Old School

This is the most dramatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren Zema. Coming to you from the home office in Austin, Texas. We're finally home. Nobody is in our house. It is quiet. We are post wedding, post parents weekend at TCU.

I need to just run through quickly what we've done because I want to thank you, because Chris Harrison is the best partner in so many ways, but very particularly good TV host, also just good host of people of events.

He helps me put on parties in your shue.

I'm your co host for life?

Wow? How is that not in the vows and now co hosts for life? Lauren Zema and Chris Harrison husband and wife co host for life. Okay, so here's real quick what we've done, like since October fourteenth, since we got married to Napa the NAPA wedding. Then we hosted two other couples at our house for f one in Austin. Then it was Halloween and we threw a Halloween party. Then it was all of our family came in and we did the Austin wedding. Then we had a wine

So when he says we have our house in our life back, we really like.

We paid a neighborhood kid to clear all of the cardboard boxes out of our garage because of all of the stuff we had ordered for all these different things.

I've we yeah, I don't know.

We were gone at Dad's weekend at TCU. We had to pay pay a neighborhood kid to come in, gave him a couple hundred bucks to just take everything out of our garage because things have just piled up. Like you know, a normal week probably for many people around the country, you just get a thousand Amazon box. This is multiply that by a thousand, and that was our garage and our life and things that just piled up beyond me.

And I don't mean it to sound like we're venting. These have all been wonderful things. People keep asking me friends and people on Instagram, like, oh my.

Gosh, are you exhausted? Are you tired?

Yes, But there's nothing I would rather be tired about. I'm so happy, We're so lucky.

I'm looking forward to a little downtime. Although we're heading into the holidays, Yeah, but I'm looking forward to.

Well, you're right, sometimes we push ourselves to the point of exhaustion. But the thing is, I mean, I remember, I think I mentioned this on the podcast before. Caitlin Bristow was like, you guys, didn't have anyone come help you clean up after the Bachelor people came near house on Friday.

Night, and I said no.

And the thing is, we like to do stuff ourselves because I think it means so much more.

I find the cleaning cathartic. I know you always because I do all the cooking here in this co hosting relationship, but I also end up cleaning mostly in the kitchen. But I'll be honest, it's because I find it cathartic. I like it. I end up talking to you usually sit at the table and we talk. And I like to put things where they're supposed to be in my kitchen. I definitely am am dominant and territorial in my kitchen. I like things a certain way, and so I don't mind.

Here's a question I have for everyone because you and I differ on this, and I think this is part of why you end up cleaning up. I am okay with leaving a sink full of dirty dishes until the next morning. I'm not a disgusting person. I love a clean and organized home. But Chris can't go to bed unless the kitchen is clean. Please tell us where do you follow everyone? And Babe, why do you think that is like psychologically? Why can't you just let the dishes wait until the next morning?

I can, but no you can. But here's you're here. Here's the thing. I've allowed this to happen once. Or you're like, I got it, Babe. You go to bed or whatever, and I get up in the morning and it's just been moved around. So here's how this goes. I'm the first person up, so whether I do it at night before I go to bed, I'm the first up in the morning, so either way, I'm facing it. So I would rather face it at night and know when I wake up, I'm the first to walk in the kitchen and everything spot.

No, you're not addressing what is a psychological thing. I would clean it up when I wake up in the morning.

It is about why can't you wait a little bit. I don't know, like I would wake up at nine am and clean it up or whenever.

Yeah, well, because I know I can't wake up and just walk out and go to the gym and leave the kitchen line.

Why is that?

I don't know. I don't know what that is. Yeah, and we need go I don't know, But I just I like everything tidy when I when I wake up, I like waking up to everything clean. I love when our house is. And by the way, you are really good at this. You organize after I go to bed, because you always up later than I do. You'll organize. I'll come in and things are always you know, spotless, you've cleaned, and you've organized, You've done laundry. I like

I think sometimes you have to welcome those moments of like planning your wedding stuff together and or your or your parties and doing the cleanup and the breakdown together, because sometimes those moments, like you just said, are the best memories. I always say, the debrief after is sometimes just as fun as the event itself. Like I will always remember putting together gift bags for both my sister's wedding and our wedding in my garage with my little

And so this weekend, this last weekend, we went up to TCU up at Fort Worth, Texas for Dad's technically it was Dad's weekend with Taylor with our daughter.

Thank you for letting me crash Dad's weekend.

You crash Dad's weekend. So Taylor is a theta in the sorority. So is Lauren from Miszoo, and so Lauren came up kind of crashed Dad's weekend in a good way.

Can I say we kind of had this idea of because some of our best friends also have kids at TCU. It was a big game. I can't believe I know this, and I'm saying this. It was the ut game, and so we sort of made it a couple's weekend. So I wasn't the only no no. There was a woman crashing dad's weekend.

There were other moms there and it was a blast. We so step one, this is something and I'm not going to completely bag on a company. And if you love this, good for you. We got an airbnb. Three couples, we got an Airbnb. My best friend Chip, mother, Buddy Church, and their wives. So three couples piled up into an Airbnb. Now I think problem number one my buddy Chip is.

He's the same guy who was in his underwear locked out of his hotel room in Napa. Ship is becoming a real character on this spot.

So that is the baseline. Uh, this is the same guy in the Apple Pie or Pumpkin Pie was He was funking pie underwear at my weddings, trapped out of his room. He booked an Airbnb. Now Airbnb's I'm not a huge fan. I'm a maybe I'm old school, but I'm a hotel.

You're a diva.

I'm gonna say, Chris Harrison is not a diva on many things. You're a diva on this one thing. I think it's from years of travel with the show decade decades. He is a diva with travel and accommodations. He doesn't like to spend more time than he has to in airports. He wants to be comfortable in hotel rooms.

My brother, my brother, and I know this about myself. I you know, there's the videos with ill. Yeah, you know the TikTok with the memes, and you got the music from the hardware commercial. That's uh, you know guys going through an airport. I get that. I was with my brother at the World Series a few weeks ago in Arizona, and I haven't traveled with my brother in quite some time. He came to Austin, then we flew out to Arizona together and I get off the plane.

You are an Olympian.

My brother is like, I got to go to the bathroom before we got I'm like, oh man, that just that really just put the.

Can off you had to use the restaurants. Like just basically, the.

Car was here, the car was pulling up. The timing was perfect. So I go on outside, so I say, go to the bathroom. I'm going to go meet the car. So the car doesn't leave. It was I don't know, twenty yards from the bathroom.

Sorry, your brother had to go to the bathroom.

No, I didn't have a problem with that. But my brother comes out of the bathroom and he calls me and he's like, where are you? And I said, I came outside to the ride share curb to meet our car. It's here, come on out. He's like, well, where is it? Is it crazy to look for signs? Like there's a sign right there that says ride share. Just I said, just walk straight out. You're going the right direction. I

A diva about travel and accommodation. Yes, and I would love to hear from everybody. By the way, do you prefer hotels or airbnbs? Where do you fall? Because I don't know. So your buddy Chip had picked this, And here's I think the mistake Chip made. Yeah, I think he glanced at the listing and the listing said three bathrooms. There's three couples. We get there. Every couple does not

But again, everybody please weigh in. I don't know.

I might be I think it might be an age thing because my mom will tell me, like me and my girlfriends when we go on trips, we still share bathrooms and we're fine. And maybe that's just because it's only women. But my mom she's like, oh, and my friends and I go on trips, we do not share bathrooms. So maybe it's as you get older, you need your own.

The house oilet space.

The house is a great location. The house had enough bedrooms. Thankfully, no one slept on the couch but it was a bit of a dump.

I'll give him that. There was cardboard on the wind, there was cardboard in the bathroom. There were cardboard covering the windows, so there was a nasty shower curtain. It felt like on a college weekend. It felt like we weren't a frat house.

The bonus I will say about airbnbs were all together, so three couples living together for the weekend. It was a bit of a fraternity sorority house. And that part was fine. We all have children at TCU.

How kai youp salon something was our our for the TCU parents, we need to come up with the Greek letters.

So Dad's weekend, any parent's weekend, is very interesting. We all come in as parents and you basically live the life of a college student for about three days. And that's one to two days too many for most parents. We will tell the story of the dad who was doubled over throwing up in the parking lot. I'm there was that day.

We've never been that parent.

No, but but for three days, you are going into the sleep habits of a college kid, the eating habits of a college kid. What I mean by that is maybe you'll go to the one of the kid's houses. All of our kids live either dorms or houses, and so we went to a friend's daughter's house. We're playing this game called rage Cage, ordering fried pickles and pizza at twelve thirty at night. It is you know how we all like our sleeping habits and our routines.

You don't have that, no, right, I didn't think about it this way. We were all wondering why we're so exhausted. That's exactly why. Because the beautiful thing about it is the kids want to show you the life they're living. They want you, they want you to meet their friends and see, this is where I get lunch, and this is where we go out and come out to the bars, and it's They think it's so cool that their parents are there, and it is.

But then we're.

Staying up till two in the morning and I haven't worked out in three days, and yeah, I've drank a white claw. I never drink a white claw unless I'm at a TCU weekend. I don't even know the flavors. I said, oh wow, they have peach. Because when we're at the fraternity tailgate, the best option pulled out of the cooler is the white claw not going to drink the jungle juice as they call it that the frat boys are brewing in an igloo.

No, the so we get there, you know, we got there Thursday and we had, you know, a nice dinner and some cocktails. But then Friday. So Friday it all kind of begins. And the Thedas, by the way, Thetas are amazing, love them all. They had the itinerary, they had activities, they had it nailed down. So we went to lunch and then we went mini golfing and go karting.

Perfect activity for the dads.

Reactivity for the dads.

Some of them brought their own putters to mini golf.

It was fun. And then we all went to a dinner after where we had some cocktails. Then we decided that was just the prelude to the entire night. Then we go out to this great bar in Fourth called the poop Deck.

What a name, I think.

Imagine confidently naming your business the poop Deck.

It's kind of a pirate theme. It's a boat.

They serve food there. They do, they do, They have a many They start scallops.

Not they should have rethought the poop deck serving food, but anyway, it's also just a great karaoke bar, that's what it is. And yes, I did get on stage with with my daughter Taylor. We did karaoke. Yes, my song is Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks. Because it's short, it's sweet, and everybody can just yell it, so we crushed it. Lauren did get up. She also karaoke. You did Mister Brightside, which is a crowd pleaser. So that that was Saturday. But we're not done.

Quick note on karaoke song selection is so important. You've taught me that every karaoke bar should have an abbreviated version of every song. A full song is too long to sing like one. A karaoke song should be a minute.

That's it.

And I will also say Chris Harrison actually has a pretty good voice.

Pretty good voice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we're leaving the poop Deck, you know, and I'm a big fan of leaving on a high. You know, my son's there, his girlfriend and Taylor and our friends are there. We had a great time, had a few cocktails. Then we leave. We're like, okay, let's get out of here. We walk out in the parking lot and here is the scene, because this happens every parent's weekend all across the country. There's that mom, there's that dad. So daughter is standing beside him, embarrassed as can be. Mom is

Yeah, that's the thing is you've nailed it in that you're living the college life. But it's what thirty years after you should be, right, So some of the parents, obviously none of us. You can't drink on the same level as these kids. You can't go on this little sleep, you can't eat this food they're eating. And it is a marathon, not a sprint, because when you come in for these parents' weekends, they've planned one million adorably, they've planned a million activities for you to do, and like

The kids don't even go out until ten thirty.

No, our kids drop us off at one and then they go out.

Like that's all right, that's already a lot for us. We're usually holed by eleven. They're going out at eleven.

And then you go back to the house and again it's the fried pickles and the pizza and you're eating late, and then.

It gives you new appreciation for your parents.

Then there's game day and we go to the pregame tailgate party. This is at my son's fight cap little fraternity, and we're all their daughter, everybody, all our friends are there. They have a mechanical bowl. So again, don't don't be that mom, don't be that dead. Don't get on the mechanical bowl. As much as people will urge you, Oh, mister Harrison, it'll get up there. It'll be awesome.

Until you've fallen, break a collar ball until no, just until you're there, and then you're that person for life.

So you can't ever take those pictures and videos back.

That's the probab Well, first of all, everyone has a cell phone. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing I've noticed that's different with the kids in college. Like I was talking to Taylor about how where I went Miszoo. I forget how many, but there was this list of things you're supposed to do before you graduate, and one of them, which I never did, was streak the quad. Yeah, you could never do that. Today everybody has a cell phone.

But I'm standing next to one of the dads. ACDC is blaring and I look over and he has one of those little mini shot you know bottles, the plastic bottles of fireball, and his daughter puts one in her mouth and without using hands, you lift it up and you take the shot. You down the whole bottle of fireball. Dad does it right next to her.

And I'm like, man, I was kind of impressed by that.

I was impressed, but I'm like, that's gonna come back to hunt.

Well, you just got to watch yourself.

I mean, because here, from what I've seen at these weekends, here are the two pitfalls. The dads tend to drink too much and they either pass out too early or we're saying the problem people, or they throw up in a parking lot and that's bad.

The moms tend to get a little too.

If you're the mom, you shouldn't be being You do get on the bowl, or you.

Think it's fun to dance up on a table, or you get a.

Little too flirty, and so you just got to watch those two. You don't want to fall into those two buckets.

Just remember you're not Chris. You always need to be mister Harrison.

Oh that's a good game.

That is your lesson. Always be the mister of you are the dad, you are the mom. Just remember that you are at that next level and you need to be now. I did, even though they want to bring you down.

Well.

The thing is, though, you have to watch the line because the kids also want you to have fun.

Oh we a bit.

I think it's so fun.

If you play rage Cage with them, if you do karaoke with them again, And it warms my heart because I love seeing that they're happy. Like there's nothing that makes me happier more than to see the kids say hi to friends they've made and to know that they're happy. I would rather and they do call us, but I would rather not hear from them and know they're having a great time than obviously them call and want to

We did have to adjust the music at the tailgate because there's literally a DJ.

At this tailgate and the kid is playing I mean music that I'm a millennial that I hadn't even heard. I guess it's that new, but it was like unedited, like someone's grandpa, Someone's Grandpa's there at Dad's weekend, and the music is like swear words, swear word, inappropriate word, like like all these things. And I pulled aside one of the kids and I said, hey, this is Dad's weekend. We got to crank the dad jams, get some eighties music on for the dads. We need to adjust, we

Then game day comes and we go to the game. By the way, great game, so much fun. It was packed a night game, as all college games should be.

The university let me stop.

The University of Texas finally beat TCU. Kudos to the Longhorns for winning, but it did not dampen.

Did you just say the game was so much fun?

It was? I love you so okay, let's hash I know you didn't love the full game, but you really got into the spectacle. We got there like twenty minutes early. We were walking down Frog Alley. It's packed, everybody's having a cocktail. It's great, we're tailgating. Then you walked in and they had the fireworks and the displays, and you got into all the flyover.

All of that is fun. When it starts only being football, it stops being fun. And the problem is that it's four hours.

Let's hash this out.

I really think I think I might be done. I don't want you to waste the money on the ticket on me anymore. I'm going to come to the weekends as or you have to be okay with me only going to half.

Well, you know what, I realized, Taylor's the same, you and Taylor, our daughter. She's the same. She does not enjoy going to football games. She does not really go to football games. She'll stay it for like half yeah, no matter what, and just because her friends are there and she knew I wanted to go so and all the dads, so what the dads do? There was all these day to dads. We all sat together. There's like four or five of us and our kids, and we're all together in the end zone. And it was a

This is so crazy. Why are you so fired up about this? Are we going to get divorced? We've been married a week.

We're gonna get on a hot dog? You know, someone dm me and they go mayonnaise. I would have broken up with you if I'd looked over and you were like slashing on something.

And manly, we've been together five years and this just came up. I guess it's because I don't go to sporting events and get a hot dog very often. But obviously when I'm at a sporting event. All that I have to do activity wise is eat and snacks and drink.

There's nothing else to do.

So I got a hot dog and I come back and I have I have only ketchup on the hot dog. That's how I usually eat a hot dog. I just throw some ketchup on there. Chris thinks it's offensive to have ketchup on the hot dog at all. You say it's only mustard and relish. I need you to realize ketchup is an available condiment for people, so.

Obviously I think it's a test.

Ketchup on that.

I think it's a test. So someone actually texted me and they said, like, how blessed is your life that five and a half years into a relationship you're just seeing your girlfriend eat a hot dog for the first time. I got You're right, She's never eaten a hot dog in front of me this entire time.

It's so exciting to keep learning new things about each other, even now that we're married.

The next day, we got up and Taylor took us on this beautiful walking tour of TCU because I've actually never walked across the entire campus, and she showed us around. That was really cool.

Alle treat to.

Have a son and a daughter both in college, because you see the differences.

Josh is a senior.

Chris is saying, we've never had a walking tour because I think boys just don't think this way. We go to Josh's lacrosse games. Josh takes you out to bars. It's super fun. Yeah, Josh never said.

You know what, let me give you, guys a tour of campus. That's more a girl idea.

Let me send you pictures of what I'm doing.

Oh, we haven't gotten a photo from Josh in four years. Luckily, Taylor and Josh are in school together because now through Taylor, she sends us pictures of both of them.

But so for all the parents out there, your takeaway from are amazing Dad's weekend slash parents Weekend is just, you know, try and stay above the fray a little bit. Enjoy it and be involved in the fray, but stay above it just enough that you're not that dad puking in the parking lot. You're not that mom on the mechanical bawl or dancing on the table.

Can I ask you a question, because I actually had a couple of people DM me about this. Do you think you can hang? People were asking me because I posted some dad's weekend stuff, how is Chris Harrison doing on these weekends?

Can he hang? Can he? Like? How do you do?

I'll be honest, I'll give myself a B B plus, like I'm pretty good at going late, I can stay up whatever, But I'm not. I'm just it's the continuous like Friday was a long, long day, long night. Then it was the next day.

They also got no sleep because the house next to our airbnb had a raging house party till four thirty in the more.

Someone was dropping the bass at a fraternity party right outside our bedroom till four thirty in the morning.

Should we have called the cops?

You and I both had the same thought, was do you are you the person that calls the cops? I'm not. I don't ever want to be that person.

But I didn't want to run their fun. But I don't want someone to go into the jail.

But yeah, that sucked. And then the next day got up, did our thing, went to lunch with all the they to day all right.

I'm going to give you an an well thanks.

I totally think you can hang babe, I look, we did all the things. We went out, we did the karaoke, we went to a couple of bars.

You also are so.

Amazing at and I meant you guys, everybody who comes up to him for a photo he takes. I've said this about him before, but he takes the time. You have a nice conversation with everybody, So I know that on weekends like that, you are leaving exhausted because you're hanging with your kids, your friends, and even random Pea.

Even took pictures with some ut fans. Obviously I was in purple. But but what happened.

Love, and it is.

One of the many reasons I fell in love with you is watching how you are with the kids. You just prioritize them at the highest degree and exhaust yourself to the point of, like I mean, you want them even on a weekend that's supposed to be about you Dad's weekend. What you want is for them to have a great time. And you're such an incredible.

Follow well, very proud of Taylor, our girl, like really wanted to make it a special weekend. She did. She planned it to the nth degree and made us feel loved. And then I give you kudos because as if going to a football game wasn't enough, on the way out of town, Joshua, our son was having an alumni lacrosse game, and we swung by that just for a little bit. We didn't stay for the whole thing. Wanted to show our presence and give them a hug and say goodbye.