Mystical Moms Summer Survival Guide: Rediscovering your inner child

We got some really good feedback about the podcast.

Yeah, we did.

Yeah, from an unlikely listener, I would say.

Someone that I would say is not our ideal listener, as they say, or someone that we think is, if we were to characterize, categorize people that we think listen the most to this podcast, it would not be a dude in his 70s.

Yeah, he doesn't typically fit our demographic, but we are so happy to have this amazing new listener.

I mean, he has so much wisdom and a lot of experience, which I'm always up for grabbing some.

So we are gonna do something a little bit different moving forward, which I hopefully you guys will benefit from too, because it was just, it was sound advice that will be helpful.

Right.

So, Krystyn.

Rachael.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Welcome to Two Mystic Mamas.

Coming in hot.

Yep.

Today we are diving into a magical summer with your children.

Whether you are your own child or if you have physical humans that you are also raising, these activities will be applicable.

Yeah.

These transcend whether you have children or not, because we're going to talk all things arts and crafts, hunting summer bucket lists.

Yeah.

Or bucket lists.

Or, yeah.

I'm personally a fan of the bucket list.

Wait, talk to me about that.

I've never...

The bucket list?

Yes.

It's bucket.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

No, bucket.

I thought it was like, fuck that.

Let's put that on the bucket list.

Cleaning.

Fuck it.

Let's go.

I mean, come on.

Do you hear that?

I was...

No, they're not going to be able to hear it because we have a sound engineer that takes all that shit out.

Remember when we were down in the South Side and I was like so wanting the Hong Kongs and they were just...

We did get Hong Kongs back.

Did we get Hong Kongs?

Yeah, we got Hong Kongs.

That would be a great name for a dog.

Hong Kongs?

Yes.

Don't you think?

I mean, it would make anybody laugh.

I know I told you not to record my face today because I was like, I feel like I just don't look that great.

She looks great.

She looks like a bohemian, sexy lady of the wizardry forest.

What?

That's me.

That's me and old Honk Honks.

I'm telling you, go to a dog park and say, come here Honk Honks.

You're going to get all, wow.

Look at that name.

I don't think I'll do that.

First of all, your dog's name is not Honk Honks.

No, no, it's Griswold.

We were looking at another puppy this morning.

I know.

And Charlie was like, oh my God, we can name him Clark.

It's like, no, we cannot do that, but we could name him Eddie.

Cousin.

Well, the dog's name, he's three months old and his name is already Teddy.

So really you could just drop the T.

Drop the T.

I don't really want a dog named Eddie.

No offense if your name is Eddie, but I mean, I guess it might be slightly better than honk honk.

I don't know.

We can put it up to a poll.

What was the uncle's name that we named the squirrels?

Uncle Louis.

Uncle Louis.

Yes.

And Aunt Bethany.

Bethany.

Oh my God.

Speaking of you are people, if you know what we're talking about without us having to say it.

You are our people.

You know what movie we watched?

We've been really talking, talking, talking about trying to watch classic movies from our childhood.

So I was born in 82 and Jeff was 78.

So yeah, smack dab, late 80s, early 90s is what we're talking about here.

So we watched Harry and the Hendersons, which still tracks.

I know it's another fucking Winnie the Pooh moment, but no, this is different Harry and the Hendersons.

So Harry and the Hendersons, it stars John Lithgow and it takes place in Seattle and they're on a camping trip.

The hilarious part that I picked up on in this movie when we rewatched it was they were like packing up the campsite and I was like, why the fuck does she have all her houseplants with her?

She decorated her tent.

And now I realized that she brought them because that's what they did.

They like went away for a week.

So she was like, okay, let my houseplants die.

So she had all of her houseplants.

I was like, are they living outside?

What is happening?

I feel this on a soul level.

So I usually fill the tub in our camper full of my houseplants and take them with me so they don't die.

But I have a new method.

I'll share it on another episode.

Okay, but it's basically they're leaving and they hit Sasquatch Bigfoot and he takes him home because he thinks he's dead and he's, this is a marvel, you know, this is going to make history, blah, blah, blah.

They're going to, you know, stuff them and you know, his, well, he works and his dad owns a business that is all about hunting.

So it's like guns and taxidermy and all this stuff.

It all comes together.

It's a beautiful movie.

Okay.

And he decides that he can no longer kill things.

Okay.

He has an epiphany because they name him Harry.

He becomes part of their family and it's a real nice little family.

And John Hughes, of course, is the director.

And then the other movie we watched this past weekend was The Great Outdoors.

And from the look on Krystyn's face, she also hasn't fucking seen it.

It's so fantastic.

What the fuck did you do during your childhood?

Apparently not watch movies.

That apparently did not happen.

No, I just gave her a face.

I don't even need to.

Now, again, we should be taking a picture and just put caption in this face.

Take out the papers in the trash.

You know?

Okay, so with this movie starring Dan Aykroyd and John Candy.

Oh, I know this movie.

Big Bear Chase Me.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And their brothers, they come in from Chicago, also camping, but they go to a cabin.

Also just, I mean, there are just so many scenes where it's...

Yeah, I just got unreasonably excited that I knew what you were talking about for a minute.

Yeah, I mean, enough to be like, oh, yes, I know I can reference it, but not too, too deep because I've also never seen it.

So now we know the next time that you and Charles come over to our house, we will be watching some movies.

Because apparently I spent my childhood in a room meditating.

All right, so let's talk about The Great Outdoors.

Give us some things.

Let's start with our childhood that we're bringing forth, like kind of tapping into that inner child.

What brings us back?

Because I feel like a lot of us in our 40s, if you're in your 30s, you have stepped out of your childhood.

You've stepped away from doing childlike activities.

And there is something super therapeutic and reassuring and triggering in a good way that can come out of revisiting some of these activities.

Did you ever dig for dinosaur bones?

No, but when I lived in North Carolina, it was like really big to do like gem mining down there.

So I loved doing that when I was in like middle school grade, middle school age.

Is that inside caves or just in on the ground?

Well, they kind of had both there because there are a bunch of caverns down there.

But also there were like, they would have entrances to little caverns and general stores.

And they would have this outdoor flume set up where you could buy a box of, I'm sure you've seen it, right?

Where you can buy a box of rocks and basically clean them off.

But then they also had a store attached where you could take them in and they would polish them for you.

You could have them made into jewelry if you wanted.

It was actually pretty cool.

I love that.

What was your childhood like?

I mean, mine was really like either like the nature outdoors in the woods or the beach.

Like those are my two like defining moments when it comes to like outdoor creative play.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So I grew up on six and a half acres of land too.

And we had a stream that ran down the one side of the property.

And so we spent a lot of time catching crayfish, not so much snacks.

I didn't really get down with the snakes, but we would catch crayfish of all shapes and sizes.

We would do a lot of pretending, you know, walking up and down the creek and finding creak glass, you know, glass bottles and different things that just...

Did you call it creak glass?

Yeah, that's what it's called.

Really?

Google that shit.

Yeah, it's called creak glass.

Or if you're from...

I was gonna say, is it crick class?

I know.

Who says crick?

My husband.

Oh, my God.

Lots of honeysuckles.

I could get down with a ton of honeysuckles.

Anybody doesn't know what we're talking about.

So, honeysuckles and crayfish.

So, crayfish are like freshwater mini lobsters.

They're like teeny, teeny, tiny.

You can cook them.

We never did.

We never caught them to cook them, but you 100% can eat them.

They eat them down south all the time.

It's way big down there.

And then honeysuckle is a native plant, flowering bush, I guess, that produces these unbelievably sweet-smelling flowers that when you pick them, you can actually do this little diggery-do job on them and suck the honey.

So I do remember that one house that we lived in in Maryland was closer to the Pennsylvania line at one point, and we had this like quarter-mile long driveway, and I would catch the bus there, and there was a huge honeysuckle bush at the end of the driveway.

Yeah.

It was so great.

It was so great.

It was so great.

You can't...

Minus the fucking bees, because they love honeysuckle.

Yeah, yeah, that is true.

They fucking love it.

I know.

I'm sorry about that.

The thing about honeysuckles too is like, it's one of those, I will smell honeysuckle and I will be taken right back.

There was this one particular meadow area in my, on our property, and I would always try to create special lands, if you will, on the property, where I would have like forts, or it would just be like my go-to spot, where I could, you know, in essence, just imagine things, you know?

And honeysuckles was such a part of that, and it will take me right back to that moment, and I will just visualize myself in those exact moments.

What else did we do?

So we did a lot of that, a lot of lightning bug contests.

So, you know, a lot of people call them fireflies.

I grew up calling them lightning bugs, and you could always tell.

It's kind of like, you know how we've had such a great spring?

We had such a great spring, this spring where everything was just in full bloom.

We didn't have a late frost.

Everything was just vibrant and...

It was perfect.

Unbelievable.

I have a feeling that our summer is going to be fucking batshit bananas.

Cool.

There are summers where lightning bugs will...

It's almost like cicadas where they just are dormant.

They're like, boop, boop.

They're just there.

And then I remember summers where you look out and it is on...

It's just light everywhere you can see.

It's like the most magical thing.

It's like those bioluminescence kind of thing, right?

Like in the field.

And I just remember, I would go out and be like...

It's also my favorite part of child because we talked about this in the other episode.

That's when I knew my birthday was coming.

My birthday was coming, I know, which I just was thinking about.

And somebody was like, I just saw my first lightning bug.

And I was like, you fucking didn't because it's not close to Krystyn's birthday.

Lies, lies, all lies.

But I do feel like they're going to be earlier this year than they have been in years past, just because I felt like everything bloomed earlier this year.

Like my rhododendron is already done.

And my rhododendron...

Same, right here out the window.

Done.

And then the other thing that we would do is we always went to this really special small island off the coast of Rhode Island called Block Island.

Oh, yeah, the ferry to Block Island.

Mm-hmm.

And we would go for two weeks.

My mom grew up going there, and so we would rent this...

You want to talk about working on metaphysical gifts as a child?

We would rent this house.

It was like turn of the century.

It had no heat.

It had no air conditioning.

It did have running water.

Everything was super old and wood and raw, almost.

And it had so many bedrooms, and it had this back stairwell.

And I mean, I just remember as a child, different rooms possess different energy.

And I like vividly remember, I couldn't go anywhere in that house at night.

It used to freak me the fuck out.

But I also loved the house so much.

Like it had so much just history, I guess.

I just remember just loving that house.

Just different rooms in the house did not resonate with me, probably for obvious reasons now that I did not explore as a child.

But I mean, it was, we just loved Black Island so much.

And so some of the things we would do there is they would have blackberries, wild blackberries.

And we would go out foraging, and they were like big, not these teeny tiny little things, like giant ones, right?

And we would pick and pick and pick.

And then we would sell them, because Black Island is so small, that people would take day trips with their bikes and just bike the whole island in a day.

It wasn't very big.

And we would just sell baggies of blackberries.

And we would do lemonade.

And I remember one summer we ran out of cups, so I just started reusing cups.

Oh, you want to, okay, here.

Three other people drank out of this, but here you go.

I bet you somewhere, somebody still has a story about a little girl that sold them lemonade.

That someone drank out of.

I love that though, that nostalgia.

I feel like that's such an important part of summer.

I know not everybody has those experiences or those memories, but I feel like even if you had a really shit childhood, that you have some piece of nostalgia from summer, whether it's a smell or like the feeling of summer rain.

Oh man, I love it so much.

I love that it's raining right now.

We're talking about this too.

I know, because it is.

It's a good summer rain.

Block Island also had its own energy.

You know, it was like you said, like taking the ferry over.

There was just a lot of things looking back that were very much rooted in tradition.

Like, I just loved that ferry ride.

You know, it was like the, the offense.

The other thing that I find interesting about vacations now as an adult when you actually fucking need a vacation from life and work and all the things where you can just fully decompress is as a child, you're not really decompressing from anything.

Like you don't have, well, you shouldn't have a ton of stress in your life, right?

Like you're a child.

You should be living your childhood.

And so I just remember that feeling though, that same excited feeling that you get when you're like, vacation, like so many things are greater gonna happen.

You know, like Block Island had an ice cream place.

It was called the ice cream place and they had bubblegum ice cream and I fucking loved it.

You know, there's very, very, I mean, it just, yeah, the whole thing brings me right back.

And I haven't been back to Block Island in decades.

I was just going to say, can we go?

Yes.

Yeah.

We should go together and rent that house and take our kids.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that house is gone.

So that house, when I say, I would be shocked if that house was still there.

Like that house was definitely not to code on much.

And it sat at the top of this hill.

Like I just, I'll have to get pictures.

When we publish this podcast, I'll have some pictures for our reel.

We'll do some Block Island reel pics.

But yeah, I would love to go Black Island.

I want my children to experience Block Island.

I've heard though, it's like super duper expensive now.

It is, and it takes forever to get there because of traffic now.

So many people want to go.

Which sucks.

Because back in the day, it used to be considered the armpit, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

First of all, I never even know there were the other islands.

I just thought it was Block Island.

I was like, oh, it's such a special island.

It has two lighthouses.

Like, there's a lot of cool history there.

But yeah, I've heard that it's just...

It's ridiculous now.

Yeah, we were going to go...

We were going to go on one trip that we were, like, cruising through New England.

I just wanted to take Evie to it.

But there was no way to fit it in because it was going to take far too long.

Yeah.

Oh, bless it all.

So, yeah, so that kind of, you know, wraps up my childhood memories, which, you know, for me, my biggest thing moving in with summer is I'm not a huge camp person where, like, my kids have to be...

They have to go to a camp.

They have to have something to do.

They have to have all their time, you know, taken up by an activity.

I'm a firm believer in this.

These are, like, formidable years where it's like boredom is okay.

Right.

Previous to Evie getting in to swim, she did not really do camps and stuff.

I mean, now she has, you know, this summer she'll have two practices a day, and she is doing a volleyball camp.

And one thing she's really excited for, actually, is Junior Beach Patrol at the beach.

So that's my childhood memory.

My dad was Ocean City Beach Patrol, and so that's just, that was just a part of what we would do.

And I remember going with my grandparents for a week every year.

It would just be the three of us.

And that was always really special and fun.

So...

Did they live on the beach?

No, they were in Towson at that point.

So, and they're the ones that had retired to Hawaii and then moved back.

So they're, you know, they were travel people.

Did you guys do anything every year activity-wise or restaurant-wise or...?

Yeah, there was the place that we stayed actually had this huge buffet, and it was like a...

I think they called it...

I think it was called the Champagne Room or something.

Back to champagne!

Oh, my God.

The Champagne Room?

I feel like it was like the Champagne Ballroom or something like that.

And...

Because you know what the Champagne Room is.

Me and my grandparents.

Let's go into the Champagne Room.

It's our beach tradition.

Man, it explains a lot.

So...

And so I remember always doing that buffet with them, and they loved it so much.

Mm-hmm.

So other than that, it was really just eating crabs, eating crabs with them all the time.

I mean...

Blue crabs.

Yeah.

Maryland steamed blue crabs.

Growing up in Maryland, how we have barbecues in Pittsburgh and everybody has hamburgers and hot dogs and whatever, they were crab oils.

Yeah.

In Maryland.

Yeah.

Oh, I know.

We would do them too.

Yeah.

Just roll out the brown paper.

Right.

Well, and our neighbor had like giant barrels and they would just start a fire and cook them in these giant barrels that I'm pretty sure he got from the car dealership where he works.

I'll say if that was, but...

Yeah.

It was so great.

I used to remember as a kid, I would wash the Old Bay off of them because my dad would always get them already seasoned and Old Bay was like too spicy for me.

And plus, you know, you'd cut, you'd get like those little cuts all over your fingers and then Old Bay would get at them and you'd be like...

Yeah.

No, I wouldn't wash them.

I remember doing that.

Yeah.

Evie loves them now.

I'm a big crab.

It took a couple years.

She liked them when she was real little, and then she went through a phase where she didn't like them.

And now she's like all in on them.

Yeah, I'm a big...

I mean, they're like my number one favorite food.

Yeah, them and raw oysters.

One and two.

Yeah.

Oysters though, you can go all over the place with that.

East Coast, West Coast.

Yeah, they're all different.

Yeah, they're so all different.

They're so all different.

They're so delicious.

There's actually a place on the West Coast, I think it's like north of San Francisco, that I really...

It's an oyster shack.

It's like right on the water, and they raise their own oysters right there, and they serve cold beer and oysters, raw oysters.

Yes, please.

Yes, please.

We're big fans.

If you're in Pittsburgh and you love raw oysters, we are a big fan of Muddy Waters.

Which I've never been to.

It's so good.

And they have their own oyster farm as well.

It's in the Chesapeake.

Things that you are going to do with your kids and Isla's bucket list.

Well, Isla, believe it or not, goes to school year round.

That does not stop.

She needs, she's just at that point where she needs constant learning and someone else to deal with her behavior.

No, she's actually, she's not a bad kid.

She's just a very free-spirited, strong-willed child.

So with M1 and Graham, to your point about camps, we do have a couple wrestling or soccer camps that we try to do.

I think they're going to get jacked up this year though, because we have the beach trip, and then we're actually taking a trip to Colorado.

We're calling it the summer of surprises, right?

So going back to, for me, I think it's really important that children have time to be bored, because they have to figure out at this age, my kids are eight and 10, like what the fuck makes them tick?

What interests them?

Is it drawing?

Is it Legos?

Is it painting?

Is it Barbies?

Is it whatever it is, right?

I remember I played Barbies for a long time, up until I was probably, I want to say a freshman in high school.

I just loved the imagination part of creating a different world and dressing and having a home and all the things, but back to my kids in summer.

So I want to, we have fantastic parks around us.

We don't have any national parks, but we have some really, really great parks in Western Pennsylvania.

And so geocaching sounds really interesting.

You know, doing scavenger hunts, but not where it's like a competition against each other, but really a scavenger hunt as a family.

I love that.

You know, where we're like, okay, so we have this list.

We printed it off the internet.

We have to find all these different things, taking the kids to go in the streams and find crayfish.

You know, like I, you know, Emeline just now started being cool with worms.

It took a minute.

It's like, oh my God, whatever.

Like just getting one with nature kind of deal.

Naturally, the pool and water play is a big thing.

We have a trampoline.

We have this cool thing that is a trampoline sprinkler.

So that's a lot of fun.

The kids like to do that.

And I think water play, when it's hot and sticky, nothing beats it, you know?

Nothing beats jumping into some body of water when you're hot after you've had the sun.

Right.

There's those stairs in the North Shore too.

Yes.

They're really awesome, a lot of kids like to go play on those.

Little fountain stairs.

Yeah.

We don't have anybody that owns a boat, but that always is a good time too.

If you can get out on the water on a boat, that's always fun.

And...

Of the summer of surprises idea.

Yeah, so we came up with that just because I think it's something for the kids to be excited about.

We're also going to a Liverpool soccer game.

Are you going to the one that's coming to Pittsburgh?

Yeah.

Oh, that's exciting.

Yep, yep.

We bought tickets.

What's the date?

I think we were thinking about going, but I think...

It's the 26th of July.

And that's why we're out of town.

Yeah, I just know that because I have that game on a Friday, and then I'm going to a concert, also downtown, on the Saturday to see...

What is it?

Def Leppard, Steve Miller Band, Journey.

I don't know who else is coming, but...

Yeah, I feel like there's another name.

So I'm like, oh my God, that weekend is going to be pretty tough.

But they don't know about that either.

And I struggle personally with teaching my kids how to have gratitude and how to be thankful for what we have and what we can do.

And it is about the experience.

It's not about the materialistic bullshit that they think is so important and that they need and blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.

I'd much rather create experiences and have memories to hold on to.

So I'm pretty pumped about Colorado.

I've never been to Colorado.

And so we are flying into Denver and going to Fort Collins for a week.

So I am pretty pumped about what that holds.

And naturally Colorado is big with the outdoors.

So I just like being outdoors.

I really do.

I do have to have some mystical, mystical remedies when it comes to not being eaten alive because I have very sweet skin.

So I tend to just be mindful of that.

I, you know, I'll cover up or use essential oils, that kind of deal at night.

We were camping this past weekend.

Oh, yeah.

And I have a bottle.

It's probably six years old that you gave me.

Yes.

Of bug spray and thieves.

It's like the very end of it.

I was using it this weekend.

And was it still?

Yeah, I didn't, naturally, I didn't start using it until after I started getting eaten.

Right.

So, but I think it did a pretty good job after that.

What about you?

Talk to us about what you got on your list.

We are also planning a Colorado trip, although I don't think it's going to happen this summer.

I'm hoping that next, I don't know, we'll see.

We'll see what happens.

The schedule is kind of all over the place at this point.

We get, Evie, Evie gets a break from, because she swims like 11 month, right, season.

They do.

At the same time that Charlie's like full in for band camp.

So the schedules don't naturally align.

We are going to go to the beach for a week, which is always exciting.

And we have camping trips.

You know, we got a camper a couple of years ago.

And so we'll have, I think we have two camp trips on the list.

So we'll just be out in nature and we'll be up on the farm and, you know, just having fun.

Yeah.

But back to your, you were talking about water play.

I personally, like water, even though I'm an air sign, I am like all about the water.

Yep.

I always have been.

So if you're out playing with your kids, you can really do like an easy water ritual where you just create like a little altar outside, which is just like a tree stump, right?

And have your kids gather pine cones or flowers or anything that they find to like kind of decorate it and get a bowl of water and place it on there.

And you can have your kids write their wishes down in the water and just float them in the water.

And it's just like a really good way to kind of introduce that bit of mysticism into their childhood, right?

It's like a wishing well.

Yeah, exactly.

Or like a lantern, you know how they float in different cultures?

They'll put intentions and wishes out on boats.

Right.

And then they'll float them down.

Yeah.

I get a little leery of like the lanterns in the sky because I know there's...

I think there's ethically, there's ones that are ethically done well, and then there's like really cheap shitty ones that are from China.

Well, I don't know where they're from, but I know there's ones that cause, you know, can like really wreak some havoc and environmental damage.

Yeah.

You have to be mindful.

Right.

Yeah, for sure.

I think to that point, one of the things that I want to do this summer is be more intentional with the kids when it comes to what they want.

Right.

Because it's a lot of, especially Graham.

Mom, what are we doing when we get home?

Mom, what are we doing this weekend?

And it's, dude, I don't have to plan your life.

You can plan your life.

I know you're eight going on nine, but what do you want to do?

What would you like to see happen?

We kind of started talking about, because they know we're calling it the summer of surprises.

So we're like, what would you like to do, guys?

What surprises would you like to see?

And a lot of it is the easy, I want to go to a water park and it's, oh God, how about a natural water park?

It's called a stream.

It's called a creek in Western PA.

We can go down them there waterfalls.

There are some places that you can go like naturally, like body whitewater rafting.

Ohio Powell has natural water slides.

They do, okay.

They do.

They can be treacherous though.

Yeah, no, you have to be.

I mean, definitely have gotten bruised up there.

Yes, yeah, I think they're a little too young still for that.

But yeah, I just, for us, I think that I will do some of those new rituals where it's, you know, setting intentions and putting things out there that they want to, they want to see happen in their lives and starting that process now with them.

Right, because I mean, right now you guys are all, they're all at an age where they're going to be doing things together.

But here in a couple of years, you know, I feel like that's really going to change with Emmy in middle school and then Graham coming up in the middle school.

Yeah, and I want them to be mindful of energy.

You know, and how to feel that and how to cultivate that.

Because especially with her moving into middle school, and we've started to have some of these conversations where I'm like, surround yourself with people that make you feel good, and they bring out the best in you, and they love you.

There's not like a deep sense of jealousy.

There's always going to be jealousy at this age because they're navigating that, right?

Even Emmy will walk through that sometimes where she's like, well, blabity-blah has this, and you know, blah, and I'm like, I get it.

But like, what about that is, you know, like exploring that with her and having those conversations?

So I really want them to get a sense of what energy feels like and how to surround ourselves with good people.

And because next year is a transition year for us, she is moving into middle school.

Our middle school is sixth, seventh and eighth.

And I would be foolish to say I'm not a little apprehensive as to some of those things that are going to come out of it.

I think it's going to be challenging and tough at times, but also beautiful and magical and wonderful too.

And so I also, you know, I want her to have some playdates and sleepovers and the stars, you know.

We just had this incredible experience and gift where the Aurora Borealis actually made its way down, this far down into Western Pennsylvania, which is like super, super, super rare.

It has never happened in my lifetime.

No, I mean, I follow the Aurora, right?

Like storm chasing, right?

Me and my weird things.

And I've always been like the forecast, so it's going to be high, this, whatever.

It never comes, it never happens.

Maybe if you live in like the UP of Michigan or Minnesota or something, you'll get it.

I know.

So I'm excited for what magic's going to give, you know, what magic's going to come this summer from Mother Nature, whether it's going to be a meteor shower or, you know, doing the stargazing.

And there is nothing more incredible.

Now we live where there's a lot of light, so it still hinders it, but there's nothing more incredible than being in a place where you can truly see the stars.

It's fucking amazing.

Yeah, it's so beautiful.

I love it.

We are big into stargazing.

We always make it up to Marine State Park to look at the stars, usually because I want to take some photos or something, but we're also big kayakers.

Yeah, you are.

And full moon kayaking is one of my favorite things ever.

LL.

Bean actually has a thing where they have a discovery school, and you can pay to go on a full moon kayak if you want to do that.

So that's a thing.

If you're not familiar with the lake, because there is a big reservoir there, if you're not familiar with whatever body of water you're going into, I really don't recommend it.

I mean, I think that's just a good phrase to say.

Right.

Also goes for the big pool, aka the ocean.

If you don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Respect it.

Yeah, the ocean can be a treacherous body right there, especially with the undertow and everything like that.

Charlie and I took our kayaks, which we have flat water kayaks, right?

And we took our kayaks in the ocean, in the Atlantic Ocean, in Maine.

It was almost real bad.

Because we...

Do you wear life vests?

Yeah, but we were trying to come back in.

I didn't pay attention.

This is my fault.

Because typically, I'm pretty good at paying attention to the tides.

And I did not.

So we were trying to come back in when the tide was going out.

I could just see the panic on Charlie's face.

I'll send you a picture that we can share on our Instagram page of what our view was, how far we were from land.

And no matter how hard we would battle, it was like we weren't going anywhere.

Oh, my God.

That is such a shitty feeling.

Yeah, it was a real shitty feeling.

But we made it back eventually.

Bless it all.

We were so exhausted.

Yeah.

So respect your body of water that you're in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when we went to the Grand Cayman, because there is a bioluminescence bay.

Oh, my God.

I want to see that so badly.

And we had headlamps on, right?

So we get out there.

It's this tiny ass bay.

We paddled from our home that we were staying in around, because we were right where it was.

That was fun.

Minus, I attract all things, right?

So the fish, no one was fucking with anybody else's kayak, except mine and my girlfriend, Carrie, was with me.

And these fish, they just, there's like flying fish.

Like they just kept flying up, and I was like, you know, whatever.

So we get to the bay, we all have headlamps on, and I was like, I don't think it's working.

I don't see anything, whatever.

And Jeff was like, turn off your headlamps.

And I was like, okay.

And we put our paddles in, and I was like, whoa.

I mean, I felt like I was high.

And I was like, and I was like waving my hand, and I was like, like my skin was moving.

I mean, it was, so we were putting like our hands in the water.

Naturally, you can get in if you so dare, but I was like, there is no way Rachael's getting in and having to try to get back into a kayak.

Have you ever seen Jaws at night, like the part at night?

No.

Yeah, you're not supposed to get in the ocean at night.

Well, this was like a bay.

So I wasn't really afraid that there would be like a shark per se, but there are other fish.

I just don't, I like seeing what's swimming next to me kind of deal.

Okay, I don't like, I don't like.

I don't think you do want to see what's swimming next to you.

Well, I do.

I'm like fully on, otherwise I'm just not getting in the water.

But it was one of the coolest experiences.

I loved it so much.

We had so much fun kayaking.

It was, it was just, kayaking is so great.

It's so great.

It is, I love it.

We also disc golf.

So if you guys are not and you want to kind of do something.

You got to explain what disc golf is.

So disc golf is basically like golfing with frisbees, right?

There's special discs that you use to play the game.

And we are very blessed in Western Pennsylvania to have a lot of courses and a lot of really beautiful courses.

I do believe there is geocaching on a couple of them as well.

You can maybe combine the two.

I have also never geocached.

So I actually don't know.

I don't know too much about it.

I know there's maps that you, that you follow or apps.

And there's like different types of geocaching.

Yeah, I also don't know that much about it.

But basically, it's hiking through the woods and you're throwing a disc and each hole has a, has a par, right?

And there's a metal basket with chains at the end of it.

And it's a lot of fun.

You get a good hike in, you get to see some nature.

I mean, we could share some of our favorite courses too on our Instagram page.

Have you ever had a run in with wild animals on any of your hikes?

I have encountered like the obvious like snakes and things like that.

I've seen some foxes, things like that, but not really anything too crazy.

Although I will say last, maybe two summers ago, a girlfriend and I were in Jackson Hole.

And we went on a hike without bear spray.

And we got about halfway down this trail, and we were like, oh, God, we weren't intending the hike.

It just kind of happened that we ended up finding this trail.

And we were like, man, this is really like a terrible idea.

And so we headed back because there's a lot of grizzly bears out there.

Yeah.

And you always see these people not respecting wildlife out there.

There are fences and signs for a reason.

Like I love, I honestly, I love seeing these people try to get a selfie with a buffalo.

I know.

And then it charges them and they're like, what the hell?

It's dude, no, this is their home.

Respect.

If you are looking for an amazing place to go with your family this summer, I highly, highly, highly recommend Jackson Hole.

I can't wait.

Yes.

It's fucking incredible.

Yeah.

We did a rafting trip, trip down the Snake River.

I mean, absolutely the coolest shit ever.

And then I went down to Salt Lake and we did, we like snorkeled and swam and you can scuba dive in a crater.

Fascinating.

It was super cool.

There's so much cool shit to see out west.

Go out west.

Also respect mother nature while you're there.

And just nature in general.

Yeah.

But I mean, if you're staying local, there's so much stuff that you can do, right?

Whether it's like in your backyard or finding a park that's nearby, or we've always, we're a very musical family, right?

Yep.

We keep talking about doing like backyard jam band sessions with all the musicians we know or all the kids.

Yeah.

Because a lot of the kids in our circle are into music.

Yeah, that sounds terrible.

Terrible?

I mean, it sounds like fun.

It probably will sound fairly terrible, but you know.

I don't know how much our neighbors are going to like it.

I think that is such a good message for this podcast in this episode is if you find yourself being bored as a however old you are person, just look inwards and figure out what makes you interested and what you're interested in and then go do that.

And maybe it is an inner child activity that you haven't done since you were seven or eight or nine.

And I just encourage you to explore that because yeah, why?

Why not?

Or build a fort.

Yeah, our kids love to build forts.

I was talking to one of my students yesterday and she is just around 30, right?

And she was a student of mine when she was younger, like all through elementary school, middle and high school.

And then she came back to me now as an adult to take lessons again.

And she said she doesn't have any kids.

And so she was talking about what she did this weekend.

And she was like, Oh, I read my book for about 10 hours on Sunday.

I was like, Oh my God, that sounds amazing.

But I can't even imagine a life where I have the time to read for 10 hours.

I know.

What does that even look like?

I don't know.

But if you have that kind of life, go read for 10 hours.

I mean, outside.

In a hammock.

Next to a stream.

Maybe with a campfire and some marshmallows.

Just keep whatever you're going to do, keep it fun and lighthearted.

Right?

To your point earlier about not wanting to inundate our kids with stuff, just think about less pressure.

Less pressure.

Just have fun with your kids.

Have fun with yourself.

Have fun with your inner child.

Yep.

And if you're wondering, yes, we do have technology and we very much limit it.

They get a little bit more time over the summer than they do.

The other thing that I let my kids do is sleep in.

And this could be because I wasn't like, I was always my nickname growing up with Sleeping Beauty because I just loved to sleep.

Probably because I was having an incredible subconscious experience seeing that I am the way I am.

But I always let my kids just wake up when they want to wake up.

And we do have a routine in place.

It's not like I'm just like, it's a free for all.

They do have responsibilities and they do have things they have to take care of.

And when they meet those responsibilities, then they are gifted technology for an hour.

And they can choose to use that whenever they want.

And then after that, that's when it's figured out.

Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely a proponent of making sure that you have your shit done before you do that.

I'm also trying to really find a way to not weaponize technology and feeling like it's just always this thing that's taken away.

But at the same time, we do see how it makes our kids zombies, right?

So I actually go the other way when summer comes.

And I would say I limit technology even more.

And not so much that I'm limiting it and saying you can't have it, but in the way where I'm like, you're going to go to the pool, we're going to do all these things.

She has all these things that she wants to do anyway.

So most days, the screen just doesn't even factor.

We go months without ever turning on our TV in this house.

So I don't know.

I almost say she probably gets a little bit more screen time during the year than she does during the summer.

But we also just like kind of run a little bit different schedule.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and it's hard to, you know, we haven't really shared a whole lot, but Evie does share houses.

So, yes, you know, our situation is a little bit different where I'm really trying to pack as much in to five weeks in the summer, essentially.

And, you know, sitting on a screen just doesn't really factor in to that for me.

No, no.

The memories will not be made there.

Right.

Oh, you know what it made me think of this past weekend?

We were at a soccer tournament and, you know, you're limited to what's on that TV and, you know, everybody watching the same thing.

Oh, yeah.

The Jetsons.

Oh my God, we just had a whole conversation about the Jetsons this weekend with Evie.

Shut the fuck up.

Yeah, we watched two episodes of the Jetsons, his broil Roy.

And I was like, Oh my God, I love this cartoon so much.

And Jeff and I, we were...

The intro does not age well, though.

Do you notice that he just drops his wife off at the shopping center?

Yes.

With the money?

Yes.

No, there was a couple things.

Fuck you, George.

Well, there was a couple times during that episode where I also was having that same thought.

George?

No.

We were talking about...

I don't even remember how it came up now.

I'll have to ask Charlie if he remembers why we started talking about The Jetsons.

That's crazy that you were talking about it and we watched it.

Right.

Because we were talking about what things were actually happening right now that they talked about, right?

Right.

In The Jetsons.

And a lot of us, oh, they had watches where they could video message their family and, you know, all the things.

But the one thing that they don't talk about in The Jetsons is why do they live in a vertical city?

What does that girl look like?

I'd like to know.

Yeah.

Did they destroy it?

I know the one episode we were watching was their maid was engaged.

Rosie?

Rosie was engaged to be married, but her robot boyfriend was malfunctioning.

A robot fiance and they had to go and try on wedding dresses.

Where does one go to buy a wedding dress for a robot?

In The Jetsons, it's the same store that you would buy a wedding dress.

They kept it real simple.

They did not make it real crazy, but it was a blast from the past.

It hit that nostalgia string right there.

I was like, The Jetsons!

Oh my God!

And the kids were like, What?

I was like, We have to watch this.

We can't watch anything else.

Yeah, I actually pulled the intro up to show it's Evie, because I was like, You have to see this.

Yeah, yeah.

That's so wild.

I love that.

Well, there's got to be a sign there.

Yeah.

There's got to be a sign there for us.

About why we were both traveling in different states this weekend.

And we were both vibing on The Jetsons.

Weird, right?

This is the same conversation that I had with Krystyn this morning, where I was like, I just had this crazy dream that someone who's supposed to help me, help us, with some of our stuff, is Mark Cuban.

I did talk on the way up here.

I was having a conversation with my spirit guides and my angels.

And I was like, you guys got to give me more about this.

How am I supposed to interact with Mark Cuban?

On what level?

Am I just supposed to randomly reach out to Mark Cuban?

Hey, Mark.

Maybe he'll pop up in your dreams.

Maybe there's some actual projection happening.

I don't know.

And Mark Cuban is going to come in and shark tank your dreams.

I don't know.

I have to think about this because there's more to it.

So I don't know.

There's just more to it.

So there's more to this.

Mark Cuban.

He's a great spice.

He's like a Cuban with some cumin.

Maybe it's not him specifically.

That's what I said to him.

But something that is attached to him somehow.

I asked my spirit guides.

I was like, you got to show me a commercial, an article, a song.

You got to give me more as to the correlation here because his name and him as a person is, I mean, what?

Right.

I think we're going to wrap it up, friends.

We love you so much.

I hope you get out and play with your kids and that you don't just survive the summer, but you thrive this summer.

Yeah.

I was going to say thanks for listening.

And share this with 11 people that you haven't shared it with yet.

Or just one.

One or 11.

Or 111.

Or 1,111.

The person that shares that with that many people.

I don't know what I'll do, but it'll be very nice.

I'll give you a...

It might involve a champagne room.

Oh, we don't know.

A champagne bucket.

Make sure you have that fuck it list ready to go.