Mr. & Mrs. Inglis

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, or at shaeninglis.com. Feel free to share the Mr. & Mrs. Inglis podcast with someone who would enjoy and benefit from our weekly discussions.

What is Mr. & Mrs. Inglis?

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.

[MUSIC]

Mostly skiing backwards.

What could go wrong?

Our kids are just bobbing and weaving.

We're doing the best we can.

It's a sunk cost at this point.

It was a home alone moment.

That's it, that's the big one.

The big one.

Don't come near me.

And then other skiers

are also other drivers.

Your drivers.

Your level of happiness is always the

difference between your expectations and

how it actually turns out.

Or Voltron who's been

making a lot of cameos lately.

Christmas vacation like, "Ding, dong."

And, "Man, I'm excited for 26."

What doesn't kill you

only makes you stronger.

It was the toughest year of our lives.

And we recorded every week through it.

Yeah.

Could you see the paint on our face?

This isn't blonde people, it is gray.

I let people get to their new year.

Alright, well, happy

new year to everyone.

Happy new year.

And they were like, "No."

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.

That's obviously not

going to make any of it.

It doesn't need to make it.

Or maybe it should.

You should start each one with a song.

Yeah, I'm so... I can feel it.

I'm like nasally right now already.

I've been nasally since we were skiing.

I know.

My morning serios are all really short.

And I can just hear it in my voice.

Not only is the background from 1970,

really nice VRB over there.

That little room I shot in

is like very 1970s feeling.

And then I'm like, I sound

a little bit more nasally.

Even like I do now.

All of a sudden I've

gotten even more nasally.

It just sounds deeper.

Like you can tell you're a little stuffy.

Yeah.

It felt so low

production the whole thing did.

We're doing the best we can.

It's allergy season. It's destroying one

of our kids for sure.

For sure.

And I haven't been right since we came

back to the lower altitudes.

I mean, I've not been able to breathe out

of the right side of my

nose for five days now.

Is it always the right side of your nose?

No.

Oh, okay.

No.

So that switches up sometimes.

Yeah.

Do you always get like

one side versus the other?

No, I don't think I ever

get one individual side.

That's why it's funny that yours is a

side that's individual.

Sorry, I'm trying to figure out how

blocked I am right now.

That's funny.

No, because usually mine switches.

Like if I'm really stuffy and sick, this

is probably really gross.

Like if I lay on one side and then I

switch to the other,

I feel like everything's shifting and

like, oh no, I can't

breathe out of that side.

Yeah.

Well, let's pivot from that discussion.

Geez.

Let's pivot from sinus congestion.

Yeah.

To, wow, we just made it through.

We're the hardest

weeks in parenting, right?

Yes.

We just got through Christmas.

You did.

Every parent knows.

We're the hardest months,

we're the hardest weeks.

Yes.

Yeah.

Santa may have a list and check it twice,

but I swear every parent has a list and

checks it like 40,000 times.

I think our list is probably longer.

It might be.

Than all the children in the world.

All the children in the world.

Even though his squirrel goes down to the

ground and out the door.

I sometimes feel like our squirrel goes

all the way down to the

ground and out the door.

Yeah, just a little bit further than his.

His comes down and ours is like two, two,

two, two, two more unrolls.

Two more unrolls, yep.

I think every parent feels that way.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, for sure.

It's just a crazy time of the year, the

chaos train, like we always say.

Oh yeah.

And this one is, luckily for us, and we

talked about it,

actually we shot at Mr. and Mrs.

maybe a week and a half ago.

And we forgot to get off the chaos train

long enough to actually get that one

edited and published, I guess.

Hey, that may have been one of our best.

Who knows?

Yeah, but nobody will

ever know at this point.

No one will ever know.

But it was taken from Sadie, the van.

We shot it in the van.

Yeah, we actually shot it so it wasn't

even in the studio

because we weren't home long

enough to be in the studio.

That's right, that's right.

And our daughter got back in the car like

15 minutes into shooting it.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that was fantastic.

Anyways, but we're doing it so

we're back from ski vacation.

You skied on your knee.

I did.

It was, you know,

mentally, like it was hard.

It was hard to get back up,

probably more so than physically.

I just had to figure out how to ski, like

with a knee that

wasn't like the, yeah, it

was just a little bit different.

So I just had to change

up my ski a little bit.

Well, you kept saying things like, it's

just not strong, I'm not strong enough.

I'm like, you are.

I was like, you're actually, that knee is

actually stronger than your other one is.

And I just kept telling

you, like, you know how to ski.

I understand there's reservation there.

It's got to be scary.

And you made the point several times.

It's not like you, it's not like you tore

your ACL playing football.

Right.

I tore it skiing.

Like, so there's just that whole trauma

is probably too strong of a word.

But I mean, it's a whole negative feeling

of all of it, you

know, of like, oh my God.

Six months from the day that happened to

you really felt kind of normal.

Kind of normal.

Yeah.

And you're just like, I can't go back.

I can't go back.

That's pretty traumatic.

I don't want to do

that six months for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it was, oh man.

I mean, I kept thinking about it this

Christmas, like as I was

moving around the kitchen or

whatever and I was like, last year I had

to do all of this on crutches.

How in the world did I even do that?

Yeah.

Well, I have a lot easier.

Next two months.

Because when you were down to, you can,

there's not a lot you could

do on your own for a while.

No.

And the whole family stepped up.

Oh yeah.

We all had a lot more

titties, which was fine.

No big deal.

But back to, it was great.

You got on.

You know, the first, first off, Mother

Nature did not help.

One thing we talked about in the last

podcast that never even made it to air.

Yeah.

Was the fact that we're like, it was, I

think it was Thursday,

Wednesday or Thursday we

shot it.

And usually we put out

the highlights on Thursday.

It was Thursday.

Oh, we shot it when I

usually put out the highlights.

Yeah.

So we were way behind.

And then the next day when we were

supposed, when I usually

publish the actual episode,

that was the day we were actually,

everybody had school and I

had a meeting all morning.

You actually had the day off to catch up

on packing and get ready

to go, but we're leaving.

For the ski trip on Friday.

So that next day.

Yeah.

And on that podcast that we had never

made it to air, we were

talking about it like,

well, there's no snow where we're

supposed to be going.

Then.

Like.

We were supposed, we

were going to go to Tahoe.

We'd never been to Tahoe before.

Right.

And we were watching the snowfall and

probably way too late to watch it.

I know.

Because we always kind of push it with

these early season ski

vacations, but we've done

it every year and it's worked.

It has.

Yeah.

Not that we've had the

best snow every time.

No.

And very rarely are all the runs open,

but there's always

enough that maybe the lines

are a little longer, maybe

not, but it's always okay.

It's always expanding though.

It's like last year we went to Keystone,

you know, where that's

not, you know, we don't

talk about.

We don't talk about Keystone.

Yeah.

When we were first watching it, like the

day, like the week we

were going, it was like 30

runs were open.

Yeah.

48 runs were open.

Two runs were open.

Yeah.

And, you know, they're

opening more and more lifts.

So you could see the

mountain was getting snow.

Yeah.

And it was opening up and opening up.

Yeah.

Well, that's a good kind of a checkpoint

for we were going to

Tahoe and the night we were

doing, the night we were looking at it,

the night before, I

guess, four runs were open.

Four.

Which was really just one run.

Yeah.

For the record.

I looked it up to see on the map, like

what are these runs?

So it was basically one lift.

I went to the top.

It was a blue at the top that turned into

a green, like an upper green.

If you're familiar with skiing, it's

usually like upper

Megan or upper Christmas.

Yeah.

You know, and then and then there's lower

Christmas, which is still the same run.

It's just lower and upper.

Right.

Maybe like something else

joined it or, you know, yeah.

And so those were the

four ones that were open.

So it was one run down

the middle of the ski slope.

And then by the next morning, it had

already gone down to

three out of like one hundred

and forty.

Right.

It's not like this is a twelve, you know,

twelve runs, you know.

Right.

This is not like Midwest.

So it's actually

shrinking and you can see it.

They actually have webcams there.

So I kept looking at the webcams and just

saying there's no way.

Yeah.

I just know our

family well enough to that.

Sure.

We can go.

We can enjoy Tahoe.

I'm sure it's beautiful there.

I'm sure it's.

I'm like, we're going to be mad because

one thing we did this

year is a few of us.

We actually finally got

invested in our own ski equipment.

Right.

We have our own boots, our own skis.

We've been putting it off for a while.

Our oldest is big enough.

He stopped growing and

he's been wanting it forever.

So badly.

By the way, he's got the

nicest skis out of all of us.

Of course he does.

But it means more to

him, which is rightfully so.

Yes.

And he's a better

skier than both of us do.

Right.

So he's fast.

Holy cow. Yeah.

They all are.

So we're like, we're going to take our

new skis to this place.

It's going to be melting because it was

supposed to rain all weekend.

Not just rain.

Oh, thunderstorms.

Thunderstorms.

That's right.

Which does not feel safe on a mountain

where there's, you know,

you're holding metal poles

quite literally.

You're holding lightning rods.

Yeah.

Sitting on metal ski lifts.

Right.

Going past huge metal poles.

Right.

I mean, like, what could go wrong?

What could go wrong?

So when we were recording this Thursday

night, literally flying

out the next day, 16 hours

later, it was like 16 hours later, we

were highlighting like,

well, by the time this

comes out, we'll have

had to make a decision.

And we did make a decision that night

because I was like, I know our family.

We're going to get there.

It's going to be slushy.

Rain is going to melt even

more, make it even more slushy.

It was supposed to be like a low 42,

which is terrible skiing weather.

Way too warm.

It's melting snow.

And we're going to, it's going to be

horrible conditions.

Skiing and slush.

We're all going to be mad about it.

Then we're going to be back in the VRBO,

mad that we're not skiing.

I was like, and we're all just going to

be mad for four days.

Not worth it.

No.

So.

So we switched.

We stayed up to like 11

that night, switching it.

Actually, we stayed up much, much, much

later, but it was

probably about 11 when actually

all the switching was done.

When I finished that part.

And then I moved on to

other things, but yeah.

We had to have almost like a home alone

moment because we get

home because again, we were

recording Mr. and Mrs. on the road while

kids were at practice.

But now we had a flight that was quite a

few hours earlier in the day.

Laundry wasn't done.

Like none of this because I had mentally

prepared like, hey, we

have all this time tomorrow.

And it's like, oh, no, no, no.

Like by the time the kids get off of

school, we have to be

headed to the airport.

And so I am not kidding.

I mean, there are clothes flying there.

Yeah. You know, hats and boots and scarves.

We lost five hours the next day.

Yeah.

Because the fight was earlier.

Earlier.

Yeah.

I mean, so that night was it

was it was a home alone moment.

Like literally bags were

kind of being tossed and like.

It was a long night.

It was an early morning.

The next four mornings are early because

we had to get out of bed to go skiing.

Right.

But that's what's that's

the beauty that vacation is.

We all love it.

We all love skiing.

We love getting out

there into the mountain.

It really sets and begins our Christmas

atmosphere because it's snowy.

It's a winter wonderland.

You know, all these mountain villages or

towns all have like lights on the trees.

It's gorgeous.

It is.

It sets our moods.

Not that we're not having the Christmas

mood, but work's done by that point.

School's done by that point.

It is just downhill.

Literally.

Pun intended.

Yes.

Pun intended.

Christmas Eve and Christmas.

Yep.

So we love it.

But but it's crazy while we're there.

Oh my gosh.

It really is.

And this year, I don't

know how much you enjoyed it.

I really liked the fact that it wasn't

like get up and go like

the kids slept in a little

bit.

I mean, they were

waking up at like eight.

You know, so we were on the

slopes by nine, nine, thirty.

Yeah.

Which I enjoy a little bit more.

It's like, I don't have to

be the first chair lift up.

That's changed in like

the last year or two, maybe.

I was trying to think why that's changed.

For the kids, maybe it's changed.

It's never changed for me.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I guess we used to for the

first, I don't know,

eight years we did this.

We've been doing it quite a long time

now, but we would be on

the chair lift very near

within 15 minutes of it.

Yeah.

Starting with the mountain opening.

Yeah.

And we would close it.

I mean, maybe a handful of two or three

of us would go in, but

the remaining two or three

would take would be one of

the last ones off the mountain.

Yeah.

And I think it's because back then we did

a lot of blues, like,

you know, greens and

blues with the kids

while they were learning.

I mean, you could ski all

day on greens and blues.

Now we do blues, still mostly blues.

The boys and I would do

blacks every now and again.

We didn't hit any this time, but they're

doing those blues and

the harder blues hardcore.

Hardcore.

I mean, they are ripping them.

Yeah.

Just, I mean, they are all three of our

kids are very good for

only skiing twice a year

for the first five years and really only

once a year, the last

three, because you just can't

fit it in anymore.

No.

Our oldest is just flying down there

under incredible control.

You know, for someone that skis, you

know, he's only skied

30 times in his life.

Right.

He's really good at it.

Yeah.

But because they're working so hard, I

think they're getting more tired.

Yeah.

So that's my point.

Like six hours on the mountain.

Yeah.

Is enough.

Right.

And that's, I mean,

and I'm okay with that.

Yeah.

Because I was always like, okay, we

almost, you know, and I

think I gave the feedback.

That's why we started getting on the

lifts a little bit

later was because I gave the

feedback of like, guys, can we just slow

it down a little bit in the morning?

Like it's so hard.

It takes some of that enjoyment.

I don't want to say it ruins it, but it

took some of the enjoyment

out because it was always

like, we got to go, we

got to go, we got to go.

Like make breakfast, clean the kitchen,

you know, because I want

to give everyone a good

breakfast.

And then mom's always late.

It's like, oh my gosh,

please just give me a moment.

I know.

You kind of put that on you though.

I don't think any of us have to have, I

mean, you do kick great

eggs and bacon most mornings,

like sausage or whatever.

I mean, it's not a, I mean, it's cooked,

but honestly, we could

have cereal most mornings,

I think, and we'd be fine.

I mean, just to throw that out there, not

that we need to get on there any earlier.

Now I was pretty good with it.

A lot of times it was me because it was

like, I want to make sure

we get our money's worth.

We're only here for three days.

I want to get as much skiing as we can.

You know, and this one was different too,

because you were, you

were relearning to trust

yourself on skis again.

Trust that your knee was indeed strong

enough and that you could

catch a tip here or there

and still, you know, recover.

Yeah.

And not tear any CEL and

MCL and everything else.

Yeah.

All that stuff.

Yeah.

And I think I realized

like I can trust myself.

I don't like other skiers still.

That was the hardest thing.

That is still the hardest thing.

I was like, if someone even comes near

me, I'm freaking out.

Like don't come near me.

And that's what our kids were doing, like

on the blues, because

there were so many people

that aren't blues that

shouldn't be on blues.

If you're learning.

I might have been one of

those this year, but yeah.

And I get it.

There weren't enough really open that we

could go further into the mountains.

And because we're all trying

to kind of stay closer to you.

Yeah.

I spent half a day each day just on

greens, mostly skiing

backwards, trying to make sure,

well, working on my backwards skiing and

making sure people didn't run into you.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I was being your

bodyguard for some of that.

But yeah, gosh, there are so many people

on blues shouldn't be.

Yeah.

And because of that, our kids are just

bobbing and weaving.

I mean, there was one time, like I

actually thought it was kind of fun.

I was just like, like

bobbing and weaving between people.

You know, I mean, hopefully not close

enough that I was ever in danger.

They were all stationary, but and

everybody knows that doesn't,

you know, like snowboarders,

you're always looking

up for snowboarders.

They just, you know, like,

OK, this is a good spot to stop.

They just lay down anywhere they want to.

Yeah.

Middle, four cross.

Right.

You know, so I always spray them as much

as I can as I make a turn.

You should.

My bad.

You should.

And one of them had the nerve.

So last year when I had fallen and I made

it over to the side.

So I was out of everybody's way.

And I had a snowboarder like get mad at

me because I was down

on the ground and I was

so frustrated with it.

After you had already torn your ACL.

Oh, yeah.

Like I'm literally sitting.

You're waiting on the sled.

I'm waiting.

He's yelling at you

because you're on the very edge.

And I'm like, wow.

Maybe it was because he's like, you

should be sitting more in the middle.

You're not blocking enough people.

Yeah.

I'm sure that's what it was.

Because that's awesome.

The borders do.

And I boarded before too.

So I get it, but I mean, like because I'm

a skier mostly and I

boarded before when I

was boarding, it was like, I'm not going

to just plop down right in the middle.

You never did.

No, I go to the side.

I mean, good Lord.

Yeah, I know.

I was like, I am quite

literally in no one's way.

So the ski vacation was saved other than

VRBOs don't give you

refunds when you don't make

it.

And then like once we decided, okay,

we're going to take it's

a sunk cost at this point.

We're going to let's just save the

vacation and enjoy it.

We did.

So we made it out to the cool, you know,

perfect mountaineer of Colorado.

We did.

And it was fantastic.

Yeah, it was great.

Our ski and ski are the VRBO.

It must have been the

last you made the comment.

It must have been the last second

cancellation because I loved it.

Yeah.

And it was one of our nicest.

And it was ski and ski out.

It was it was a true.

They all say ski and ski out.

And that's what I'm always trying to

like, you know, Google Earth.

Like, let's just see if

this really is just see.

And you're like, oh, no, this one up to

the bus stop and take

the bus four miles and then

ski out.

You know, then you can ski the remainder

of the five miles

somewhat misleading at times.

Right.

And this, I mean, what you popped your

skis off, walked across

the bridge and you're at

the backside of the complex.

You were at the backside of the complex.

Like it was beautiful.

It was perfect.

Yeah.

I was like, I couldn't

ask for anything more.

No more snow would have been good because

it was warm the last two days.

We were there and it

was quickly losing snow.

Yeah, I would say the days after probably

weren't like after we left.

I don't know that it was

probably melted quite a bit.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm sure they got four inches or four

feet of snow as soon as we left.

Made for driving out easier too though.

I did.

I mean, we've had those

white knuckle trips back.

I mean, yeah, the one that I always think

of and we had left

like three in the morning

to beat the snowfall.

I mean, it was, it was some ungodly hour

that nobody should

actually be awake that we left

and it was just you and I, kids all

sleeping in the back and

there was no way I was going

to go back to sleep.

Like the adrenaline probably lasted me

six hours because as

you're going over that veil

pass and you're like, "Hun, if we stop,

we're going backwards.

I cannot go forwards."

I was like, "We're going

to die on the mountain."

Yeah, we had a two-wheel drive car.

That was the only thing

that Hertz gave us, sedan.

I mean, they should know better than that

during ski season, but

there was no upgrades.

There was nothing else

to get out of that one.

So it was.

It was like if we stopped, it was slick

enough that I didn't think

we'd be able to keep going.

Yeah.

So that was a little white knuckler.

And you are a very accomplished snow, not

only just snowdriver,

but mountain snowdriver.

And I was just like, "Oh my gosh, if you

are nervous about this."

I have multiple medals,

which she's referring to.

Awards, accolades, certificates.

There's people who have lived in the

South their whole life

that like if they see snow,

they're going to freak out.

I'm accomplished by experience.

I've done a lot of it.

You've done a lot of it.

And I'm comfortable doing it, but I lived

in Texas long enough that I white knuck a

little bit.

It's done.

If it's slick at all, it scares me.

To your point, other

skiers are also other drivers.

And I don't trust them either.

You know what I mean?

Because they're flying down.

It's like if you catch that ice on a, I'm

on the outside of a

turn, you're on the inside

and you can take me

right off the road too.

Yep.

You know, so it's a little bit of a white

knuckle when it comes to that.

Yeah.

But none of that this time.

No, it was great.

It's like beautiful pictures of the sun

rises we drove home.

We did.

I got to make something out of all that

at some point, I think.

I know.

It was fun.

So it was great.

It was totally redeemed.

Totally redeemed.

You did incredibly well.

You made it to a blue the third day.

Did two or three runs

down the blue, I think?

I did two runs down the blue.

Two runs down the blue.

It would have been, I say I probably

could have done one

more, but it was getting to

the point that I'm like, I don't want to

be, get halfway down

and be like, because you

get the most dangerous part

is when your legs get tired.

Yeah.

And I was like, I felt my knee getting a

little tired and I was

like, I just don't want to

get stuck up there.

And now I have like half a run to go

because it was a long blue.

Yeah.

I don't want to get stuck with half a run

and not feeling like I'm in control.

Right.

I've skied enough to know that the ones

who are out of control

and tired are the most

dangerous skiers.

And our kids were even saying that too.

We're going to potentially go do a

different part of the

mountain and try to do some of

the blacks later that day.

Oh, I'm surprised we're in the open.

Yeah.

There's one lift all the way over to the

other side of the mountain.

All blacks, it would have

been tough to make it back.

I mean, hopefully we

could have made it back.

But they said their legs were probably

too tired to do that.

So they know, which was good.

Yeah.

And by that third day, I'm

always a little tired too.

I probably wasn't quite as tired this

time because I spent a

lot of time on the greens,

carving up the greens.

I mean, like we'll go

back to that another time.

You'll, after you get comfortable again,

because we were up

with a lot of people that

are like, oh, my wife had it.

She's 65 and it took her 14 months to get

used to it or three

months of skiing fairly

consistently to get comfortable again.

So by no means were we trying to push you

into doing something

you weren't ready for.

But knowing that we only have one or two

times mountains this

year, you know, it's like you

have to take a step, you know, to prove

to yourself or you're

going to have to redo

it all again next year.

Yeah.

So now you know you can do blues.

Yeah.

You have a whole other year or whatever

to strengthen your

knee and you'll be good.

That'll be fine.

Yeah.

It's just, it was that mental hurdle.

Like I got to move past those last few

hours on that run from last year.

Yeah.

But my point was going to be, if you go

on that, like similar

time, if we go back to

Breck, it's going to

be, you're going to laugh.

I mean, it was, it was that

green hill is like a bunny hill.

It's so flat and you're going to be like,

oh my gosh, I can't

believe this is what I

was going down like so slowly the first

time, which is totally understandable.

I'm not making fun of you, but you're

going to be like, wow,

like what a learning curve,

you know?

Yeah.

Compared to what you were, you're

accomplished 40 year skier.

Ski for 40 years.

Yeah.

And that, it was hard.

Yeah.

It was hard.

I think it was more mentally hard because

you, you're doing just fine.

Yeah.

Just trust in yourself on it.

So anyways, we did that.

We drove back this time because that was

the only way we could

make it work from a timing

perspective.

Was our first time

learning how to take skis flying.

So we had to get ski bags, which is fine

for our new skis, which

was great because then

we figured out like, oh my gosh, all this

stuff that we put into like one big, huge

suitcase fit in the ski bags with the

skis, which was fantastic.

As long as it was 50 pounds or less.

So that was great.

Great.

What we learned though was.

Well we just, you got to

get the right rental car.

You got to get the right rental car.

And Ford Broncos are considered an SUV.

However, they don't fit

two really big ski bags.

Because they upgraded to the largest SUV

that they had at the

time, which is a mid-size

and they gave us a Bronco.

Yeah.

They're in Colorado, I'm

sure, but they don't fit.

And we didn't unpack the

ski bags on the way there.

So the kids are like, you know, it was

just like, there's a

dude perfect ski stereotypes

if you've seen it.

It's just like that.

Exactly.

I mean, I literally was on my head like,

you know, it's not

safe for that to be on the

driver's head.

Yeah.

There was literally a pair of skis like

you're driving like this

because you know, you had

a pair of skis coming right here.

It was so bad.

How long have you been holding them up?

Yeah, that was the two hours, two and a

half hours from the

Colorado Springs Airport to

Breck.

And the kids were like, hey, by the way,

we're driving home for 12 hours.

Luckily, we didn't put

them in the ski bags.

We figured a different way of doing it.

So it wasn't great, but definitely

learning curve for us to

figure out how to get all

that stuff into a car

comfortably for all of us.

Yes.

If we had our own

vehicle, it would have been cake.

It would have been fine.

Roll up on the top of the roof.

Right.

It was it was the rental car situation.

I mean, I just don't want to drive to

Colorado there and back.

Oh, it's 12 hours.

I mean, unless we were going to be there

for if we were going

to be there for a week.

Sure.

Maybe that's just what we need to do.

We just need to go there for a week now.

For three days.

Yeah.

So let's we can't talk as school comes

right up to that Friday

along with our old soccer,

which is a requirement up to that day.

In fact, the last two years,

he's missed the alumni game.

Alumni games.

Yeah, there's like an exhibition type.

So that we could just get on the road to

squeeze in three days

before Christmas Eve.

Right.

Because then you come back.

I mean, we come back on the 23rd and it's

just like, yeah, then

that only leaves Christmas

Eve to get all the last

minute stuff done for Christmas.

And thank goodness we've got we've got

good house sitters that

take care of the house

during that time.

So it's not empty.

It's not, you know,

the dogs taken care of.

Yeah.

All that kind of stuff.

It makes it a good one.

But anywho, so that that was a long recap

of the of the ski

trip debacle that turned

out to be really fantastic.

A really great ski trip.

I think everyone had a blast.

Yeah.

Well, we always do.

But that one just turned

out we're really nervous.

It was going to be bad.

It turned out to be good.

Yeah.

Maybe that's why it seemed so like

awesome was because they

always say that your level

of happiness is always the difference

between your expectations

and how it actually turns

out.

Right.

Your level of

disappointment or happiness.

I feel like kind of low expectations.

Yeah.

And it turned out to be great.

And so we're all

like, yeah, it's amazing.

That's right.

So then Christmas was fantastic.

I'm sure everybody had great Christmases.

You know, it's always

nice when your kids are.

This is the great.

You know, the best Christmas yet.

Yes.

And I was telling somebody it's not

because we had more

presents under the tree.

In fact, we probably had less because

they're more expensive

presents as they get older.

Yeah.

But, you know, I think that's just part

of the family, you

know, of a hopefully some

good presents, but be, you know, just

having good times and

enjoying each other's, you

know, enjoying being together.

Yes.

And making the most of the holiday.

You know, hot chocolate and the music,

just all the things

that make it so special.

Right.

And I do love that.

I mean, even when the kids were little.

I mean, opening presents is

easily a half day affair for us.

And it's not that we have so many.

It's that one of the kids will open

something and then go play with that.

Or, you know, if it's a Lego, they'll go

put the Lego together

and then come back to the

presents.

And so it's not like, you know, you kind

of get that sense of

like, it's just rip everything

open.

And yeah, I love the fact that our

children really take the time.

And enjoy each one.

So when I was a kid, I want to hear from

you too, because I do

love that that we do that.

We enjoy it.

It doesn't go fast,

but we went pretty fast.

We took turns.

It was like your turn, your

turn, your turn, your turn.

But we were pretty quickly through it.

Like I don't remember.

Maybe when I got older, high school, I

did take a little bit more time.

I wasn't as concerned of ripping through.

But that's different than

you're not getting toys.

When you're young, you're getting toys.

You're like, oh my, like you can't even

believe you might get that toy.

For me, at least it was that way.

Like GI Joes or

whatever it might have been.

Or Voltron, who's been

making a lot of cameos lately.

He has.

I know.

You know, so I think I think I feel like

we went pretty fast when we were younger.

And while we are kids are still pretty

young, where they're

getting things that they want

to get into.

You know what I mean?

What about you guys?

You guys go fast?

Ah, definitely faster.

We all took turns for the most part.

But not, I mean, definitely faster than

like our kids would go.

But I don't know that

we did it super fast.

We would have been done by 10 a.m.

No doubt.

At my house.

Okay.

We would have been done by 10 of the a.m.

You started at what time?

Oh, probably 7 30, something like that.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

So and we had eaten breakfast in that,

which is the worst, like,

because we had stockings,

then breakfast, then real presents.

Yeah.

Here, we'd only done one Christmas tree

under the Christmas

tree present this year.

By 10 o'clock.

That's crazy.

I wasn't even watching the time.

I looked at it because I was like,

because then they went and built that.

It was a little Lego, so it's easy.

I could never build one of the big ones

in that amount of time.

Right.

But I do love that

they enjoy it like that.

And ours was different because we opened

gifts from each other,

like gifts under the tree

that were from our parents and

grandparents the night before.

So we opened those on Christmas Eve and

then the Santa presents on Christmas Day.

So stockings and Santa

presents on Christmas Day.

We just did them all on Christmas Day.

And so that probably

slowed it down quite a bit.

Spent it up, though, too, because you

have less on Christmas morning.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess I never saw Santa's

deluge of presents at

your house in your growing

up.

But no, I mean, yeah, it made it on

Christmas morning, there

was less to open because mom

and dad and grandma and grandpa and all

of that had come the night before.

So yeah.

So I mean, we had two days of presents.

Yeah.

Well, we always would get I got we get

one present for on

Christmas Eve, which usually

a pair of pajamas, pajamas, which is

always fun, though,

because we kind of knew it was

coming anyway.

Yeah.

So we'd get that one.

And then we always get to open one right

before breakfast from under the tree.

We kind of do that same thing, too.

But now the kids only

want to pick the big ones.

They want to.

They just want like a regular one.

Just something that they'll pick

something that's like

there's a little taste.

They think it's closed

or something like that.

Yeah, they'll pick something that they're

like they know is not

one of the big ones.

Right.

So when you were a kid, would you always

go for the one big one

right before breakfast?

No.

You went for a small one, too?

Um, yeah, I don't really honestly, I

don't really remember.

But I mean, I don't think you're supposed

to go for the big one.

It's kind of an unspoken.

You know, that's it.

That's the big one.

The big one.

That's funny.

Yeah.

Because we would do all of ours and then

have breakfast because it

was just the Santa ones.

Yeah.

And then we would have breakfast and then

it was like all hands on deck.

When we were really little, we'd go to

church on Christmas morning.

Once we got to be about 10, we went to

the midnight service.

But yeah, and then by noon, it was like,

you know, the

Christmas vacation, like, ding,

dong.

Everybody showed up because my

grandmother, my grandparents hosted

everybody on Christmas

Day.

And so from noon on, I mean, there was a

house full of people.

Like everybody.

So.

That's the way your family did it.

Yeah.

So we kind of like having

a really long, prolonged

present opening

wouldn't have worked with.

Yeah.

I think things changed a

lot when I was younger.

At some point, at some point, we just got

older and it was just too much, I think,

because we used to go to my grandparents

house that lived in

Colorado Springs and then

like all the aunts and uncles, we'd all

do the exchange there,

you know, like aunts and

uncles and grandparents

gifts and stuff like that.

We do all that.

It was probably before

Christmas, I'm guessing.

Then there was a time where we went to

their house on Christmas.

I think that got to be too much.

It was like a divorced family.

We're going here and

then we're going here.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I think at some point we said, we're

just going to stay at our house.

And then my

grandparents came to our house.

Right.

A lot of Christmases to open up presents.

Yeah.

And when I was younger,

too, we went a couple of times.

We were in Denver for Christmas.

We went to Chicago maybe once, maybe

twice for Christmas.

Because that's where my grandparents were

before they retired.

Illinois.

Yeah.

But then really, I feel like once we got

maybe once I was nine and older, most of

it was at our house.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

And then it was

pretty not a lot of people.

It wasn't like years where everybody in

their mom was coming over.

My grandparents come over for a little

while and then they leave.

Yeah.

They go to it because they had four kids

that I think three or

four kids living there.

So yeah.

And that's so different

because my mom was an only child.

And so we spent every

Christmas at her parents house.

I mean, we were the only grandkids.

So it was kind of like it was our own

house and they were skiing nearby.

So we'd always be skiing

the days before Christmas.

And you know, so it really was like

that's where we always spent Christmas.

But it wasn't like, okay, we're it was

different all the time.

Yeah.

And but yeah, then everybody by the

afternoon, everyone came.

That was just the thing is you always

come to Rondin Lois's house.

And so then what would

you do when everybody came?

Would you guys would you

go play with your toys?

Do you go play?

You go kind of do your own thing or you

were you expected to hang out?

Oh, no, we go play with our toys.

It depended on like, you know, usually

some of the older people got there first.

And so you'd have to

talk to them a little bit.

But then we kind of play with their toys

or we'd play with each other, you know.

And then once like my mom's cousins, kids

like made it, they were around our age.

Then we go play with them.

And, you know, it was a fun day.

I mean, yeah, I remember just.

Everyone just playing cards, having

beverages and there's snacks everywhere.

There's food everywhere.

And it was great.

Yeah.

I can still see my grandmother and all

her sisters and their

husbands, like, you know,

around different tables, having Euchre

games and things like that.

It was really, they're

really happy memories.

Yeah.

So that's good.

That's how it should be.

Yeah.

Hopefully we're doing the

same thing here with our kids.

And that's why I said, I feel like we are

like they had a good

day when they say the

best Christmas yet.

Christmas yet.

You feel like, you know, hopefully.

I hope so.

Some good traditions in there.

So well, we're staring down.

We're staring down a birthday.

Yes.

Tomorrow.

For us as we sit here to record this.

Yeah, I know.

I love it.

I always tell the story of like, you

know, when I found out

that I was pregnant with

that one and I was like, we

didn't want a holiday baby.

And my doctor looked at me and they're

like, how's that working out for you?

Yeah.

I'm not even sure how that worked out.

You know what?

We don't want a holiday

baby in December 28th.

December 28th.

Yep.

Last one.

Actually, he was early though.

He was supposed to be a

2013 sometime into January.

He was closer to our middle daughters.

He was due one 1414.

Yeah.

So could have been same birthday almost.

Yep.

But he was two weeks early.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So he was a little early.

So he's a late 2013 for sure.

Very late.

Go ahead.

I was joking with him.

I was like, hey, in a couple of days you

can like text your

soccer team and be like, I'm

finally as old as

every single one of you.

I know.

He was in there making fun of

him because he's still only 11.

I know.

I can't help it, buddy.

One day you can brag about that.

Yeah.

So we got that coming

tomorrow, which will be fun.

It's always a short straw a little bit

for people with

birthdays this close to December

or to Christmas in December, I suppose.

But I always felt, we've talked about it

before on this, where I

felt like mine was too close

in February.

So no doubt.

I'm sure people in January, but

definitely the 28th of December.

Yeah.

Too close.

Yeah.

You can't have, he just can't have like

birthday parties during that time.

Yeah.

That's why he should do.

He should just, when he gets older at

some point, just be like,

I'm going to have, we're

going to celebrate my

birthday over the summer.

Let's just do like a

fun little family thing.

It's about to eat.

Let's go watch a movie.

I'll do one present because I've already

got a thousand presents on Christmas.

You know, and then you guys can get me

family presents over the summer.

So then I break it up a little bit.

Yeah.

I would do that.

I want to still make it a special day.

It's my birthday, but let's

break up the presents as well.

That would be my ultimate point.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

One of the things that's really cool

though, is that his best

friend, his birthday is today.

And so it's like an

unspoken thing that they both know.

It's like, well, we have to

wait for our birthday parties.

And you know, but they can always kind of

celebrate together

because they're both in the same

situation.

Yeah.

They're almost literally 24 hours apart.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Which is interesting.

Yeah.

It's like, how did that happen?

I don't know.

Yeah.

But in same year, right?

Same year.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

He's so young too.

I keep forgetting that

he's so young as well.

Yeah.

He's big.

He's gonna be huge.

I mean, yeah.

His...

He's got bigger genes.

He does.

100%.

So he's gonna be...

Yeah.

Even though he outweighs...

Or like out, he's taller than every...

I mean, he'll be way

bigger than our kid, but...

Yeah, he already is, but he's about...

He's almost...

He's your size-ish.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, when your mom's six feet tall, like

your dad's CO6 4s...

Six fours, six five.

Like, yeah, you're gonna be tall.

I do need to apologize to our kids.

I don't think they're gonna be that tall.

No.

There's some genes out

there they could get.

They could get some hyphen.

And our youngest will

have some of that, I think.

Mm-hmm.

I don't think they're gonna...

They don't have too much more in them.

I don't think so.

I think our oldest is

a couple more inches.

In fact, I think he's grown a few.

I feel like he has just gotten way taller

in the last month or two.

Oh, that's good.

I'm like, "What?"

He's got a couple more.

That'll get him up to my height.

Yeah.

I have about six foot, give or take.

Give or take, an inch or two.

Two inches.

More take.

But, you know, hey.

It's a little more take.

Well, then we got 26 coming up.

25 was a tough year.

It was.

We could spend a

whole podcast on this one.

We got four minutes kind

of to wrap this one up.

I know.

We won't dive into it too long.

But it was a tough year.

In fact, we were playing a game just the

other night of like,

"How well do you know

your family members?"

And so I get this card.

And the question is, the person who gets

the card reads the question,

and then they think of an answer, and

then everyone needs to guess

what their answer would be.

And it was like, "What

has scared you the most?"

And I was thinking about it, my answer.

And I think we just settled on, "2025

scared me the most."

I was like, "I had a lot

of things to overcome."

Like, there was just not even me.

Like, every, I think it was

a lot of challenges in 2025.

Other than scares with our children.

Safety and health.

Right?

I think that aside, we didn't have that,

which thank God, knock on

wood, we never have that.

I think we checked every

other box of like, "Ooh!"

You know, of safety, health.

You know, every other box you could worry

about, and big thing we did.

Those things that really, you know, make

you lose sleep at night.

Yeah, yeah.

Question mortality,

all that kind of stuff.

We, in some way or form, between the two

of us, touched those.

And it was a trying year.

It was a trying year. Yeah.

We even had kid pain thrown in there.

Kid pain, a different kind of kid pain.

But kid pain, yeah.

It was just like, "Wow."

You know, career door slamming, and then

opening, and kid pain,

and our own health issues.

And I mean, it was just a year that

you're like, "Okay, we learned a lot.

We grew a lot.

But man, I'm excited for 26."

Yeah, that was, 2025 is literally, now we

can say it, now that we're past some of

those health concerns,

that, you know, like, what doesn't kill

you only makes you stronger.

Yeah.

Because a few, a month or two ago, I

couldn't say that, right?

Right, right.

Without being like, "That's a little too

close to home still."

Yeah.

And now it's like, "Wow, that's crazy."

But yeah, I mean, I guess

we feel stronger, maybe.

I mean, I feel exhausted from it.

This would be, I said it,

last podcast that never aired.

But it'll be interesting to

go back and watch this year.

Yeah.

Because this is the year we started.

2025, we've done almost a full year of

Mr. and Mrs. podcast, which

is crazy in and of itself.

I know.

But it was the

toughest year of our lives.

It was.

And we recorded every week through it.

Yep.

So I think as we get older, if we ever

watch that, because it's been recorded,

it'll be interesting to see it.

Yeah.

You know?

Like, could you see the pain on our face?

Like, I think we tried,

we try to keep this light.

We try to be real, but there's things

that we don't talk about that are just

too personal to put out there.

You know, if we're talking kid pain,

we're not going to talk

about that child's pain.

And, you know, so we

keep some of that back.

But it's like, are we going to see it?

Like, or were we smiling through it?

Like, did we look like we

were managing all of it well?

I don't know.

That's what we're taught to do.

But we'll know.

We'll know.

We'll be able to read between the lines.

Yeah.

We will be able to, you know, follow the

crumbs because we know the

piece of bread that it fell from.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So that'll be interesting one day.

One day.

If we ever, if we ever

see, we're old and more gray.

I know.

This isn't blonde people.

It is gray.

Watch this back and just see, you know,

how that went through.

Yeah.

Depending on how long we do this for,

it'll just be interesting.

I think that's one thing I had mentioned.

I don't know if it was last week or the

week before, you know, but just how long.

You know, this, you know, theoretically,

you know, is ageless.

Yeah.

You know, people that are offsprings,

offspring, offspring,

great, great, greats.

Yeah.

And watch and be like, you

know, that's interesting.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Think about your great, great, great

grandmother, your

great, great grandmother.

You know what I mean?

Like, we don't know much about it.

We've seen pictures of them.

We've seen descriptions of them.

Maybe we live in a time now where, you

know, a hundred years

from now, they'll be able

to flip this on and be like, that's my

great, great, great grandmother.

Yeah.

You know, wouldn't that be crazy?

Yeah.

Just in her prime of her life, just

talking through having a

diet cook before they realized

how horrible diet coke was for you.

I know.

He's like, this diet coke.

It's a time bomb.

He's like, yeah, what

cigarettes are now, right?

Like if we would have seen this in the

fifties, they would have been smoking.

All the lead that he was drinking out of

that Yeti cup that they

didn't know was leeching

into their system and killing them.

On that note, I might

have a sip of my diet coke.

You know what?

It's a guilty pleasure.

Diet coke is my own.

It's like my own guilty pleasure.

What doesn't kill you

or just kills you slowly?

All right.

Well, we should probably shut this down.

This is I mean, this will be a happy new

year when it comes out

if we do it on a regular

schedule.

This will be a happy new year.

So thanks for spending

twenty twenty five with us.

Those of you that joined in, it was quite

the I mean, it was it's been a bit of a I

don't know.

Well, this has just been like a test.

You know, it's been such a weird thing

that we would normally not do.

You know, I know experiment was the word

I was looking for the podcast.

The podcast.

It's been an experiment.

I personally enjoy it.

Like it's an hour of uninterrupted

uninterrupted time that I

get with you on a weekly basis,

which is really nice.

We don't always get it.

Well, we do always get it.

We do always get it.

But we got twenty twenty six coming up.

And so let's just keep it short.

We're already getting long here.

But have you thought of at all what your

what what your New

Year's resolution is going

to be?

Or do you want to

save that till next year?

Till next next week.

We're going to have to say I haven't

because we're already kind of long.

All right.

I haven't even thought of it.

All right.

Well, then let's let's just

wrap this one up with our word.

Our word of that sums up last week.

Okay.

He's out of it.

Yeah.

That was fast.

I have mine too.

I'm just kidding.

I don't.

I'm just kidding.

I don't.

I can cut that.

All right.

You ready? Yeah.

One, two, three.

Caught.

Yeah.

They're both good.

Yeah.

You conquered a mountain literally.

Literally.

I my initial thought was peace.

And I was like, wait a minute.

Hold on.

There are some times and there's some

times in the last week

that I don't know that I

was feeling real peace.

You know, but I don't know either.

In fact, I know I

wasn't feeling real peace.

I know I felt blessed.

And I know there were

times that I felt peace.

But I was like, I wonder if honker.

Yeah.

Because you've been just preparing for

Christmas and some

times in the mountains.

Well, that's what we were saying,

alluding to earlier just how much.

All the things you do.

Like we watch the same movie Love

Actually every night.

Every Christmas Eve night when we're

finishing up wrapping.

Yep.

And you're like, oh my gosh,

there's more presents to wrap.

Like, oh wow.

There's that bag that

needs to all be wrapped.

Right.

It keeps coming out of the woodwork.

I know.

But Love Actually does make it.

Yeah.

But it's just such a fun.

But those are all the little things, like

you said, we're just

conquering so many like

check boxes that we got to get done.

Some of them really enjoyable, but

doesn't mean it's still not tiring.

Right.

Exactly right.

And then above it all, we are blessed.

We are.

We've conquered the entire year.

Yep.

Honestly, as hard as a mountain this year

was to climb for us.

Yeah.

But in the end, we're still blessed.

And that's really all that counts.

Yeah.

It really is.

To be as sappy as possible.

I like the sappy, Sean.

Just to, I've got too much head cold

going on or too much allergies.

I know.

I'm sapping my energy a little bit.

I know.

And it's 80 degrees on Christmas.

Yeah.

And we were just in nine degrees.

Right.

So whether it's a cold or whether it's

allergies, I'm sure there's still

allergies going around

because nothing's been like frozen here.

No.

Because it's quite

literally 80 degrees outside.

Yeah.

Leaves just fell.

Yeah.

What a beautiful day.

We went for a walk yesterday.

Oh my gosh.

It's amazing outside.

I was checking on sprinklers today.

I know.

We had a broken...

In shorts.

I mean, geez.

You hardly wear shorts in the summertime.

Yeah.

I'm wearing shorts

right now in a t-shirt.

I know.

I had to put on a

sweater because I was like...

Well, stick around after the episode to

hear more about our

wardrobe and what we're wearing.

We're just going through

naming what we're wearing.

I let people get to their new year.

All right.

Well, happy new year to everyone.

Happy new year.

All right.

And ciao ciao.

We'll see you more this year.

[music]

Mostly skiing backwards.

What could go wrong?

Our kids are just bobbing and weaving.

But we're doing the best we can.

It's a sunk cost at this point.

Yeah.

It was a home alone moment.

That's it. That's the big one.

The big one.

Don't come near me.

And then other skiers

are also other drivers.

They're drivers.

[laughs] Your level of happiness is always the

difference between your expectations and

how it actually turns out, right?

Or Voltron, who's been

making a lot of cameos lately.

Christmas vacation, like,

"Oh, man, I'm excited for 26."

Yeah, like, "What doesn't kill you only

makes you stronger."

It was the toughest year of our lives.

It was.

And we recorded every week through it.

Yup.

Could you see the paint on our face?

Like, "This isn't

blonde people. It is gray."

All right, let us

people get to their new year.

All right. Well, happy

new year to everyone.

Happy new year.

And they were like, "No."

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