Really? Really?
But, there's a big ol' butt-cump.
I have a love-hate
relationship with the elf on the shelf.
I mean, why are you offended by that?
Because I've seen blue eyes and that's
not the color of my eyes.
I'd call him BS on that.
Like, I do not like them
here. I do not like them here.
I do not like them anywhere.
We'll put that one on the shelf.
Yeah.
And how long did it take Tweedle Dee,
Tweedle Dum, and Tweedle Dumber to do it?
Oh my gosh.
We've got 90 years of
experience between the two of us.
No, it's actually a little higher.
It's like, it's actually closer to 100.
Exterior illumination.
For that moment in the 80s,
some people didn't think so.
They watch it on BoopTube.
Bora Bora. Sexy Sexy Sexy
Sexy Sexy Sexy Sexy Sexy.
Ciao Ciao.
See ya.
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.
I have a tickle in my throat.
That was a classic start. We'll cut out
the cough there, but it
is the season for everybody
in Dallas to be sick.
No kidding.
Over the last couple days,
you're looking way better.
Your eyes look a little brighter. You
don't look like you're
just walking pneumonia.
I don't know what else to say.
I mean, whatever you've
had has wiped you out.
Yeah, it's taking energy, but I mean, I
haven't felt really bad.
I just haven't had much energy.
Other than that, one day, I
had a kind of tough sinus day.
Yeah.
Drainage and whatnot.
Yeah, the bloody nose.
We're going to talk about drainage for
the next 45 minutes.
In fact, this is going to be
an extended episode on Phlem.
It's so gross.
Well, the drainage issue
wasn't phlem. It was blood.
Oh, yeah.
There's any doctors watching?
I had a world record bloody nose.
Yeah. Is your nose
supposed to bleed for two hours?
Just can we go out and
be like, "No, it's not."
I've never had. I heard you talking to
your colleague on a call.
You're like, "Oh, my husband's nose has
been running for like
an hour and a half."
And you're like, "Well, he
has a history of bloody nose."
And like, "Do I really?"
Well, no, it just doesn't bleed that
long. But when it's dry or-
If you go to Colorado, everybody gets in
Colorado because it's just so dry.
I have only had maybe one bloody nose
where the blood actually
drips out in my whole life.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. You get them. So when that's my
context, you know, you
getting a bloody nose a couple
times a year.
Yeah.
But this was excessive.
Yeah, this was excessive.
And I'm like, "I'm worried you're going
to pass out. Like, you shouldn't be
losing this much blood."
It was one of those things. We didn't
just dive right into that.
It was one of those things where I was
like, "Maybe I should be
conscious of the fact that,
you know, I'm not lightheaded right now
just because there wasn't
a lot of blood, but it just
wasn't stopping." And it was gushing.
It was gushing.
So the second I would take something out
of the nose, you would
just be like, "Bruh."
Yeah. And so it was a little unnerving.
Yeah. That aside,
everybody else is sickier too.
Yeah, in fact-
All the schools.
All the schools, yeah. I mean, a kid on
the soccer team, like,
you know, we can't carpool
this week because she's like, "I don't
want your kid around."
You know, like, we should
separate our kids. They're traveling this
weekend. Totally get it.
And our kids have been hacking this whole
last two weeks too. Most
of our kids are pretty sick,
right?
Yeah.
That's not pretty sick, but they're
fighting. Everybody's
fighting something. It's not one
of those ones where you're like, "I'm
just so sick, but just
fighting it." So it's just that fall
junk.
It is.
Nobody likes it.
No, no. And it hit us. And it's hitting
the schools really hard.
Yeah. You kind of missed it though, a
little bit. You had a
day of it, maybe, of it.
Yeah.
Like on wood.
You've been pretty healthy.
Yeah.
But it was hard.
Yeah. Not many, I
mean, generally speaking,
common colds. Yeah. It's
a joke. People love this.
Common colds don't usually, like, get me
down. Never really have.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Well-
I was a kid that got perfect attendance
most years in my, you know, kinder
through ninth grade or
twelfth grade.
Yeah. I never missed school for being
sick, ever. I tried it maybe once or
twice, and the parents
were like, "You're going to school."
They're soft now. If you
let your kids stay home now,
you're soft. Kids, I guess, minus the
COVID years, when you kill someone.
Yeah. Yeah, no. I think
those are better safe than sorry.
Yeah. But yeah.
Tis the season though, as you said.
Tis the season. And you know what else
it's getting tis the season for?
What?
Holidays.
Oh, that's the season
I was talking about.
Oh, I thought you were still talking
about the cold flu season.
But it's his the season for that, but
that was my transition to tis
the season for other things as
well, which I just wanted to be- you just
made sure nobody missed it.
There is no-
Questioning is the holiday time.
Yeah, it is.
Most wonderful time of the year. We've
said it before, but now
we're almost at Thanksgiving now.
One week out from the wind that's airs.
Yes. Yes. Which is
crazy how fast it got here.
Yeah.
And it's a late Thanksgiving this year.
It is late, yeah.
I just don't know where
the past 11 months have gone.
It's that whole thought about how time
just passes quicker as you get older.
It was interesting though, our son
brought home some science
behind that, or maybe I read it.
Yeah, one of our sons brought home some
science. I'm trying to
remember which one now.
I think maybe I read it and he read it at
the same time and it was similar things.
But the theory behind it is that time is
going faster now because
our brains aren't learning as
much. So the thought is when you're
younger, you're experiencing
so many new things. That's why
sights are new. Sounds are new. Smells
are new. Like smells are
what most, you know, I remember.
That takes me back to being a kid. I can
smell the grass, fresh cut
grass, wet dirt, things of a
kid, the smell of water coming out of a
hose. It's back when I could smell. I
can't smell anything
now. But that's just one of those senses
that your brain's
learning the world and these new
experiences, new experiences. And because
of that, time is stretched
because you're putting all these
time stamps on learning this and learning
this and learning that. And
as you get older, the brain's
not learning as much. Right. And so
you're not putting all those
time stamps. Now I'm definitely
paraphrasing this. You might need to go
back and read the actual
article because there could be a
chance I'm warping it. No, you're
explaining it exactly how I
understood it. And ironically,
how like our 11 year old was explaining
it to us. Okay. So
probably ironically, exactly how I
explained it to him and then he explained
it back. But that's okay.
Well, he used it as like,
Hey, hey, mom. So when you're younger, a
lot of the way time slows
down is because you have really
big moments is how he explained it. And
he's like, so we should probably go to
more water parks and
six flags and take more vacations. Your
experiences though,
it's experiences that your
brain is just mapping out how this world
is, how this world works.
And I think that's one of the
reasons like when we go on vacation now
too, I like to go to new
places. It's like why I like
to watch new movies. You know what I
mean? I like to map new things that I
don't already know that
my brain's not already experienced, you
know, and that's something even in our
house, we're talking
about like next year's vacation. Oh yeah.
Do we go back to somewhere
that was already awesome?
Or do we try to find somewhere new that's
just might be just as
awesome? Who knows? Right,
right. We're kind of on the fence on that
one too. Like I like to go
to new places too. Sorry,
cut back after both of us have a bit of a
coughing fit. Um, okay,
we've talked to this a few times.
Or as our daughter would say, really?
Really? That's our new thing right now.
Really? It's hilarious.
So funny. Just to be least expected. She
also goes who, who?
Yeah. Asked. And you're like,
oh, yeah, sported again. That's right.
Anyway, you like new experiences too. I
like new experiences too.
There's a big old butt coming. No,
there's times though when it's like, not
so much for vacations.
Um, I'm usually game for whatever, you
know, like, how is it going to fit into
the schedule? How is
it going to fit into the budget? How, you
know, yeah, obviously. Um,
but you bring up a good point
because we were talking about like shows
and movies and stuff. And
there are times when I'm
like, absolutely, I want something new.
Like, I don't want to watch
something we've already seen,
but there are times when I'm like, no, I
think I just kind of want
to rewatch something else,
you know, that we've seen before. There
really is like a difference
in my, I don't know if it's
mood or mental state or whatever. Um, and
there's actually studies
that show that watching things
multiple times lowers anxiety levels. And
so I don't know if
that has to do with like,
it has everything to do with it for you.
I'm kind of stressed right
now. So I'd really like to just
watch Ted Lasso. It's a feel good show. I
know it's going to
happen, you know. Yeah. I there,
I see the logic behind that. It is
interesting though. I just, if I'm not
going to, if I'm not
going to watch something new, I'd rather
watch something that's not new, new
sports, for instance,
like I can watch sports and not pay
attention to it. Me too. You know what I
mean? But I don't want
to, I don't really want to watch. Like, I
just, I don't know. I would never be
like, you know what,
I've seen Ted Lasso in the last two or
three years. I want to
watch it again. Now, I might
watch the Seinfeld or Sopranos or
something that we haven't
seen in a long time. Yeah.
Might rewatch that. Game of Thrones we're
talking about. Yeah.
Might rewatch that because
it's kind of lost. I've kind of lost
those. Yeah. I don't know
it verbatim anymore. Yeah.
Verbatim is not the right word. Right,
right. It's not as fresh in
your mind. Anyway, either way,
either way. Yeah. So we're just trying to
figure that kind of stuff
out right now, I guess. But,
tis the season and remembering things,
right? Like, I mean, the
holidays were super special times
as kids. Yeah. And now all of our
children know the whole
Santa thing, you know. And so,
you know, as you go all the way back to
Thanksgiving, you
know, that's kind of what
starts that whole season. Yeah. Right.
It's just a special season,
but it still stays so special.
But I feel like as a parent, you almost
have to work for that a
little bit more, right? A little
bit. Keep it special for the kids and for
yourself. And for
yourself. Yeah. I think so.
The one benefit, though, is that there is
less, like, stress. When,
when, you know, the curtain has been
pulled back and children
know. Oh, yeah. The big one,
kind of. It doesn't, it does stress me a
little bit, I guess, but
not as I said. The big one,
though, is the Elf on the Shelf. The Elf
on the Shelf. I have a love-hate
relationship with the
Elf on the Shelf. Great idea. Whoever did
it, like, so cute, so
creative. It is so flipping
over the top nowadays. Yeah. And it was
so stressful. And I'd
wake up in the middle of the
night and be like, "Oh, we forgot to move
Elfie!" Yeah. Yeah.
Because we go on a ski trip right
before Christmas every time, and Elfie
would magically be there.
So we always had to sneak
them out of the house. We lost an Elfie
one time. That was, there
was a midnight run to Walmart,
I know you made one time. And the only, I
got the last. And it was
because I was looking online,
I'm like, "Where in the store are they?"
And I'm like, "In cap C-17.
You've got to get to C-17."
Yeah. It says there's one, whatever it
was. And you got there and it
was there. And it was there.
It was the only one left. Because you
were in the Christmas area and there's
none in the Christmas
area. No. I looked in toys, I looked in
Christmas, I looked, I looked
everywhere, which I'm not going
to go in. I mean, we could have a whole
I'm Pieved episode on
how I feel about Walmart.
I do not like Walmart. I do not like the,
I could do a whole like
cat in the hat, or not cat,
but like a green eggs and ham. I do not
like them here. I do not like
them there. I do not like them
anywhere. Anyway, so I finally find that
end cap. And they are all
Hispanic Elf on the Shelf.
And I was like, our, our previous Elf on
the Shelf. Oh, because
that'd be the same one.
It had to be the same one. I couldn't
have got the tan. I
needed, I needed a blue hide.
Or we just had to be like, just got back
from Cancun overnight. Oh
my gosh. But the sun doesn't
change the color of your eyes. It's like
I need a blue hide Elf on
the Shelf. And that police
Navi Dodds on Brero. I know. I have to
get the same one. Yeah. I
literally got the last one
that matched our previous. The peach. The
peach blue eyed Elfie. That
because we're all blue eyed
in this family. Yeah. You claim your
green eyed. I am. You are. It's, they're
so blue. They're so not.
I'm going to stand next to some of the
blue eyes and then you'll see my eyes.
Does my mom have blue
eyes or green eyes? Okay. Let's stand
next to her and we'll see who's more
blue. There's a million
different colors like within there. Yeah.
You know how I always joke
that I have greenish blue
brown eyes. Yeah. It's very similar that
you think you have green
as blue eyes. It was like,
you're more blue. I mean, why are you
offended by that? So because I've seen
blue eyes and that's
not the color of my eyes because you can
also have brown green
eyes. So like our daughter has
green eyes, but they're very like not at
all the same color as mine or like
they're on the brown
spectrum, but you can also have like your
moms, which are very like
aqua colored. You know, there's
a lot of different colors in there. All
right. We'll put that one on
the shelf. Yeah. For the time.
Put my eyes on the shelf. Yeah, that's
right. But Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is always that opening
door to the real holidays. You know, I
mean, um, I guess even before
Thanksgiving, right? Like
people got to put up decoration. Now did
your family decorate for
fall? Yes, my mom did. You
decorate. Oh, there were pumpkins.
There's gourds. There's yeah. Yeah.
Colored leaves and um,
you know, the colored, we called it
Indian corn. I don't know if. Oh yeah.
Indian corn. Yeah. And
it was like the really pretty. It's
probably not PC anymore. It's probably
not, but Native American
corn. Yeah. And it's a really pretty
colorful ones. Yeah. So my
mom did that. And then there
was no decorating for Christmas until
after Thanksgiving, which
is a fair rule. It's a fair
rule. Although now I feel like over the
last couple of years, just due to
schedules and stuff,
there have been times when maybe last
year was the first year when
some of the Christmas stuff
came out before Thanksgiving. We did
because of the schedule. We had to do
some of it. We're like,
this is sweet. It's already done. Yeah.
It felt amazing. You
should talk to our oldest,
see if you can get started on that this
weekend when we're gone.
Oh, there is no way he's going
to let us pull out the Christmas stuff
without him here. They love
it. They love it. Oh yeah.
We'd like Christmas music in the house.
We're drinking eggnog. It
was so yeah. Yeah. It is fun.
When, when you have time to do it and
everybody's ready in the mood and I guess
not fighting. I mean,
we always laugh. Our kids getting
together and those things,
it's like the three stages.
Yes. How long did it, so we did get the
outside decorated this
over the last two weekends.
We got all the lights up on the house and
the lawn and the trees. Yes.
And you and our youngest did,
I think six trees. Yeah. He had to go
pick up. You had to go pick up the other
two. Yeah. And that took
you like, I don't know, 20, 25 minutes.
Maybe it wasn't much. You
had to get meat that so you get
25 minutes, maybe. And we're like, that's
fine. We'll get started on
the trees. So the youngest
and I did one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven trees out front lights, all
the spiraled all the
way up. And it doesn't sound that hard.
It wasn't that hard. And so the other
ones came back and I
think they were surprised that we had one
left. There's only one
tree left to do. And all three
kids were like, we're going to do it.
We'll do it. And how long did it take
Tweedledee, Tweedledum,
and Tweedledumber to do it? Oh my gosh,
an hour. Yeah. It took us
25 minutes to do seven and it
took them like an hour to three stooges
their way. It? Yeah. I mean,
you and I were on to totally
different things and you're like, are
they still doing it? Like, uh-huh,
they're not done yet. Like,
they're still up on a ladder. Insanity.
Yeah. So hopefully other kids
are like that too. But I was
like, wow. Yeah. I was like, this is what
you get when you empower
your kids to do something. Like,
it won't be done as fast as you can do
it. For sure. Yeah. I like
how you say that. Say it that
way. We empowered them to do something
and they're learning how to negotiation
skills and leadership
skills and ladder skills and ladder
skills. I don't know. It was, yeah. And
then we did another,
what, four or five? Yeah, four or five in
the backyard. Again, in
like 20 minutes. Yeah. Yeah.
Anyway, which included picking out which
trees we were going to do
it on. Yeah. But we've got 90
years of experience between the two of
us. It's true. We've been, we've been
wrapping trees. That's
the first time I've ever put those two
numbers together. That's not
the exact number either, but
no, it's actually a little higher. It's
like, it's actually closer
to a hundred. Did you guys
put up Christmas lights before
Thanksgiving though?
Because it's so cold in Minnesota.
No, you did that after. Yeah. So is that
like Christmas vacation where he's
outside in the cold,
like freezing? Just my dad. Yeah. Just my
dad. Yeah. I don't think we ever helped.
I also. Did you have quite the sprawling
or is it pretty the basic
gutters and gutters? Like,
I don't even recall my family putting up
exterior illumination. Like
for most of my childhood years.
Exterior illumination. So most years you
didn't even have that up.
I, I, I'm going to have to go
back to my, my family and ask. I don't
remember. I, I thought I
remember I was in like junior high
when they started putting lights on the
outside. I thought I might have that
wrong. And then I, I
feel bad. Like that is not something our
kids would forget. They
love the outdoor lights. They
love it. I do too. Yeah. And we do, we do
a pretty good job on them.
It's not over the top, but I
think it's pretty good. I think we do a
great job. How about, how
about you? Did you guys put it up
after or before? Man, we did. I helped my
later years. I don't think we did
anything crazy. Okay.
Gutters, maybe some windows. I don't
remember if the windows were on the
outside or the inside.
Yeah. Really just the front gutters kind
of is all I can recall. But on Christmas
Eve, we put out those,
those, what are those? Lanterns.
Luminary. Luminary. Yeah. Luminary. Yeah.
We put those out and that
was something, it was the real ones too.
So it was a paper bag with
sand in it and a candle in it.
And we put that out and then we go to
church and we go to
Ellie's house for that New Year,
that Christmas Eve party, which we can
get into on another podcast. But that was
always very special,
but we didn't get into that until
November. So you guys, the only thing I
remember in my house,
maybe, is we put out some like fall
placemats. Yeah. We definitely had the
Day of American Corn.
Obviously. We might have had like one
little, you know, we might have had a
couple little things
that were, I don't remember a lot of
decorations, but I know we had some. I
remember a lot though.
Yeah. For Christmas, we definitely pulled
out, but not for fall
and for Thanksgiving,
there wasn't much. Yeah. We had, oh my
goodness. And my mom put
these, I don't know if it was on
like some of the windows. She would tape
them up in, you know,
kindergarten or whatever. We made
these pilgrims out of construction paper,
whatever. And I think those came out
every year. Your mom
does do that. She incorporates your
things that the kids made at
school. Oh yeah. Like holiday
decoration. She incorporates that and
pulls it out every year. Uh-huh. Which,
okay. Have we talked
about the Mary and Joseph and Jesus? Oh,
now, yes. We shouldn't talk
about them on this episode,
on this podcast. I think we need to post
a picture of these. Just
talking about that when we get to
the Christmas. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
They're, they're definitely, you know, I
wouldn't say they're
number one in my book, but maybe number
two. Like they have to go on America's
Funniest Home Videos
somewhere. Like you did not get my
reference at all, but
okay. I got it. Wow.
I'm gonna leave this back in my head now.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're probably number
two in my book as well.
Yeah. Not number one, but probably
solidly at number two. So traditions,
Thanksgiving traditions.
We, so we always had everyone at our
house. Thanksgiving was
the Thanksgiving at our house
growing up. And so, and it was like a
come one, come all. If you
don't have a place to go.
You know, that was a couple of cousin's,
just friends. That was friends. We didn't
usually have aunts and uncles.
Well, we had the honorary aunts and
uncles, right? The ones that you call,
like, you know. So this
was not a family one though. There's just
locals, basically. Yeah.
Locals and my grandparents. My
grandparents were always with us. Okay.
Um, yeah. And. Which is still how it was
till this day. Which
is, yeah, exactly. It's still that way.
That, that group is still getting
together every Thanksgiving.
Um, but that was always ours. And it was,
I remember some years, oh, and then we'd
have people come over.
Whoa. Whoa. It's all coming back to me.
Um, so we, we kind of
have the same core group,
usually for dinner. And again, every now
and again, you'd get a
family who couldn't travel
because of snow or whatever. And they
were always, always welcome.
But then we always had dessert.
And so then we get a bigger group. So my
mom's cousins came for
dessert and they, and we would
play trivial pursuit. And that was always
so fun. Like I remember all
the adults, I was too young to
play, play it, but, um, Oh my gosh, that
was so much fun. I just
remember like sitting in the room
with everyone and laughing, eating,
drinking coffee and eating
pie and stuff. Yeah. It was fun.
Yeah. I think life, life back then was
easier to simple things
like that. Simple pleasures,
right? I mean, that was very similar to
what we did. We would go
to my grandparents house,
most things, things I think, um, Colorado
Springs and they're all
the, all the family would come
there primarily. And that was a big
group. That's, you know, 30 people
probably. So it was a big group.
Uh, you know, we'd be there all day. We'd
have the Turkey. We'd have all the pies
that everybody made,
but yeah, very similar to you every at
night. We just, we would play, they'd
watch the boys would
have the football game minder. Obviously
that was on all day. Yeah.
But when it got later, I mean,
these would be like all night, not all
nighters, but very late because the
adults would say I'm
playing games, board games all night
long. It was a big marble, this huge
board. That was like just
marbles all over the place. Yeah. What
that was, what that game was.
Yeah. They might play 10,000
or something like that, but it was always
that one where everybody would sit
around. They had all
the, you know, I could just remember my
grandpa just, you know,
just roaring on that, you know,
swearing people are cheating. He did not
like to lose. Yeah. Pop of
the pastor. Yeah. He did not
like to lose, but it was similar because,
you know, it's not like
there was, you know, 5,000 TV
channels to watch whatever movie you
wanted to. There weren't
even VHS is almost, you know,
for some of that time. Yeah. So it was
just spending time with
family. Nobody had a cell phone.
It was, you know, those are kind of more
simple days for that. And
that was fun, but that was really
same thing though. Turkey and stuffing.
Yeah. And deviled eggs with
pickles in it though. That is,
that is definitely a night tradition. At
least you guys had deviled
eggs. No, we didn't. You guys
never had deviled eggs either. So I
introduced your family, not only. Oh, no,
no, no. We had deviled
eggs just not on Thanksgiving. Oh, well,
yeah. I mean, deviled eggs
are any big holiday dish for
me growing up. I know you guys aren't
that way, I guess. Yeah. No,
no, no. We had deviled eggs.
Like my mom would make deviled eggs. She
makes them now at
Thanksgiving. Yeah, because of you.
Well, because you made them, I think.
Like, oh. Yeah, no, she
started doing it because I was like,
Sean, part of his tradition was always to
have deviled eggs with
pickles. And so she always got,
you know, extra eggs. And so I made
deviled eggs then when we would be there.
So yeah. And then my
pickled deviled eggs disappeared before
the other ones. Sometimes.
Put that one on the shelf too.
Yeah. No. Yeah, we never had deviled eggs
at Thanksgiving. That was more of like,
definitely at like Easter time. That was
part of the meal because
any big holiday meal we'd pull
them out. Yeah. I wonder if that's more
of a Southern thing. No
idea. It could be. I don't know.
I have no idea. Just because it wasn't
part of mine doesn't mean that it was.
Could be. I feel like deviled eggs. For
one of those, they'd
make okra, fried okra.
That's definitely Southern. That's
definitely Southern. That's something
else I introduced you to.
Yeah, I had never had fried okra. Yeah.
So good. Yeah, I had never
had that. But I bet you've never
had lefse. You know, so like I do think
there are some like more
regional things. Lefse? Yeah.
Never heard of it. For like in Minnesota,
it's a really big thing.
So is pickle herring, but
why would we talk about that? Lefse is
delicious. Think of it like a
crepe and you put butter and
cinnamon and sugar on it. It's delicious.
Oh, I've had those.
It's not called a lefse.
It's called butter and cinnamon crepe. Or
a crepe with butter and
cinnamon. Really a crepe
with cinnamon because all crepes get
butter. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll call it a
lefse. It's a little
different, but okay, it's totally. I
don't know how to make it like because
I'm not Scandinavian,
but grew up in a Scandinavian area. Like
I was not, um, you know, that was not a
dish that was passed down. Oh, krumkaka
like was another one
up there. Sounds good.
It was really good. Think of like funnel
cake, only a little bit
smaller and crispier. Yeah.
Really good. Yeah. Yeah. It was really
good. I'm like, yeah,
there are a couple really good
Scandinavian things. Yeah. So now did you
guys, since you were so up
north, did you guys cheer
for the lions then? Were you guys cowboy
fans? Cause usually it was
just the lions and the cowboys
I would play. Yeah, they would usually.
Yeah. Cause we probably
more the lions, but no, I mean,
I never really rooted against the
cowboys. Yeah. America's team. It's
America's team. We never
really rooted against them cause they
don't usually play each
other. They usually played
other teams, right? You had the, you have
the lions game and then
you have the cowboy's game,
right? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mean
it that way. I said it that
way though. Yeah. Oh, but I
mean we'd watch both. Yeah. Right. I
probably usually watched
more of the cowboys game.
Cause that usually came after the lions
game and I was usually
helping cook. Gotcha. During the
lions. Gotcha. Gotcha. My whole family's
obviously from Texas. That one
like does. Okay. Was the meal
planned around the cowboys game? Uh, no,
I think, I mean they had an open, they
built that house. So
my grandparents built that house. Gosh, I
don't remember when, when
I was pretty young, it was,
it felt like a huge house to me then
probably is a big house. Um,
but it had an open floor plan,
right? Early, early. So I mean, when I
was like eight, nine years old, maybe
they built that house
and they had an open floor plan. You had
never been in that house.
Oh, that's too bad. That was a
special house. It was cool house. Um, but
everybody was in there.
So I mean, like, you know,
it was, it was open floor plan. Like I
said, it was kitchen, dining,
and then family room for the
most part. And so everybody just got to
hang. So they didn't have to
plan around anything because
everybody was there. It wasn't like a
galley. Yeah. You would find a lot of
houses during that time.
Yep. Oh, that's fun. Like the house I
grew up in. TV was on a whole nother
level. Right. Actually.
Yeah. Down the stairs around the corner.
So good luck. Yeah. Have fun
cooking. We had that little
TV then. Yeah. A little foot by foot.
Yeah. Oh yeah. We had a
little ones. Some people would
start mounting those underneath the
cabinets. Real little ones.
Real little ones. We had a real
little one. Like a five inch screen.
Yeah. It was so tiny. Was it black and
white? Yeah. Was it color?
I don't think it was color. I don't think
it was color. I don't think so. It's
funny. I don't know.
Like it took up so much space, but yeah,
your screen was like that
big. Yeah. Yeah. It was huge.
The rest of it was huge. It was like a
BCR. Yeah. It was a little screen.
Oh my gosh. Yeah. But no. Because we
didn't have our kitchen was separated
from where everyone was
watching TV. Yeah. Now you can't. You
could still hear everyone.
It was. But yeah, you weren't
watching it. Yeah. No. I just remember
all the aunts and uncles and
you know, my mom and everybody
just having a fun time. I don't remember
any like fights or
anything like that. You know,
and the nice ones we go out and play lawn
darts because that was
still legal. I mean, you know,
it was great. And the kids is huge
upstairs where the pool table was
downstairs with a full basement
that we just get her. We just, you know,
mess around. And I mean, kids
just had full run there too.
Like they never, I don't, I'm sure
grandma yelled at us.
I'm sure she did, you know,
but there's an intercom system in it too.
So it was always y'all
come down now, you know,
y'all come and get it. Go and get it.
I always remember waking up to her
whenever we'd spend the night there,
I'd be in the basement and she'd be on
the intercom, you know,
because we'd make that little
y'all breakfast is
ready. You come and get it.
Just smell the eggs and bacon. Oh yeah.
Yeah. Of course it was eggs
and bacon too. But I remember
those are always fun times with the
cousins like, you know, messing around
and whatnot. Oh yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think the key may have
been, cause our kids love this about
going to my parents for
Thanksgiving. Cause I'd say probably what
at least 50% of the thanksgivings that
we've had since we've
had kids have been with my parents. Yeah.
Like they love the
basement. They don't have those
here in Texas and the basement like is
key to childhood fun.
Yeah. And it's a room like it's
multiple rooms where like anything goes.
It is. It was at my house.
It was at your house. Yeah.
You can be tossing balls. You're playing
hockey down there. I mean
like, yeah. And also I will say
as my parents are now grandparents, they
have way, way more leniency
on grandkids than they ever
did us. Like how many things have our
kids broken in like the main playroom
down there? Is there
like throwing balls and whatever? Pretty
sure there's been maps
broken. There's been glass
shattered. I don't know that our kids
have broken anything, but I
know things have been broken.
Things have been broken. So it's a
culmination of cousin
playfulness. I'm not going to point
your fingers to that one kid that's
breaking everything. It's cousin
playfulness that have
resulted in multiple things. Pretty sure
it's not ours. Cause
ours have ratted them out.
To us. To us. But yeah, if we had done
that, like, I mean, if
we were breaking stuff,
we would have been in trouble. You get
this, my grandma had upstairs in that
pool table. Actually
that used to be our pool table that we
have when I was in my very, the first
house I remember being
in three years old, like five. We had a
pool table there. We moved to Arizona.
Couldn't take it. It
was too big. It was like, I mean, this
was like when they made
furniture real. We've got a pool
table here. And if you put that, yeah, if
you had one, you put that
on our pool table and it just
like crushed it with smoke coming out. Oh
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was
nice. The slate, cause it was
made of like slate. I think I don't know
about that, but it was just
heavy wood, heavy, heavy wood.
Like none of this fake stuff, none of
this like glued stuff. It was like, it
was made out of like
a single redwood tree. You know what I
mean? It was huge. Anyways,
it was so big. We gave it to
our grandparents. That was upstairs in
their game room upstairs,
but up in that game room,
where there's a piano out there, the
piano that we had, the black
one for a long time was up in
that room too. But right next to the
piano on that wall, I don't know if
anybody remembers this,
I definitely do, was a workout exercise
equipment. And it was the shaker. So you
stood on this thing.
You put the belt around you, right? It's
this belt that's like six
inches thick. It goes all
the way around. You kind of lean back
into it and you turn
the thing on. It's like,
it just shakes you. It jiggles your fat.
It jiggles your fat. It
shakes you into shape.
I would call it BS on that. I would
always get in that thing. It was so
funny. I've got to find if
that thing is still on mine. Cause they
had one of those. I'm like, are you
kidding me? Even as a kid,
I knew that was junk. You're like, even
as a kid, that thing is not
getting you into shape. Yeah.
That sounds like my grandmother, doesn't
it? He does sound a little
A-vanellist. I'm going to go
get my workout in. She's just sitting
there. You're literally not
moving. She just, you know,
if she drank then I can make sure they're
martini, you know, in high
heels, working out so hard.
I'm pretty sure that you physically need
to move your body in order to
get it in shape. Yeah. Well,
for that moment in the eighties, some
people didn't think so. Oh
my gosh. Yeah. Oh, was that
Susie and summers wasn't the one that
sold that was she? No, that
was the thigh master. That
might've made it up to that room too. At
some point, actually there's
probably like legit science
that it did strengthen your thighs. It
required physical effort.
It's one of those things you
need to have. Yeah. Did your parents,
what are some of those
things that your grandparents had?
Do they have anything that's just like so
old? It's like, how
did they even have that?
Well, certainly not exercise equipment.
Oh, my, do you remember the
TV that they had in their,
I mean, for the longest time it didn't
work. So it was in kind of their main
living room, you know,
formal living room area. Yeah. You know,
the main TV that everyone
watches kind of in that family
room area, but they had like a 1950, like
not 50 is like 1950
television set. And it was, you know,
set on the ground. It was, you know,
three feet high. Was it
the one encased in wood? Yes.
Yeah. And for the longest time it didn't
work. Oh, really? Yeah.
Well, because it was their first,
I think it was their first television set
that my mom had as a
child. It was. I mean,
it created almost like a table, like,
because it was so large.
It's encased in wood. I mean,
pictures were on it and stuff. Yeah. So
probably for my first 10
years of life, that thing was just
a decoration. It's probably the same
thing. I had the Sears
catalog everybody had. I mean,
it's not like they made a lot of that
stuff. Right. I think that
was the one that literally,
you know, went off at nine o'clock to the
national anthem. And then
you just got the bars, like,
and then you had no more programming.
It's like 10 or 11. But yeah, yeah. And
then when I got to be
probably, you know, into double digits,
like, they actually had it
reworked so that it worked. And
then so I mean, I guess that was somebody
fixed it. I thought you
were saying they had to open up
the roof to take it to crane it out of
there. No, they had that TV up
until they moved out of their
house. I mean, you and I watched
television on that. Yeah, I do. I know
exactly which one you're
talking about. Yeah. Wow. I can't believe
they still had that TV
when we first started dating.
Oh my gosh, they had it until after. For
all I know, it moved into
the apartment with them. But
no, I think they had that television
until, you know, 2010.
Watch it on the tube. Oh, as my
grandfather, they watch it on the boob
tube. Boob tube. I don't know what that
means. Yeah, I don't
know either. Yeah, but that was his
phrase. But because that's where my
grandma would watch TV.
But I mean, we would once that thing
worked. Oh my gosh, we
that's where we'd watch Christmas
movies when we were there at Christmas
time. And it was right
next to the Christmas tree.
That was the only thing. I mean, that was
really cool. Like, as I got
older, I'm like, Oh my gosh,
how many televisions like that exist? And
I know it was pretty
expensive to like actually get it to
work because it didn't have working.
Yeah, you could probably have brought a
new one at that point
time. I mean, I remember when we
upgraded, we got an RCA. Oh, yeah, that
was like 36 inch RCA at one
point. It was huge. I mean, I thought we
were living big at that
point when we got that because
it was but it had to weigh 500 pounds. It
was it was deeper than it
was, you know, wider. Those
things were huge and heavy. You'd have to
get a whole other table
just to set it on. Yeah. We had
that one at our house. But I don't
remember too many other things that our
parents had. I'm sure
our grandparents had a ton of crazy stuff
that they eventually got
rid of. Yeah. You know,
like typewriters and stuff or blonde
darts, things that just don't really
exist anymore. Yeah.
Yeah. And today's day and age, I'd have
to think about that to see
if there's any more but that
one exercise thing. I just don't ever
forget that. I don't ever see anything
quite that eccentric.
Yeah. Shall I say? I'm not sure what.
Yeah. What area to call
that? Like, yeah, category. Does
that thing fit in eccentric? It's
probably a pretty good one
to fit it in. Yeah. Yeah. Ron
and Lois didn't have any like stuff like
that. Yeah. I'm trying to remember.
Grandma Gibbs didn't
have any anything like that either. Yeah.
I don't think I don't I
can't remember anything that the
other side had either. That shocked me. I
wasn't at their house very
many times in Illinois. Yeah.
That as an older person because they
retired so quickly down to
early in my age. Yeah. Probably
before I was 10 or right around 10, maybe
they retired down to
Florida. And I feel like down
there, they got everything new. Like they
got rid of all their.
Yeah. Chicago stuff. You know,
yeah. Got a boat, all that kind of stuff.
I don't remember anything eccentric
there. Other than they
had like some old swords from like World
War One or something like
that. I thought they were.
You know, you're like, no, I got it. It
came art, but okay. Oh, no,
no, they did not get that stuff.
Okay. It's made out of metal. It's steel.
I mean, like they have
some old stuff like that. It's
really cool. I think Jim has all that
stuff now. That's really cool. Who's in
my bedroom for a long
time as a kid because it's just
interesting stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So
anyways, that's well,
I still trip down memory lane. I would
say like other than do we have many
traditions when we do
when we are when we are here for
Thanksgiving. I don't think we have too
many traditions. Yeah.
We've had to split it more now because
our schedule is so busy
that it's just it's getting
more and more difficult to carve time out
to fly up north for that.
In fact, we talked to some
people, inviting people down here. And
everybody's open to that. But yeah,
obviously something we're
willing to do. But no, we don't really
have any. We don't
really have any, you know,
because and this is such a bad thing
because we just run such
chaotic lives all the time.
Even the kids love a down day. Oh, yeah.
So when we're not like traveling to
Minnesota to do with
your family, even then it's nice because
then we're just kind of down.
Yeah. But when we're at home,
it's like a day off for everybody. Yeah.
So we're usually with you in
the kitchen and cooking or we
got the back, you know, movie room open.
We got football on lots
of food and snacks. Really,
we're just stuffing our faces. Yeah.
Yeah. That's all we're
doing. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean,
I try to prepare. I mean, it's definitely
we have a classic, incredible
Thanksgiving cooking and
stuff. But yeah, yeah, I, I cannot wait
for next week to just be
like a whole week off of,
you know, nothing. I think maybe a couple
soccer practices or something, but like
nothing. Yeah. Sleep in late. Yeah. Like
we'll probably get to
some Christmas decorations
because it's a short season. I had to do
it quick. So yeah, maybe
even before Thanksgiving,
which is fine. It's a week. I hope we
have some time off. Yeah.
No better time to do it. But
yeah. Our oldest and I will be in Phoenix
this weekend. I know.
So that'll be a quick
in and out. I guess we're there Thursday
through Sunday, though. So
as quick as I want it to be.
But that means you'll come back a little
bit earlier than into the
holiday break or into the
Thanksgiving break. So that'll be nice.
Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. We'll miss you.
I know. Like it'll be really quiet here
Thursday, Friday. It's just
easier to do with one parent.
Like we went, we took two parents left a
kid behind. We went
to Colorado last time.
And that was almost more chaotic. Agreed.
Because of what we had to
come back into. Not that
anything went bad, but there was just so
much more planning and this
and yeah. And then at least if
one person's behind, they're not getting
behind on, on all the other
things. Hey, C.C., would you
mind changing that bed and doing the
laundry and folding? You know what I
mean? Yeah. I'm like,
so I'm behind by five days, you know,
when one of us is gone.
Right. Can you order groceries?
Right. Yeah. Because regardless of which
one of us is gone, the one
who's home would then just do
the other person's stuff, you know? Like,
yeah, I usually do
laundry, but if you were home on a
weekend, you would throw laundry in and
do some laundry, you know, like, not
having her come home
to this. Like, you would never do that.
Right. So it's just like, it
is easier. It is a little bit
easier, but it's sad. I don't like being
like, I'm actually longer
away from the family on these
soccer trips for three nights than I
almost ever was working when I traveled
for the bank. I know.
And I didn't like that. I just, two
nights, I didn't like doing
anything more than two nights.
It just felt too long to be away. But at
least I'm with part of the
family. Yeah. Still, it's a long
time away from I'm a homebody. Yeah.
Unless I'm like in Bora Bora or Italy.
And you can be a homebody
in one of those places. That's my new
home. This is my new home.
I'm going to love this new home.
Bora Bora is like the only one I ever
almost, Bora Bora was like the only
vacation I almost cried
leaving. That was the best. That was
incredible. Just wanted to
miss the kids. Miss the kids.
But did not want to leave that island.
It's incredible. I know.
Well, we'll have to go back.
Because as we're right now, we're
contemplating where to take our next
year's vacation. I know.
We're like, hmm. Yeah. That is high on
the list of places the
kids want to go. Yeah.
It's high on the list. I'd love to take
them. Yes. I'll go back
to the same place too. That
was incredible. It was. It was. Like, oh
well. Well, we'll figure out
vacation. Oh well. And when we
take kids, I mean, it could be Bora Bora
this year. Who knows? But
yeah. Actually, to bring that
back around to places that we want to
like visit and like new
versus going, revisiting a place.
I think most of the time where I want to
revisit a place is when I
still feel like there's something
new there that I can do and experience.
Like, I would go back to
Bora Bora just to recreate
that experience. But there's also other
things that I still want to
do there, you know? We did
everything while we were there. That's
why I'm like surprised what else there
could be. But you're
right. That is one. That's a good point
because there are very few
things that just check the
box of like such a great experience.
Like, would I do that again? Yeah, I
would do that again.
You know what I mean? Like, there's like,
we were talking about
going back to the Bahamas.
You know, we were at, what was the name
of that resort? The
Atlantis. We were Atlantis.
That was awesome. Yeah. Now it rained the
entire time we were there.
Yes. And but we were all,
we, I'm getting too deep into that one.
That's one that I might go back to
because we didn't fully
get to enjoy it. Yes. You know what I
mean? Because of all the
rain. Hopefully it won't rain
the whole time we're there this next time
too. Right. You know,
but that's one that's like,
okay, maybe, but even then I'm like,
well, maybe there's
somewhere else we could go. You know,
there's a newer, there's a newer Atlantis
on Nassau as well. Do
we just try that one out?
You know, so yeah, but boar boar is one
that I'm like, everybody
say you want to go to war war.
Let's go right back to that place. Yeah,
no problem repeating
that. There is no like,
well, the Maldives now I want to get to
the Maldives. I do too. Which is very
boar boar like. Yep.
But you know, that's, that's more of a
commitment because it's, it
feels like it's so far away.
It's a lot further. It just seems like
more of a commitment to
get there. Yeah. But similar
surroundings. Right. But definitely at
least 10 extra hours of
flying. Yeah. You think about
the geography of where they are. Well,
it's the other Christmas
movie. Boar boar. Sexy, sexy,
sexy, sexy. All right. Well, let's leave
on that one. All right. We
gotta think of our words.
That's from a movie by the way. Yes, it
is one that we often
watch at the holidays. Yeah,
I know. That's why I said speaking of
holidays. Okay. I had
thought of a word earlier and I
forgot it. I had a word earlier this week
too. I was like, that
should be my word. Okay. I've
got my words here. Okay. You beat me to
it on that one, but I've got it. All
right. One, two, three.
Gratitude. Oh, okay. Nice. So, gratitude.
What do you, what do you,
uh, grateful for? You know,
I feel like if I think about the last
week and this week
preceding Thanksgiving and the week
preceding Thanksgiving yet, this is not
actually the whole
Thanksgiving. No, I am. I think it was
a really interesting weekend because it
was busy, but yet in
productive and like we actually had
some time as a family at home. Um, like
there was one moment we were
watching the Bronco game and
we were all eating pickle chips and
everyone was around and just like
laughing. And it was just
like one of those moments where I was
like, just thank you. Like
this, this is just, it was just
so special. Like it's that those little
moments. And I feel like
we've had a lot of them and
especially coming into this next week. I
feel like I just feel
grateful. Yeah. I don't know.
That was just the overwhelming sentiment
on my heart. That's a
great sentiment to feel. Yeah.
If you feel that all the time, it'd be
great because there's so
much to be grateful for.
Um, as I think Selene
Dion says a song about that.
Yeah, she does. It's really next week.
Yeah. The next holiday. Uh,
push through is, uh, you know,
there's a lot of things that we're trying
to just get through. We're
almost, we're almost to the
holidays. Just a lot of, you know, like
just steps to get through
there and until we get to that
place to enjoy it. Yeah. So it's like,
it's pushed through, pushed through it
and we'll get to the
fun, we'll get to the fun stuff. But it's
those fake horizons
though. Oh my gosh. Yes. They're
everywhere. It's like, dang it. Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. But all
good. So all good. A couple
things to take care of and, um, you know,
all good. I think so. Looking
forward to some time off next
week. Yeah. We'll be able to get some
time off. It is. All right.
Well, let's take off from here.
What do you think? All right. All right.
Thanks for joining. See you
next time. Ciao ciao. See ya.
Y'all breakfast is
ready you come and get it.
Go and get it.
We're going to talk about drainage for
the next 45 minutes.
In fact this is going to be
an extended episode on Plem.
Or as our daughter would say, really.
Really.
But there's a big old butt come.
I have a love hate
relationship with the elf on the shelf.
Why are you offended by that?
Because I've seen blue eyes and that's
not the color of my eyes.
I'm calling BS on that.
Like I do not like them here.
I do not like them there.
I do not like them anywhere. I do not like them anywhere.
Alright we'll put that one on the shelf
with the elf for the title.
And how long did it take Tweedle Dee,
Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber to do it?
Oh my gosh.
We've got 90 years of
experience between the two of us.
No it's actually a little higher.
It's like it's actually closer to 100.
Exterior illumination.
For that moment in the 80's
some people didn't think so.
Watch it on Boop Doop.
Bora Bora.
Sexy sexy.
Ciao Ciao.
See ya.