blew out my knee.
And I wish I could say I was
doing it on a really cool jump,
but as we've mentioned, I'm
a pretty conservative skier.
I did it in the most lame way.
And sure enough--
So it was just a double
backflip, not a triple,
is what you're saying.
Right, right.
Yeah, I did promise that I wouldn't tell
how lame the story was.
But anyway, without
embellishments, I really did just--
I caught my tip skiing,
and I blew my knee out.
And so there was a big to do getting me
down off the mountain,
because of course it wasn't close.
But I do want to say a huge
shout out to the Keystone EMTs.
It was really helpful.
They were fantastic.
Yeah, and the other
takeaway you got from it, too,
is that people do not
like-- as it turns out,
if you're ever in one of those ski sleds
that you got brought back
down and brat up and back down
to get all the way down to
the ET, you do or don't--
I don't remember-- love people just
staring down at you.
OK, first of all,
you're in it, and you already
feel like you're in a coffin.
It was a little terrifying.
And you're right, when we
were moving through the hub,
people were staring down at me as I'm
being pulled in a sled,
just looking down at you
like I'm a rat in a cage
or in my coffin.
I wasn't sure which, and I was not happy.
Yeah, but they did a great job.
They did a great job getting you down.
He actually went pretty fast.
I mean, as nervous as the kids were,
he went pretty fast down the hill.
In fact, we didn't even keep up with you.
Trust me, I was more
nervous, don't worry.
Yeah.
Thank you.
So long drawn out way to
say that, unfortunately,
our Christmas traditions
got interrupted a little bit
this year, as they often can be.
But the show must go on.
The show must go on.
And I tried not to let it
ruin everyone's Christmas.
We still had a great
meal, and hopefully everyone
enjoyed that, and everyone had fun.
Well, and thank God that you wrapped
most of the presents before.
I was a busy little elf before we went.
I don't know how everybody else does it,
but there have been times
where we've been up till 2 AM
on Christmas Eve-- actually, Christmas
morning at that point,
I guess-- still wrapping.
And I don't know that we were
procrastinating as much
as we just didn't get to it or whatever.
Life's busy.
But this year, you were
on it, a busy little elf.
And thank God we had like 10 gifts left
to wrap that night when we
got home on Christmas Eve.
Yeah.
So that did help.
It is really hard to get it all in.
And I think sometimes
the holidays can really
feel like there's just so much.
It's all good stuff.
How do you all fit it in?
And how do you make sure you're still
having fun and being
present amidst all the chaos?
I really think that this
year, because I wasn't mobile,
I actually got to enjoy a little bit more
of the present opening
on Christmas morning
versus in my head planning out
the next steps of the day.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think even
outside of the holidays,
I find myself doing that a lot.
I mean, I'm sure there's a
lot of people that can relate.
But I have trouble just kind of
unplugging and relaxing
even outside of the holidays.
If there's just the to-do
list is so long every day.
And it's not something that you've put.
It's not a honey-do list.
It's a Sean, you should do
this list that I've made up myself
most of the time, that
it's almost difficult just
to sit and relax because I'm just
counting the minutes
and the hours sometimes
that I'm not being productive.
I mean, you've got to remember you are.
I'm being productive,
making family memories,
and being there, and being
present for my children, which
is hard.
It's sad to say because
it's what you want to do most.
I know it's not just me.
I know there's other
people that are like that.
But your mind sometimes
just won't let you do that.
So I'm sad that that was the
way you had to make it happen.
But I'm glad you got to
maybe unplug and enjoy it
a little bit more.
Yeah.
And I would say, on Christmas day,
you did a fabulous job of being
productive and spending time
with the kids because one
of our big Christmas gifts
this year was a trampoline for the kids.
Now, we have said for years--
We gave in.
Yeah, we gave in.
For years, we had said, no
trampoline, no trampoline.
It's kind of like asking for a puppy,
and you finally give in
after all these years.
And so you had an
opportunity, especially since I
couldn't help in the least.
You spent almost a couple of hours
with the kids putting
together the trampoline.
And so you were productive, and you
created some great
memories, maybe a couple bickering
moments.
They did pretty well.
Yeah, this harkens back to the hold.
You put the bicycle
together the night before
and cover it with a blanket.
And based on everything that had happened
and the size of a
trampoline, you can't really hide that.
So I knew going into Christmas day
that that was going to have to be done.
Cece was a big help.
She was here, which she
usually is almost every Christmas.
So she was a big help.
That's grandma.
And the kids, yeah,
they did a good job on it.
It was nice.
But the cats-- that's old
Megan just, I don't know,
maybe two days ago.
The cat's kind of out
of the bag right now
that I've had to step it up.
And I'm not bragging
on myself here at all.
When your spouse can't get around--
and you've been getting
around much better lately,
but previous to the last 48 hours,
you've been almost immobile.
I mean, the crutches are killing you.
Your hands are bruised.
And I was laughing because I was like,
the cat's out of the bag here.
I'm doing so much more
than I ever usually do.
And not that I'm lazy-- and
hopefully you wouldn't say that.
Not that I'm lazy, but I'm popping up.
She can't make her coffee on crutches
and take it back to the
counter, back to the chair
that she's sitting in, right?
So immediately, I'm up.
I got her coffee ready.
I got this ready.
I got the creamer out.
That's one of a million
things that I've figured out
that I've had to do for
her, trying to plan ahead
and be proactive.
And it's like, gosh, now she knows
I can do so much more than just sit on
the couch and eat chips.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, for the record, Sean has been
amazing during the last
few weeks while--
I mean, he really has been
there every step of the way
as I try to step.
He is always four steps ahead of me,
anticipating what I need.
The kids have helped out, too.
They've actually learned a couple chores.
They've stepped up.
They've had to.
Maybe reluctantly in some--
in some cases, they've
been a little reluctant.
But overall, all the way right away,
happy way has generally been followed.
But I think I already knew
you could do all that stuff.
So really, it wasn't
like a huge revelation.
I always knew you
could do all that stuff.
But you didn't-- you just
didn't expect me to do it.
Oh, no, I did.
Oh, but I just haven't been doing it?
Is that what you're saying?
No, I just like to be
independent and do it.
You let me know when you're
ready to take all that back on.
I'll let you know when the
independence needs to come back.
Yeah.
So it has definitely
slowed things down a little bit
in the holidays.
And I mean, for us, holiday season
is just the precursor to then what we
have as birthday season.
And so we go from craziness of holidays
to just craziness of birthdays.
So our youngest turned 11
a few days after Christmas.
So that is always a bit of a challenge.
We always joked like we
didn't want a holiday baby.
Well, yeah, we didn't
want a holiday baby.
We definitely planned for that without
too much detail here.
That was not the intention.
And he missed it by three days somehow.
But I mean, I always
remember-- and you know,
I've talked about this before.
I'm a February baby.
And I always felt that
even mid-February birthday
was too close to Christmas
because I was always like,
well, maybe I want
something else for Christmas.
Like, just steal one of my birthday
presents, mom and dad.
You know, give it to me on Christmas.
And for our youngest, I
mean, he gets Christmas.
And then three days later, he gets all
the next Christmas--
the birthday ones.
But I think-- would we say that we cut
that short even just
a little bit because he's just received
this mountain of other presents, I feel
like, two days before?
Yeah, because he
almost doesn't recognize it
or realize it or
appreciate it because he's already
had this mountain of presents.
And now it's just a few more--
It's just more presents.
More to ever.
I'll get to those.
I almost wish he-- at
some point, he may say,
hey, let's do it over the summer.
Which he might because
we can't have his birthday
because it is so close to the holidays.
I don't want to take
people away from family.
So it's hard to invite
kids to a birthday party.
But we did recently have then his
birthday party a week
or so afterward.
And that was, again, all types of chaos.
We had quite a few
11-year-old boys running around.
That was just two nights ago.
Feels like forever.
Yeah.
That was just two nights ago.
But hopefully, everyone--
it was difficult, again, to go back to--
I'm on crutches.
We went to a place that
had bowling and arcades.
And again, this is
where you really stepped up.
Now, you're the
picture taker in our family.
I'll go on record right now.
He is the picture taker in the family.
And he has been honing
those skills over the years,
which was great because I
couldn't follow everyone around
to take pictures or videos.
And you made sure no one was
getting hurt or doing things
that they shouldn't.
That's a funny one.
I'm just curious if other
people have the picture taker
spouse and the non-picture taker spouse.
Because I would suggest
that I'm not a picture taker.
I don't like taking pictures.
I'd rather just not
have to think about it.
But by default, because you are clearly
not a picture taker,
I have to jump into that
saddle and ride off with it.
Whatever it is.
But to that point, I have now trying
to make these Instagram reels and all
these kind of things.
I don't know if it's annoying or if it's
fun for people to watch those things.
At some point, it's like,
good lord, how many posts
are these people going to do?
So I hope it doesn't
come across that way.
When I post those things, I'm just
trying to make sure people-- because we
have a lot of friends and
family across the country.
Not many live down here
in Texas where we live.
And so for them to be able to
see some of these 30-second,
one-second clips that are kind of fun,
hopefully it's not
annoying to everybody else.
It's just kind of sharing our life and
our children's life,
really, with family and
friends that can't be here.
Exactly.
And I know a lot of
family who takes those
and takes those pictures
that we post and repurposes them
because we do live apart from family.
And so I hope it's helpful
for our friends and family.
But it also speaks to
just what we're really
talking about on the
podcast is the chaos.
You can see it.
And all that we can
shove into a week or a month
makes for a pretty
interesting little real,
even when you shorten it
into 30 seconds or a minute.
Yeah, 30 minute.
Now, that might get annoying.
But 30 seconds, hopefully--
Would be obnoxious, yeah.
It's not too annoying.
So apologies if that annoys you.
It's just good fun.
It's just good fun.
But speaking of the
holidays and new things and chaos
and all that, our oldest, he--
and we have to be careful how much we say
on these kind of things,
but he's got a girlfriend.
And it's not his first girlfriend,
but it's his first
girlfriend in high school
now that he's a freshman.
So it's kind of a bigger deal.
And it was kind of a big
deal on New Year's Eve.
She came over to spend
New Year's Eve with us.
Yeah.
And I'm going to be completely honest.
I think-- I was
telling Sean earlier today,
they write a lot of parenting books.
They write a lot of marriage books.
But they don't-- and they
probably cover all these topics.
But you would have had to
know that you were going to feel
some angst or you would have to know
how you were going to feel
beforehand to read the book
before it happened.
And I-- and it was pretty
obvious on New Year's Eve--
I struggled with this.
I struggled with changing
our routine and our traditions
that we had for New Year's Eve.
Just as a side note, New Year's Eve is
always a family time
for us.
And we do family games.
And up until probably two years ago,
we celebrated New York's--
New Year's and then went to bed.
But we spend a lot of
family time together.
And this was the first
time we had someone different.
And I kind of struggled with the fact
that my son wasn't
going to be with just us.
And I think it bothered me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, to each his own, obviously.
It didn't bother me as much.
And I don't know.
Some of that harkens
back maybe to my upbringing.
I was-- I had a couple
high school girlfriends
that I was very close to for different
reasons and whatnot.
But I mean, we did a lot with them.
I mean, I hung out with their family.
They came to our family events.
So to me, it seemed somewhat natural.
And it was kind of like
that next step in growing up
and seeing him do that.
In fact, I was more
worried about her parents, right,
who-- super nice people.
By the way, she's lovely.
Absolutely.
She's fantastic.
She was super nice, super
courteous, pretty little girl.
But I was worried about her family
because this might have
been the first time they
had to share their daughter
with someone else on New Year's.
Like, this might have been the first time
that she didn't spend it with them.
And she spent it with us.
She was here till 1230 that night.
Right.
I feel kind of bad.
I mean, dad dropped her off.
And I don't know.
Maybe they're fine with that.
And maybe they weren't.
But I do appreciate
them sharing her with us
because she was fantastic.
She really was.
We had a lot of fun with her.
And I would say, I think back to who I
was at 14 years old.
And would I have had the confidence
to hang out with someone
that I didn't know super well?
I mean, she certainly
didn't know our family very well.
She was so confident and kind.
And she jumped in and
played games with our family
and laughed with us.
And it was wonderful to have her.
But it was different.
And I will say, I'm processing this--
what is a very natural
thing for a 14-year-old
to go through and have their first
boyfriend or girlfriend
in high school.
But it is different as a parent.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
Well, and we had--
it was funny because I was trying to say,
what do I say to her dad?
Because if he was coming over here,
and I want to make sure we
have all the rules in place.
No one's upstairs.
No doors closed.
And it was funny because they were
watching a movie for some of
the night in the front room
while we were in the
back, watching the Dick
Clerks and all that kind of stuff.
I guess Ryan Seacrest now.
But we had to send the
kids up there and make sure--
hey, just make sure they're nowhere here.
And he had his arm around her.
It was very cute.
All innocent.
They're totally innocent right now.
But that was just-- it's
a new element in our lives
that we're just going to have
to get used to to some degree.
Because it is very natural.
So I know I was--
I'm sure someone else
is feeling that way.
If you have a 14,
15-year-old and they're just taking
those first steps into
dating, it is uncomfortable.
But I do kind of--
I talk to Sean about it.
And I make sure that it's
like, well, this is normal.
This is the process that
they're supposed to go through.
He won't remain a three-year-old forever.
He just needs mommy and daddy.
There'll be an
evolution here to some degree.
Wasn't it someone on our soccer team
whose younger son kind of
walked in on his older brother?
And he's like, oh, yeah, they were
totally making out in there.
I don't--
They don't recall.
I'm like, great.
I'm looking forward to those days.
Yeah, that's-- I have to shut
that out of my mind for now.
I'm still dealing with the first
innocence of holding hands.
Yeah, step one, step one.
But ultimately, yeah, it's just fun
watching the kids kind
of grow up and see that.
And I know we're lucky
because all three of our kids
just saw the house, right?
And I'm just--
I'm so scared of the day when
they want to go other places.
Like with Halloween, our
oldest went with his friends.
Subsequently, I think
that's where he really first
spent some time with, his new girlfriend,
now that they're official.
But when the day does
come and our kids are out
having New Year's with other people,
it'll be sad for us.
But that's part of the
evolution of them growing up,
and that's OK.
I often joked-- not I often joke,
but I made the joke or comment when
we were talking about doing
this podcast and who we are.
And I think I made the
comment that we're your next--
we're your average next door
neighbor that you never see,
right?
Because we're never home.
And maybe that's that
natural evolution, though,
of as your kids get older, you start
plugging back into friends.
Because right now, the
circle of friends that we run with
are on the soccer
teams or on the track teams
or maybe at school, people we see.
We no longer-- and maybe--
I don't think we've dropped the ball here
as much as our schedule won't allow.
And that's a horrible excuse.
But I know that the schedules during
these times of your life
are sun up to sun down.
And even after that,
there's just no time for that.
But maybe that'll allow
us the time in the moments
in our lives to plug back in and have
more of those
friendships with people our ages.
Right.
Right.
Which is healthy, which
we need, which I miss.
As introverted as I am, I do look forward
to having those friendships.
That social outlet is
still very important and one
that we don't get a lot of right now.
No.
I think, obviously, you mentioned
that our friends are
the people we spend time
with on the soccer sidelines or by the
track meet, or work,
too.
So I've created great
friendships through work
and with coworkers.
So I have a lot of
conversations that way.
But really, outside of those arenas,
I would say that's one area of our life
that our cup probably
needs to be a little more full.
But as our children spend
more time with their friends,
to your point, I think that'll allow
us to be a little more out
there in the world outside
of soccer and work.
Yeah, because we are in
our own little worlds here.
But it's just difficult. And that's
part of why we have this podcast, right?
Just to suggest that
there's other people in this, too.
I mean, we know that
there's people on our soccer team
that have kids that are
doing other sports that
are travel and competitive.
And their parents are on
other sides of the country
any given weekend just
following their kids around.
And they're talking to colleges now.
So these times will come to an end.
And you always hear people
talk about it enjoying this time.
And I think we've got
New Year's coming up.
And one of the things
that I want to focus on
is being in these moments,
making sure in these few years
that our kids are in
the house left, right?
And our youngest still has eight years,
or seven, I guess, now.
Our oldest only has four.
But really making sure
we enjoy those years,
enjoy those times with them.
We make memories.
Because as fast as our lives
go, it's so easy just to say,
hey, buddy, I'm busy right now.
Hey, buddy, I'm working.
No, I can't do that right now.
And I know I do that too much.
And there's times when
I would much rather--
and I want them to know I would much
rather go do that with them.
But again, that to-do
list, it's the pressure
of that to-do list and
everything else that comes along
with your day-to-day lives that gets you.
But you really need to
take the time to unplug.
And I think that's a
long-winded way to say,
one of my New Year's
resolutions, if there's anything
that-- any truth to
New Year's resolutions
is being more in that
moment with our children.
And that's part of what we're
doing here is cataloging what
we're doing well and
what we're not doing well.
Right.
Because I think there's
times when we do that really well
and we can celebrate it.
And then there's days when you lay your
head at night going,
man, I wish I would
have done that differently.
And I think that's a
great New Year's resolution.
And honestly, I would like
to adopt that one as well
and enjoy the little moments.
It doesn't always have to be
a Christmas morning moment.
Yeah.
It can just be our
daughter helping me stir something
on the stove and just having a
conversation about her day
or picking them up from school and
hearing the stories.
Of course, that usually
comes from her daughter,
not so much our sons.
How was school?
Good.
Good.
That's awesome.
That's fantastic to hear.
I'm glad you had a good day.
Whereas our daughter, we
get a rundown of every class.
Difference between boys and girls.
As teenagers, absolutely.
It's incredible.
Really is.
As hard as that is to
break away from work,
to go pick them up at
school, it's really a great time
to spend with them, to
sing a song in the car
or to hear about their day, good or bad.
And so it's really--
I agree with you.
I think that should be my
New Year's resolution as well.
Yeah.
That probably will have more benefits
long term than the New Year's resolution
I had a few years ago, which
was starting to floss every day.
Yeah, but you are
still flossing every day.
And I passed it forward
because someone else is now
flossing every day.
I'm flossing every day too.
That was my New Year's
resolution last year.
Not that we have
terrible oral habits here.
We floss before, just not every day.
Right.
I think most people pretend that they
floss, but they don't.
Yeah.
We have a separate
subscribers only whole podcast
dedicated to flossing,
oral hygiene, proper hygiene.
So make sure you tune in for that.
Oh, yeah.
Plus, I mean, let's just be honest.
We made it past Quitters Day,
both of us, on the flossing.
Yeah.
When is Quitters Day?
Second Friday of the month.
OK.
OK.
Yeah, and don't--
It's coming up for this year.
Yeah.
I didn't really have any New Year's
resolution for this year.
Other than the fact that I was just
saying to you yesterday
that I think it was like
December 23rd or something.
In my mind, I was thinking, hey, I've
done pretty good this year about not
gaining my holiday weight.
Fast forward literally two weeks.
I mean, what has it been?
15 days since that time?
Not even.
And I'm five pounds up.
And not that I'm sitting
here on the scale every day
and really worried about
this, but at certain ages,
you do have to have to watch.
One pound a year from this point on is a
lot of weight to gain.
And I'm just not ready to be--
I'm just not ready to
give in on that one yet.
So my New Year's resolution
needs to also probably contain
cutting back my caloric,
getting-- making sure, you know,
I'm getting out and exercising.
Yeah, which you are--
you exercise all the time.
So you're a once, if not
twice per day exerciser.
So I think that's incredible.
You totally can't tell.
That's just how much I eat.
I eat just enough.
We need to have a little counter when
we do this of how many
times we gush on each other.
Oh, OK.
Like, oh, you're the greatest.
No, you're so great.
And it's like, ding, ding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yours will be higher than mine because
you're just naturally--
you're actually really good at that.
I don't think it's a natural
thing for a guy to be gushy.
Yeah.
Well, no, you're pretty gushy.
You're good.
Oh, good.
I feel-- I feel my cup is full.
I'll try to get at least one
or two per episode if I can
without being too annoying to people
watching like, oh, my god.
[LAUGHTER]
They're just cheesy.
And you know what?
I do think appreciation
in a marriage is huge.
And if you were
listening to morning cereal,
part of some of what you were talking
about in morning cereal
was that appreciation
for those in your life,
not just at work in a
setting, but at home
and in a marriage especially.
And so when we do gush on each other,
it is just appreciation because we
do like to make sure that they know--
the other knows that they're appreciated.
Well, I didn't come up
with that all on my own.
There's part of-- there's a
book review in morning cereal.
So look it up, podcast.
Right now, we're going
through Dale Carnegie's How
to Win Friends and Influence People.
And that was part of one of the--
I think we're in chapter two when
we talk about appreciation.
But there's a lot of good points in that.
So I guess that was a plug
that we didn't need to have.
But thank you for the plug.
Hey.
I'll try.
So we'll probably-- well, is there
anything else that you wanted to talk
through before we kind
of get on to what
next week is bringing us?
Yeah, no.
I think next week, I think we're jumping
full fledge into back
to school, back to work.
It is a full week back
for nearly everybody.
Practices start.
Games start again.
And the chaos just--
we may have hit pause
for just a little bit.
But it is back in full swing next week.
What I'm really interested
to see how it works this week,
because we have so many
different places to go,
is how the carpool works.
Two drivers are necessary every night.
And right now, the good
news is, for the last 48 hours,
you've been scooting
around without crutches
with your brace on.
Even before you go to the doctor,
you go to the doctor this Wednesday,
I think it is, to figure that out.
But I am a little
nervous, because those carpools--
super helpful.
Thank you to our fellow carpoolers,
especially knowing that
they're actually really nice to us,
because we're only involved in it
whenever we need to.
Sadly, because we're at
some place three or four hours
longer than the soccer practice.
So I'm parked out there.
Just waiting.
It just makes no sense.
But we do try to
reciprocate as much as we can.
And probably, what's the saying?
It takes a town?
Oh, it takes a village.
Oh, it takes a village.
Yeah.
Maybe sometimes an entire city.
I just wasn't sure what
the difference between town
and villages.
I think they're about the same?
I don't know.
You know what's funny?
I'm horrible at metaphors.
And you'll get to know
that on this podcast.
But people that work with me know that.
I mix my metaphors, and I'm
sure you know that all the time.
So it takes a town.
That's just the first example.
That would be the other
counter that we have up here.
How many metaphors I get wrong.
It takes a village is
the way I believe it's set.
Yeah, it does take a village.
And so it will be interesting.
Hopefully, I can be
driving, and I can really
be part of the village
as an active participant.
No, we'll see.
Well, we won't hold our breath.
But speedy recovery on that, obviously.
We also have a second birthday coming up
this weekend of our birthday season
that you've already mentioned.
Yeah.
Planning for that.
I'm not sure.
It just seems like it's
like prom now with birthdays.
We got away with it for a long time.
I don't know if it was
COVID or what it was,
but we did not have birthday
parties for a good five years,
I feel like, where we did all this stuff.
But now that we're getting back into it,
I feel like some of
the friends that we have,
some of our children's friends, it's
like proms, these birthday parties.
They're going out.
They're doing this.
It's that.
It's a week-long event.
And it's on the internet.
There's all kinds of stuff going forward.
So it's a whole production now just
to try to keep up with
the Joneses to some degree.
Not that we try to do that,
but we are planning and trying
to make sure we give a good one, I guess.
Yeah.
Our daughter, she's going to be 13.
Our second teenager.
Second teenager.
Just please pray for us.
Again, we'll hear all
about it through this podcast
because we're on this
crazy train together.
But yeah, she's been planning it.
She has an idea of what she wants to do.
I think the challenge is going to be
getting it in in January
where we have a whole lot of
travel ahead of us for soccer
and track.
So it'll be an interesting ride.
It will be.
It will be.
Well, I think that probably sums up--
we did about a month
of a sum up in this one.
Normally, it'll be a week.
It'll be maybe a little bit more succinct
and talking through some of
the trials and tribulations
that we've been through in each week.
But I'm looking forward to it.
I think it'll be fun.
Hopefully, people enjoy it.
People will see just how
two people work through this
because we definitely don't
have all the right answers.
But we've managed to trip through life
and make it this far.
Right.
And hopefully-- I said it earlier--
it doesn't have to be your
mistake to learn from it.
So hopefully, you all can learn from ours
and get some entertainment.
And maybe you're
laughing at us right now.
I'm not sure.
And it's OK if you are
because sometimes, if you're not
laughing, then you're
probably not doing it right.
We laugh at ourselves all the time.
And then we just pick ourselves up
and move on to the next thing.
And hopefully, we do
it right the next time.
I think ultimately, for me, the whole
thing just comes down to,
even though I'm in the late
40s, which is weird to say
because we all don't feel that way.
Our minds stop growing in our
mid 20s, it feels like, right?
But what we realize as you mature
is you really have no
idea what you're doing.
And you start getting this
wisdom that, oh, you know what?
My parents didn't have any
idea what they were doing.
We're all just writing
the story as we go along.
So it's good to have a co-pilot here.
And not everybody gets that.
And that's OK.
But you have good friends or good family
that's acting as your co-pilot, right?
Stepping in.
And I think there's just
a lot to say about life
and people just trying to
make positive influences in it.
And that's really all we're trying to do.
Yeah, exactly.
So with that, maybe we sign off.
Yeah, that's a sign up.
We're going to have to come up with some
sort of official sign
off.
Smartless has taken all the good stuff.
So we can't use that.
But yeah, we'll just say bye.
And thanks for tuning in on this one.
And we'll look forward to
talking to you next week.
All right, until next week.
See ya.
See ya.