Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 225 | recapping the paris olympics from paris

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

We’re baaaaaack (from Paris that is!) We took our three kids to the Olympic Games and made a month-long trip out of it where we adventured through France, London and Italy. It was incredible in so many ways and we’re beyond thankful for our time as a family but if you’re a parent out there you know that traveling anywhere with three kids can bring a whole different set of challenges. Overall, our trip was amazing and we wanted to spend this episode answering some of the questions you had for us! We hope you enjoy :)  Love you guys, Shawn and Andrew Follow our podcast Instagram  ▶ https://www.instagram.com/couplethingspod/?hl=en Subscribe to our newsletter  ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? It's Sean and Andrew from Paris. Welcome back to a couple things. I feel like I don't sound great, but hopefully I'm getting better. We all got hit with a cold. You might not sound great, but let me tell you, you look great. No, I don't. But thanks. You look at it.

I look like I got hit by a bus. That is not true. Yeah. Sean has gone through the gauntlet. Okay, we want to do this special episode before we dig into all the fine nuances. Because... What? We do.

What? This is a special episode. And we want to... What's so special? That we're in Paris and we're not in a normal studio. I was going to say, before we give them the nitty-gritty details of what your last two weeks of look like here in Paris. We are in Paris. We've been here for a while.

This is our little villa. And it's been delightful. It's been a lot of adventure. It's been a lot of chaos. And it's been a lot of fun. It has been a lot of fun. It has been massive core memories, start to finish, because we started in London. Should we just take it to the very beginning?

Yes. Let's rewind the clock to Wednesday, July 25th. I don't know what day it is. We left Nashville at 9 p.m. on Wednesday night. Tuesday night. Okay. I believe you. Yeah, it was a Tuesday. Great.

We got the kids all packed up. We had so many bags. I think we had eight check bags. Two strollers, a pack-and-play, because we're gone for four weeks. Four and a half weeks? Three weeks in Europe, and then Sean has a bunch of media stuff in New York City. So it's like four weeks total. And so because our two months leading up to this and the month after is insane, you might be asking, why did we bring the kids?

Yes. So let's start there. Okay, so back in 2016, I worked with Yahoo Sports as an on-site analyst covering gymnastics. Then, fast forward, I was going to go to Tokyo and be an analyst for them as well, but COVID happened. And then 2021, I was supposed to go as well, but then we had JET, which was amazing, the greatest gift ever. And by the way, Sean, the work she does with Yahoo doing all these debriefs of the competition does such a good job. Thank you. It's so much fun.

I love listening. Because you never talk about gymnastics, hardly ever. Yeah. But go on. It's a lot of fun. I absolutely adore the team. I love working with them. But we got offered to come back and do the analytical work again.

And I was like, absolutely. We just have to figure out logistics. So something else that Andrew has gotten to experience firsthand. is on top of working as an analyst as a retired Olympian, there are so many things that go on during the Olympics. Sponsor events, donor events, charity events, alumni things, viewing parties, paid opportunities, things to work at, things to give speeches for.

Then there's a bunch of friends in town to come watch it, and so it's like hosting them coordinating me. I haven't seen in like eight years. And then you layer on top of that that you're in a new city, you probably want to see some sites. So then it's like doing tourist activities like here in Paris, doing the Eiffel Tower, Riverboat Cruise, Versailles, things like this. So there's a lot.

Rewinding, I desperately wanted to say yes to Yahoo Sports because I love working with them. So Andrew and I had the conversation, is there a world in which we could make this work? The Olympics are two and a half weeks. It would probably be a three-week commitment that's way too long for me to be away from the kids and Andrew because I'm a clinger um so I was like okay what would it look like for us to go and then Andrew and I together started getting all

of these opportunities for work for promotional um speeches and events and dinners and something with Angel City like all of these things so he said okay let's combine all of our work let's put together a schedule and let's take our kids and our family and actually make it an extended trip and do a bunch of fun things, but we can't be away from our family that long. And we had to bring in-laws. My mother came because it is a work trip, doubled as a vacation.

Yeah. And so Sean and I would have to dip out for like an hour or two at a time. And Sean would have to leave really more than I did, but then we obviously need help with the kids for when we were gone. So there was like a lot of logistics like that. That Sean, to her credit,

you did all the legwork our team did all the legwork yeah actually this was like weeks and months in the in the making yeah coordinating the schedules there's a bunch of deliverables places we need to be um our team put together the most beautiful itinerary of all of these things put together lexie shout out to you shout out day by day it would have intertwined all of our responsibilities activities and commitment so our work commitments how to get there the travel how to get back how to then take the family to the Eiffel Tower and where the tickets were with each day showed like what my deliverables our deliverables what our work was our contacts everything because it was it was chaos do you think they paid off all that work yeah I did too it was great could you imagine

when I when we arrived here I was like I don't know which way this guy like which way is up let alone what we have going on today there's no way we could have done it without that. Yeah. So that's why we brought the kids because it was such a long time and also I remember going to the Olympics when I was five years old and Atlanta they were being hosted and it was like a core memory. I don't know if our kids are old enough to even have memories but for us. Drew a thousand percent has core memories already. She still talks about the trapezoid. Yeah from Memphis. And the RV. Yeah. But really it's it is more work bringing kids. No doubt about it. It is. It is. But also we have had precious time with each of them and I've had precious time with all of them together

and then individually as well and you can't trade that for the world you know and I had this conversation after we had bear I found myself getting ready for the summer the kids Drew and Jett were in school or you know daycare day camp mom's day out whatever you call it um and I was trying to figure out what our summer was going to look like so in especially in Nashville, summer camps fill up really, really fast. And so I was trying to plan out what camps they're going to do. And Andrew and I kind of sat down. We had this conversation.

We're like, how about starting now at such a young age, how about we get rid of summer camps? How about we get rid of trying to find a summer nanny? How about we get rid of like trying to desperately fill summertime so that we can work and our kids can have something to do? And let's make a pact that every summer we're just going to go travel. and so this was like the first year we're trying to be intentional with building family culture we've lightly touched on this previously hopefully we'll share more on this in the future because it means a lot to us and it's been fun so we figure summer trips would be an integral part of that

and just like you know the kids will have memories but it really is a way for us to get to know the kids in a different way maybe that's selfish maybe it's not I don't know yeah but this one has been a home run. Yes. Okay, we should go through the trip now. Okay. So, what? Can I set the scene of what I've learned from the Olympics from a grant scheme? Because you have all your logistics. Okay, go. Here's what you kind of understand on the TV when they zoom me around different parts of the city, but you don't really fully understand it until you're there. Because I've had so many of my friends text me about, oh my gosh, did you see the USA men's basketball? Like, that was crazy. Because they just assume you're at the Olympics, you're fully immersed in watching all of the different events.

That's not the case at all. I try to tell you about this. I'm learning a ton. This is my first Olympics since 1996 when I was five years ago. And he's like, we're going to go to all of the events. I was like... First of all, the tickets are like usually several hundred dollars. Minimum.

Second of all, you maybe can go to two events a day. I don't know. Especially with kids, it slows you down. Our pace has been slowed down drastically with kids. But you're like, you have to transport yourself there, go, watch, come back. It's like a whole ordeal. so you kind of ultimately end up watching less of the Olympics more specific events our strategy of the events that we go to has been let's choose kind of the random ones we'll probably never see

again so we've seen BMX got dressage tickets we went to we were in the middle of the US not the US the cycling course yep we went to men soccer did I say that no a lot of people I forgot about men soccer a lot of people think the Olympics are like the Super Bowl where you have a stadium and you have activities around it and kind of you can go there and get the vibe the Olympics in person it's really hard to get the vibe because they take over an entire city or an entire country or like regions to spread out so many events over the course of three weeks that logistically you're never like seeing how do I word this you're never seeing like the Olympics as a whole you're saying like oh that venue looks like there's a game going on and then you

drive 30 minutes you're like oh wait there's another thing the traffic is getting crazy there must be something else like but you don't know one day they i think they had over 30 events yeah one day and it's like so but you don't feel that in the city yeah it's hard to even describe because it's there's just so much going on and it really is almost like a citywide carnival where there's just like random things that you kind of come across yeah and then we had this revelation of all the logistics that it takes, because you think about the artistic inclusion of the opening

ceremonies, you have the stadium buildup of capacity for the bleachers, then the traffic control, then you have the actual apparatuses that each event use. Like, you're talking about high-level competition, so you have to build the BMX track and the ramps and all this stuff. Then you have

the security side of things, which is event security, then you have the Army security of it. Then you have all the governing bodies, the housing, the food. But, anyway, it really is like, it's cool because you, obviously we still don't know all the things, but, like, you get a little peek behind the curtain when you're actually there. Yes. So that's what I've been tuned into.

Does it make sense now, everything I was trying to tell you? It's a behemoth of an event. Andrew's my favorite thing that you kept trying to say with credentials was like, oh, we'll just figure it out. I'll get in. And I was like, I don't think you understand. It's a Super Bowl, like 15 times a day. For three weeks straight. Yeah.

No. Okay. Carry on. Anyways, we fly out Tuesday night, packed all the kids up. It was so cute. They arrived at the airport in their jammies, like with their teeth brushed and their slippers and their blankets. I got them eye masks. We tried traveling with like the blow up beds.

We got like the seats. We got an aisle with a bassinet on it. Oh my gosh. The older kids did wonderful job. They're used to flying. They slept probably, it was almost a nine-hour flight. I think they slept probably six hours, five hours, which is pretty good. Bear was the one that we thought was going to be the easy one.

He decided to cut teeth, literally the night before, and he was just not in a good space. And this bassinet literally held a hand towel, and that was about it. It was a box. This kid is, I think he has four new teeth since we left the United States. He's tried new food. like real food is he's grown probably three inches so he's going through a lot the kid's a champ a lot and he's sick so we'll get to that point but just we have flown a lot with our children a lot we've never had a flight like this it was difficult it was humbling we were those people

that had the baby that was screaming at the top of their lungs and there was nothing you could do to calm him down. But there was one time, one time, where I finally got him to go to sleep. And the flight attendant came over and said, excuse me, ma'am, I need to put a seatbelt on the baby.

And I almost... Well, okay. She's right. She's right, but there was tough timing. She's tough timing. That flight attendant has heard this baby screaming for a solid hour. Here's a problem.

And as soon as it goes quiet, You say now we had to put a seatbelt on? Our problem, where we went wrong is our expectations were that since we took a 9 p.m. flight, the kids would be tired. They'd sleep the whole thing. What ended up happening is that didn't work out at all. No. They kept the cabin lights on the entire flight.

They served dinner at midnight. What are you doing? Anyway, so then we land in London. Yeah. And hit the ground running. It had a delightful day. We went straight to our hotel, which was beautiful. It was an epic hotel.

I did find this hotel because it was like, it was rated like the most family-friendly hotel in London. Not the type of families I'm used to hanging around. It was like a Michelin star. If you're like royalty or like the Duke of Edinburgh or whatever, maybe that's a family. We all literally walked in just a disaster. We got clothes hanging out. Oh, we got charged almost $10,000 for a cab.

Thank goodness the cab driver. The cab was like, sir, I think you paid too much. but we walked into this hotel after just a long day of travel looking rough and i think we all got so we took one look at this place when we were like oh yeah it was so so incredibly fancy beautiful hello so beautiful but i was like this is not a family vibe yeah not a family vibe but it was great we the room was amazing the two days we had in london were magical we went to hide park was a highlight big ben oh yeah we did a scavenger hunt around london was so much fun yeah we went um what else did buchingham palace we did the london eye you said that we did um shoot what was a

cathedral i can't even remember now saint something we slept a lot we slept for like 16 hours at first night which is how it always kind of goes the kids woke up they all woke up the first night that we went to sleep they all woke up around 11 p.m and they were like up they're like is it wake up time and we were all like no no but then they all went to sleep and ended up sleeping until almost nine yeah but what else did we do why can i remember oh we ate a bunch um we took a bunch of cabs we went to i can visualize it on a mat but i can't oh we went to hemley's toys oh yeah uh that feels like so long ago that feels like a year ago i can't even remember gosh that's crazy my That is like a psychological.

Interesting. Okay. So fast forward two days, evidently, because our memory is gone. We packed everything up. We had this awesome room, by the way. It was called a landmark hotel. It was beautiful. It would highly recommend it.

Just not maybe if you have, like, a bunch of toddlers. It was expensive. Yeah. So just that recommendation comes with that aster. Oh, okay. Anyways, we got on a train, and we took a train two hours? Yeah. four hours well it was supposed to be two hours i think it ended up being four because this was all

a part of oh this is the other interesting thing this is the trains if you're in the u.s and you heard about the trains being sabotaged we were on the trains we had no idea though it was not a big deal this was the interest like first of not that we know of it could have been a big deal i don't think anybody died i could be wrong i don't think anybody died all it you're saying big things our our train went half the speed it was supposed to yeah and then we had to make an extra stop that was it not a big deal this is the other interesting thing is the olympics really are the focal point of everyone trying to make a conversation out of something we could we could go on about that for a long time it's like there's just everyone like headlines yes you don't know that what you don't know that

there there could have been like a actual security threat and they had to like slow the trains down you don't know i'm sure there's a ton of stuff that's going on behind you're jumping to wild accusations we were on the train though the people were talking about yeah but we didn't experience it. Anyway, we got to Paris and then immediately had to split. Sean and I had to go do something at the Team USA House for Xfinity. Oh my gosh. And then we got kicked

out of the Xfinity House, and then we had to get back in, that was a whole fiasco. Wait, you can't just, you can't even brush over this. While the kids, hold on. Wait, my, I'll do Okay. You're butchering. This is going to be an eight-hour podcast. Eight hours. Yeah, carry on.

So we get off the train. Andrew and I had a work event that we had to go to at the team USA house with Xfinity so we had to put my mom our nanny and all the kids in a car and send them off to an Airbnb in Paris France where they met my brother and her and his husband wait sorry my brother and my sister-in-law who helped them check into the Airbnb who happened to be in Europe at the same exact time yes yes which is actually wild huge help they were shout out grant um so we go to the team USA house which is absolutely beautiful we're doing a work event for Xfinity, which was so awesome, but we get in there and we're still in like our train

clothes and we brought stuff to change into it. We're like, can we just go to the bathroom and change a quick? They're like, no problem. It's right through the store. And they just kind of point their way and turn around and go back. So we evidently in one second took the wrong door and we walked through the store and it was elevators and there's security guards and we're like, toilet. and he's like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and he opens the elevator and he like keeps motioning and we're like okay yeah he like usheres us into the elevator pushes the button for us and like closes the and we even said again we're like toilet he's like yeah yeah yeah yeah and so like shuts us into this elevator we go down to the bottom floor we come out there's more security guards and we're like

toilet and so she like shows us to where to go we get changed we come out go back to the elevator because we have to go back up to work. And they're like, no, no, no, no. They're like, you have to leave. We're like, uh, no. They're like, you shouldn't be here. I was like, I don't want to be here. I want to be upstairs.

Let us go. Yeah. So, I don't know why that felt necessary to tell that story. We got kicked out. We were sitting on the street for like 20 minutes while Xfinity people were desperately trying to find us. We're already late because the train was delayed. They're like, I don't understand.

Anyways, so we did our work event. We made it back to. The Airbnb, which is absolutely beautiful. I found out a three-story walk-up, which has not been as bad a problem as I thought it would be. No, but it's a lot of stairs. Getting the bags up and the stroll. We average like anywhere from 13 to 18,000 steps a day here. Yeah.

Sean unpacked, did the whole thing. We did forget the pack and play on the train. So I spent the next two days. One, one day on customer service trying to get all our stuff. We wanted to watch the Olympics on TV. He couldn't do it. And then I forgot the pack of the play. So then I had to try to go get it.

Things are closed on Sunday in Europe. So I spent a whole day wasting that. And then what? Nothing. Rivening storytelling, babe. I couldn't get the TV on. Okay? No, I was just saying the first two days here were like rainy and cold and not great.

It was wild. It was super cold and it was super rainy. We set up Bear's little bed, which is comical, since we left his pack and play on the train. they had a crib mattress here like from a baby that has now outgrown it and we set it up in the corner of our bedroom and stacked up all of our suitcases around it to keep them in so because he's crawling around everywhere

then our second day after our first night in Paris we went to Disney oh my gosh went to Disneyland Paris which is like a small version The race is in 30 seconds Should we take a hiatus? We have to Your local Benjamin Moore retailer is more than

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The race was exciting to say least. Which one was it? That was a 100 meter dash. The women's. Yeah. Dude, what happened? Yeah.

U.S. did not win. We are back in Nashville, Tennessee. This is several days after we started this podcast. Like two weeks after we started this podcast. The lighting's a little better. The framing's a little better. The audio's a little better. But welcome back to Nashville.

Where were we? Disney? We were in Disneyland. We went to Disneyland Paris. which was amazing. So we have gone to Disneyland here in Disney World in Florida a couple times. We've had the greatest pleasure and blessing to be able to do these like VIP tours. A friend here in Florida got us hooked up with a tour and like a whole day at Disney and Paris.

So it was scheduled. It was on the books. We had to do it on the 27th. And we wake up that day, meet our friends at the train station, arrived to Disneyland, and it is pouring rain. Pouring. Pouring rain. And the forecast says rain all day.

All day. But we had a phenomenal day. Made some great memories. We went out there with our friends, Jeremy Mariah, and their two kids. Yep. We're about to have Jeremy on Second Cup, so make sure you go check out Second Cup, because his story is amazing and wild. Yeah, Jeremy Bloom is a legend.

And if you're trying to prepare for listening to that episode, then watch the movie Molly's game. That's about his sister, really his whole family. Legends. I've always considered him like a big brother, and he's now like a mentor to us, but also a friend. He changed our lives. So we did Disney. I will say this. We had a phenomenal job.

Sorry, what? When was the last time we recorded a podcast? I got a figure. I don't know. We had a phenomenal time. I'm super thankful we were able to go out there. The kids loved it. It was our first day, our first full day in Paris, so we were like a little overwhelmed.

Yes. And it was a little rainy, so that made things like, I don't know, with kids and strollers and ponchos and all the food and snacks that kids have. And then you add rain on that. Do you ever try to go through the train station with the strollers? Yeah. We took a lot of metros. I will say, I was super aggressive in scheduling our itinerary. I kept thinking, like, the travel day was enough downtime for us,

and then I would book these full day excursions, like, the day after we landed. We were hit in the ground running. We really got it hard. We did. I'm going to pull up our photo album just so we can walk through this. Disney, here are my, well, here are my thoughts about Disneyland Paris. We are, we always said we would never be a Disney family. We are a Disney family.

We are. I would live at Disney World. We love Disney World, but I would say if I had to rank them so far, Disney World, Florida, Disneyland, California, Disneyland, Paris, in that order. The other fun thing, Grant and Zoe, my brother and his wife, were there,

she loves Disney, like grew up going twice a year. So for her to be able to experience Disneyland and Paris was really special. I will say, though, like culture-wise, Disneyland was just as great but there was a lot of smoking just because it's very like normal to the culture there

which was a little hard so we had a great time there the kids were tired we had to bounce because we had a big event all right oh my god I said this in our YouTube video when we gave the tour of our Paris Chateau

I am so impressed and proud of you you Sean because this was our first Olympics and the amount of invitations and opportunities and events they got thrown your way was incredible and nothing short of astounding and so literally the today's show went her on five times and the way it would work is like we have a a rep an agent pretty much that says hey the today's show wants you on right now or alice cooper wants you on her show or NBC nightly news once you on and this would happen like three times a day no joke and these are big opportunities.

There's a lot of people that watch this. It's like an honor to be on. You want to do it well. Some people take all day to get ready to choose her outfit, to get their hair done, to prepare for it. Sean, one, you're so incredibly gifted with that. Just showing up and doing what you need to do in a professional way. Thank you.

A good interview. But also, what I was so impressed with is the amount of times you said no, the things that you said yes to I feel like we're the biggest bang for the buck you'd turn down the today show several times you turned on NBC night like those are big things yeah and when you did say yes to something you you were you'd go away from the family for like two hours

do your thing and then come back and be a mom it wasn't like a it wasn't all consuming Anyway, I was just impressed by your discernment, by your ability to prioritize. And I've never felt that before the Olympics, just because it's never been as intense or focused. Yeah, never been magnified like that. Thank you. I will say it was comical in Disneyland because the getting to Disneyland from where he were was like a solid, probably hour and a half trip. Yeah.

total with like the walking and the trains and the changing trains and everything and so long story short we had a big event that we had to attend we were very excited to attend this it was with michelle kang all the big hitters in women's sports the first lady randomly showed up yeah didn't know that was going to happen um but it was within our investment of angel city and being a part of that club this was like a huge huge opportunity for women's sports and like investing in in sports which was really special to us so we had to go to this event it was very fancy um and try to picture we have been at disneyland paris for probably eight hours in the pouring rain juggling three kids and strollers and rides and fried food and or sweating and smelly and

everything okay so like worst or the worst just not look and feeling great by the the time we got back to our apartment. I am not exaggerating, you guys. We had maybe at the, like, very cushioned end of the spectrum, 15 minutes before we had to be in a car headed to this event. At this fancy event that the first lady was at and like, you know, it required a certain. Yeah, it was at a Michelin Star restaurant was attached to it.

It was a five-star hotel, but it was even more than that because they had something. the room who got married in the room Picasso Picasso got married in this room every inch of this room was gold-plated oh my gosh so I don't know we didn't shower obviously it was an event I've never done this you show up and they give you champagne it's like that's fancy I don't care I've never been to an event like I bathed in perfume slicked my hair back with the grease on my face you look and put on some mascara I went all French you know minimalist but you look good we ended up going to this event

it was a it was such a special event we got to meet some really really heavy hitters in the women's sports industry um had a blast ate some phenomenal food went back to the apartment at midnight Andrew falls asleep

I got chronic chronic you guys food poisoning oh geez I was up all night puking my guts out that's such a bummer such a bummer it was so bad but I felt better once it all came out yeah that's that's a good thing about food poisoning next morning mind you was women's qualification yeah yeah that's right because this is a video so you had to show up and work with yahoo and like you know be fully focused yeah

so you did that then we met at the Eiffel tower for the first time which the day we went to the The Seiffel Tower was magical. Yeah, it was great. The weather was perfect. We carried the kids up the stairs. Hey, they climbed probably at least half. It was impressive. We had gelato up there.

That was like, that was a really, really fun day. And then the day after that, that was the 28th, I feel like was the first day we kind of decompressed. Yes. So we're like five, six days of just going. Yeah. Until that point. I'm going to pull up our itinerary.

Yeah. By this point, though, within the, like, trip, I will say something that was, we had kind of figured out, was three days in, we had kind of gotten a rhythm with the apartment. We had found, we were located by, like, three different fresh markets, grocery stores. It was a great location. Oh, my gosh. There were these parks for the kids every, like, four blocks. So we would go to different parks every day, and they would play. And every park has, like, merry-go-rounds and carousels.

and the kids love playing with the other kids. One thing we noticed with Drew and Jet was since they didn't have their normal go-to toys in their playroom or their bikes or really there was no ability for screen time because whatever, the VPN, I don't know, we couldn't really watch shows like we usually do. They just kind of packed up and they were like buddy-buddy.

So they would be running around on the playground. They usually do that, but it was different. They were like engaging more intentionally. It was really fun to watch. I will say something else that we got to do the day after qualifications was we got to go be a part of an Angel City event. So similar to the fancy event.

Yeah, similar to the fancy event. It was another one affiliated with Angel City. But we got to meet Malala, which was wild. Nobel Prize winner. And Natalie Portman. I got to speak on a panel with Missy Franklin. It was a beautiful event. there were a lot of people there

the guy organizing the LA 2028 Olympics Casey Wasserman the whole like threads team that was really fun oh gosh we had all these Viator experiences Sean and I love Viator we love taking the kids on these adventures and experiences we find them all through

Viator but we had them like booked in days that we thought would make sense we kept having to shuffle those around because it was like no too tired that was a boat tour day that was a boat tour day Oh my gosh, you guys. Yeah. We did this boat tour down the sin.

Highly recommended. Where, yes. That made me fall in love with Paris. I think that was, I think I would say that's like my number one must do in Paris. Yeah. More so than like going to see the Mona Lisa or going through the Louvre or like, go on a boat tour on the Sin because you get to see almost everything. Yeah, all the big, like the Louvre, the Grand Palace, the Eiffel Tower.

all the things. Notre Dame. Yeah. They tell you all the history. We found this wonderful sandwich shop where we packed up sandwiches and took them on the boat. The kids loved it. We loved it. It was peaceful.

We did like a sunset one, so it wasn't hot. It was incredible. Highly recommend. We did it twice because we liked it so much. Yeah. Okay. Next day. So now we're talking about like Tuesday, July 30th.

um this was a crazy day you i was on the today show um doing like the forecast for what to expect during a team usa finals um what i saw in qualifications andrew packed up the boys and went with our nanny and took them to the bmx olympic event it was approximately 105 degrees outside i don't think I'm exaggerating. It was hot. Bear came, jet came. We did not prepare as we should have brought an umbrella,

didn't bring enough sunscreen, should have brought water. Griffin said the like people at the concession stands, like behind the counter were passing out. Literally Griffin wanted a water, so she goes to order one. And the guy literally was going to get her water and he just dropped, passed out.

Which is not funny, but it was so, we had every possible climate in Paris. It was cold to where we needed sweaters. Yeah. It was 105 to where like we couldn't even walk around. It was pouring rain. There were thunderstorms.

It was wild. The thing about the BMAC, why we were underprepared is it was our first event that we went to. So we didn't know if you could bring water in. We didn't know how long the walk would be. We didn't know if you could bring strollers or backpacks. So we under indexed just for safety. We did not pay off. Even infants need tickets to get into Olympic events.

like infants yeah which i thought was a little shocking yeah um meanwhile you and drew went to some fancy stores right i took drew to d'or um what's d'or it's just like a chanelle gucchi okay um expensive very but they have a cafe and a restaurant in d'ore and it's supposed to be like this whole experience so drew got to go in d'or and we got um lemonade and chocolate croissants and she wanted to shop for a dress should i tell them this story Sure. Yeah, only because we didn't end up getting it. So Drew had been begging for a dress,

and I told her in Paris we could get one dress. So we go to Dior, we eat our chocolate croissants, and she's like, Mommy, I want to shop for a dress here. And in my mind, I'm like, sure, she can look, whatever. And she starts to look, and there is a kid's section, and she finds a dress that she wants to try on. And I am not thinking anything of it. Literally not thinking anything of it.

She puts it on, she falls in love with it. guys in love with it but it was too big it was like two sizes too big and I was like baby let's at least just ask if they have one in your size at the same time I decided to look at the price tag which I should have done first

and it was $1,600 for a four year old dress I about pooped my pants but now I'm in this predicament where she's so over the top in love with it and I literally just started praying I was like please God don't

have one in her size because then I have to like figure this out then the guy comes out and he's like oh I'm so sorry we don't have it in your size I'm like oh yes so he pulls out this entire rack of what looks to be prom dresses he's like would you like to look at our princess dresses and in my mind I'm like how dare you sir no thank you looked at one price tag of that one and it was in like the 6500s it's like for a four year old's dress no way so we ended up wandering around the streets of Paris looking for a kid's store. We ended up finding Zara kids and we got a dress there for $60, which is still

expensive for a dress. Jeez. Yeah. Thank you for making wise decisions there. That was the day Jed and I went to go see Walker's Zimmerman play in South France. How did that go, Andrew? All right. So our buddy Walker, who I'm in a men's group, he's here in Nashville, our kids go to school

together. We're really grateful to have him and his wife, Sally, his friend. They've actually been on our interview show. What am I saying? You guys probably, if you've listened to that know them um he's playing on the olympics so i was like this is their last game that for sure they were going to play yep and i was like i'm not gonna not say it was not in parisot so back to our earlier point about there being events all over the city it was in marseilles which is like three hours south by train yeah we already had one bad train experience because the power lines

uh but i was like okay we had one what are the odds we have another train gets delayed An hour and a half. Jet and I make this plan where he's going to take Jet. Have a boy's trip. Go to Marseilles, find a hotel, stay overnight, and then come back on the first train. So, first of all, Jet was just a, I was almost brought to here several times by how proud I was of our children and how they dealt with all this newness. Yeah. I don't know if they even understand the overwhelm of like the logistics of, hey, this is a big trip.

but this is a lot to be going through right now. But Jet was just my buddy, man. Like he, you know, the train was delayed, and he probably doesn't understand that. But we're just sitting there talking about what he should ride his motorcycle on. It was so fun. Anyway, we showed up to the game at halftime.

We got to watch Walker play for 45 minutes, which is great. It took four hours down to get there to watch and play for 45 minutes. We rented this hotel. It was a Best Western, which it was not quite as fancy as the one we had dinner at, but it was awesome. They had this epic breakfast spread, Jet and I cuddled in the morning.

I woke up early and I just watched them sleep because I think watching your kid's sleep is a unique type of joy for me. Anyway, he wakes up and he looks at me immediately. Hi, Dad. Like, jumps out of bed, runs. He's like, he's ready to hit it immediately. We had this beautiful breakfast. get on the train. It's supposed to be two hours back to Paris

because they're like this high-speed train. We were supposed to get back at 9 a.m. And meet you at Versailles, which I was so excited to see. Because we had tickets to go to Drosage. And we're like 20 minutes into it and train stops. They're only giving updates

in the train intercom in French. And I have no idea what's going on. I find someone who can help me translate it finally. And they're like, the train in front of us, which Jet and I almost took, apparently hit a tree that had fallen across the tracks, and

so they're trying to clean it up. So we wait an hour, we wait two hours, we wait three hours to get on the intercom, hey, we have to go back to where we started. So we go back down south, and now Jet and I are stuck in the middle of this city we don't know anything about

with people that don't necessarily speak English, which is my fault, with lack of supplies. have any diapers. He's tired because the whole thing and hungry. They didn't have food on the train. So we had like two bags of popcorn for all the way till 2 p.m. He's hung, you know, fussy. It's nap time now. And I'm just wandering the streets. We stopped for lunch. Had a great time there. But also by now, thousands of people have had their trains canceled. Oh, yeah. So they're all on the station. They're all looking for hotels. There's a huge ordeal. And,

Jet and I shared some really special memories, and I'm so proud of them. We ultimately ended up getting a car to drive us four and a half hours from South France, back to Paris. We got back. It was 16 hours of travel. Sorry, 16 hours in that one day, 20 hours total, to watch 45 minutes of soccer.

Wouldn't really trade it for the world just because the memories Jet and I got, but definitely didn't pan out like I thought. Ander had called me that night after he'd been stranded kind of all day trying to find you know figure out how to get back and I just felt sad because there's like a desperation in your voice of I want to do my best for Jet because I can tell he's you know struggling and he's a two-year-old and he's you know that was a long long trip and there wasn't

any way to fix it and I remember I had just told you I was like two options I can either help fix this for you, but I don't know if you're already overwhelmed with trying to fix it on your own. Or, you know, I can just support you whatever you want. And I remember you kind of hesitated and I was like, I'm fixing it. And so I called some friends in Paris and I sent a driver. And I was like, pick my husband up. Thank you for the help. You're welcome.

While you guys were doing that, though, the team final happened. I got to see the girls win gold, which was amazing. So fun. Which is amazing. Congrats. Yeah. You guys ended up making it back that night. We had dinner together.

It was good to be back in Paris, all as one after the... That was the day you all got stuck at Versailles. Oh, gosh. Which is a massive... Versailles is like this epic palace. And Sean ultimately ended up getting lost in this huge grounds. So it was me, my mom, Griffin, Drew, and Bear. and it was a very, very hot day.

We went down to Versailles. It was absolutely stunning. We saw the palace, but we had tickets to dressage. So we were trying to make it to dressage on time. Basically, we had a three-hour cushion, pretty much, to get there and get in our seats. We had heard it was a really cool thing to see. And I don't even know how to explain it other than we walked for hours. pushing strollers on pavement and dirt

that was not made to be stroller-friendly. We were trying to find, same thing, like we were trying to find food, the kids were getting hungry, we ran out of water to make bottles for bear. Bear was going through. Teathing. Teathing and croup.

It was like this whole ordeal, and I don't, I literally don't know how this happened, but we make it, we basically find, the venue which was like a couple miles away from where he got dropped off and as we're walking we see this whole crowd kind of start filtering out and I stopped someone who was wearing like a USA shirt and I was like do you speak English and they're like yes and I said how much farther is it because we're like still pushing and the guy the kids are sweating and they're like oh you're you're

kind of close it's like a 25 minute walk from here and we all just almost started crying and I said is it over and they're like you have about like 20 minutes left oh brutal I was like wow so brutal and it was the last day at dressage and I was like nice and you bought tickets for which is an which was so much money the tickets were stupid expensive we learned a lot we learned a lot so then we had turn around and walk back by the time we got back we were just not in a good place it was just a rough day it was a rough day it was a rough day okay and then I feel like Like, that was the conclusion of the hecticness, it felt like. Once team finals were done.

Yeah. Because the events and I feel like the first five, seven days of the Olympics are the most intense. Yeah. Excitement standpoint. But you did CBS this morning. The next day, we went to individual all around together. You, me, Drew, and your mom. And my mom, which was so special.

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slash Y Annex. Tim's new scrambled egg loaded croissant. Or is it croissant? No matter how you say it. Start your day with freshly cracked scrambled eggs loaded on a buttery, flaky croissant. Try it with maple brown butter today at Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Drew actually sat through the whole thing, which was amazing.

It was just a special moment. It was really fun to watch. Kind of full circle. Yeah. And it was fun to watch Simone and SUNY do so well. Yeah, it was just a special time, special moment. That's a cool story, how that all panned out for everybody. Yeah, things definitely slowed down at this point.

I went to the, we did the Paris catacombs, which was really insane. Your mom flew in. yeah my mom lost her bags oh geez which is a whole deal whole deal and then i ended up going no no no montmart was the next day which was this epic cathedral on top of a hill in paris we walked around there for a while again cobblestone streets this is how i feel about strollers they're either portable and easy to carry around or they're able to conquer all types of terrain. And I don't think, yes, I don't think both exist. No.

We brought one that was portable because taken on the plane, the trains, which I'm glad we did. It made the cobblestone streets, things like Versailles, a little more difficult. But we're also pushing like over 100 pounds worth of kids. A lot of kids, not easy to steer. No. The next couple days we spend a lot of time at the parks, which was so much fun. I will say, like, our last few days in Paris, it was more relaxing. We were watching event finals.

I was just doing a couple of, like, interviews here and there for, like, the Today Show. But we spent most of the time with kids. We were going to restaurants. We were finding pizza and pastas and going to parks, and we did the river cruise again. But really just tried to, like, slow it down. Yeah. Also, this is the time when... Oh, the sickness?

Yes. we had a little bit of scare he saw it on social media but Jet started getting sick first or Drew had like a cough whatever Drew is my cougher

so if she gets sick she just gets like she always coughs she's just always coughing if she has any type of sickness Jet isn't the cougher but he's the croup kid he gets like the unable to breathe

strider you know sounding breathing issue and drew had had a cough for a little bit but didn't seem like really ill jet woke up in the middle of night i heard it immediately on the monitor and went like running to his room he it was the worst croup episode he's ever had to where he was panicking he couldn't get a breath when i first got to him i agree that was the worst he's had yeah because he was like so um worked up but But it was the middle of the night, and I literally didn't know what to do because we're in Paris. I don't know, you know, do I take him to a hospital here?

How does that work? Do I call an ambulance? It was really scary. I ended up because of the time change, just calling our pediatrician, thank you, Doc, for answering, who kind of, like, talked me through it all. He's like, if you can get him calm down and feeling better, like wait until the morning before you take him in. again make sure you call your pediatrician if this happens to you like don't listen to me if you're kid kids crew um but like he was talking me through everything we were he was listening to him through the phone all these things and the next day to basically summarize it all i spent with jet

10 hours of the day yeah bouncing around hospitals and doctors trying to find someone who would look at Jet and give him a steroid. He needed a steroid because of his breathing and his airways. And I don't even know how to explain this, but nobody would see us. I had emergency rooms turn us down

because they didn't have pediatricians there. They said you have to make an appointment and we don't have one open until three days. The emergency room. I'm not even kidding you guys. The emergency room. We went so far as to, I ended up finding myself, and this was just like a desperate mama doing literally anything.

I don't know how this happened, but found myself communicating with the Olympic Village doctor who was finding someone at the Team USA house who would meet me and jet and be able to look at him to be able to prescribe a steroid, finally got a prescription, went to a pharmacy, and they were like, oh no, we can't fill this prescription. You have to go to a hospital. And I almost started just bawling. Here's the thing. It was not necessarily like a dire situation. No.

But the problem was the thought of what if this is a dire situation and we don't know what to do. Because, well, and I was spending all day that day. So if you've ever had a kid with croup, it's either dire where you have to go to the hospital immediately or it can be managed until you get medication. And with Jets, his could be managed until I got the steroid. But if he had a worst night that second night, it was going to be an emergency room trip.

We would have had to have gone. And the fact that I was going to these hospitals that I would have gone to in the middle of the night and I was being turned away was absolutely terrifying. It made me feel very, very helpless as a mom because I didn't know. And they even said, like, had I called an ambulance in the middle of the night, the ambulance could have taken hours to find a hospital

that actually would have admitted him, which is wild to me. yeah anyways we got him the medicine he's doing great thank you dr waz from the team usa house thank you team usa house for bringing us in and taking such good care of my baby um but it was like a wild 24 hours you were a woman on a mission woman on a mission it was from my babies yeah you got you yep um and then fast forward three days later bear got it yeah gosh there's just a bunch of uh interviews for you

we did the brunch with threads which are really fun I've thought so we threads is Facebook's text based social media app is essentially the type of X or Twitter and they had a small group of us there to help give feedback on the app which to me was cool and I've actually sent them

several rounds of feedback which has been fun to brainstorm just from a high level social media the role it has in society what makes a good social media app what makes a different social media app but i was like it was just fun to participate in a conversation and step back and realize how much influence social media has on the world and it's like whatever not to get philosophical it's just like these people are creating the playground in which all these conversations are happening that really

really does like it's an election year so you think about okay what feedback can I give to create healthy discussion in this realm whatever that was a fun one for me are we going to talk about italy or is that like a part two no I think well what what is there to talk about Italy we did so we wrapped up Paris by just truly trying to calm it down a little bit we didn't do as much your mom came in we cooked at home went to a lot of Parks. We went to that one party that was for all the fashionistas in Paris. It was like the highest and most fancy people.

The Omega party. It was, I was not ready for that. I was not right. It was not my vibe. We were so tired by the end of that. I was rewearing clothes and I was like, yeah, I don't know. We showed up to this party that was like the fashion world of Paris and it was not us.

Not where I belong. So then we pack up everything. We leave early one morning to, fly from Paris directly to Naples Italy because I had found this beautiful kind of quaint Airbnb

in south of Sorrento in this little town called Termini and it was kind of like you could see water on every side. It had a yard it had a pool. It was beautiful but it was very very remote.

The flight was great. Yeah it was great. The kids did great. We got there, got in, I had rented a large van. Large, large van for all of us. Because we have seven people. Seven people, so much luggage, strollers, only to find out that they only had like a small, small SUV available. Yeah.

We stuffed it to the brim, to the brim, and then ended up having to take a taxi on top of it. drove it was about an hour hour and a half drive to our Airbnb well I wasn't really expecting that I wasn't either it was a very long time no the kids are melting they did great on the flight not so great in the car I think the one thing we have learned is it takes a solid day of travel and like getting set up getting acquainted with like where you're staying even if it's like the nicest resort you still need time to like get settled so like the first day of any place It's just kind of chaotic.

We get to our Airbnb. It was a wonderful experience. We loved it. It was beautiful. There were some downsides. It was kind of infested with ants. We lost electricity for a day. Lost water for a day.

Lost water for a day. Didn't really have Wi-Fi. Kept being told when people make sure you lock your doors because people will just help themselves into your house. Which, let me just reiterate. We had a phenomenal time as a family. We did.

In Italy. There were some unexpecteds, though. And with kids, that's not like, I don't know. I feel like as an individual and as a couple, we can deal with whatever. Like the train breaks down for the day, we can have an adventure. But when you have this child who can't get a bottle because there's no water, then it becomes a more severe issue, I feel like. Yeah. It just, it was kind of this like comical last week of travel where you're just like, oh, the door broke.

The front door broke and wouldn't close. Which made the ants bad. And I'm like calling the manager and he's like, we can come. tomorrow and I was like okay you just told me to make sure all the doors are locked because people will come into the house but yet in the middle of the night with three babies you can't come out

and fix the door we dealt with it all though it's great good memories I'm not going to lie though I kind of had the feeling this place was going to be like this when we pulled up because literally you guys I don't know how to explain it it's just a vibe thing that first day we arrived I was like

we should move to a hotel and you don't get that feeling very often we had to sit down talk about that we had to come to this moment where we should have just gone to a hotel no we shouldn't it was an awesome place

it was pretty much a vineyard like a farmhouse that they souped up and made a little nicer yeah we ended up going we did a boat tour around Capri we did a couple days in Sorrento

we did a couple days or a day down in Narano. We went up to Pasciano. We got after it. It was amazing. Yeah. It really was special. We had a lot of delicious food.

I will say a couple takeaways from Italy that I absolutely adored with our kids was the culture there with children. They love kids. Was my favorite thing I've ever experienced. They adore children. Oh, my gosh. The amount of people who were just like, oh, so beautiful babies. And they just wanted to hold them and kiss them and, like, talk to them and play with them. And they wanted you to bring them every single place you went.

It just is something that you don't really experience as much in the United States. I feel like in the United States there's definitely, like, boundaries of, like, what is kid appropriate and what is not. In Italy, it was like, please include them in everything. Yeah, it was really fun. Which was really special. And then, two, I will never forget the first night. there we were trying to figure out what to do for food and I went to this restaurant that was closest to the house Tramonto Rosso and they were closed but there was a guy inside and I just

kind of waved at him and it was just it was like out of a movie he's like you want pasta and I was like yeah and he's like and pizza and I was like yeah and he's like I'm Mickford you and he's like and I was like we were kind of talking with a language barrier but I was explaining that I had babies and he's like, oh, oh, I got you, I got you. I feel like Italians were extremely helpful and welcoming and friendly. I left there with like three pizzas, pasta, dessert, wine. So here's what I found out. Naples is south of Florence, it's south of Rome.

You find this airport, Naples, which is like a beautiful bay. There's a couple volcanoes that's where like Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius is. Then on the other side of this peninsula is where the Amalfi coast is. And then Amalfi has like Positano right there. and you have Sorrento on the other side. You have Capri Island right there. And it's this beautiful, insane coast with these beautiful houses and buildings built into the cliff. It's almost like scenery from Avatar with residential homes built in.

Yeah, it's stunning. It was really beautiful. I'll say this. I'm not sure it's like for young kids. No, it's not. There's a lot of hills, a lot of steps. it's pretty steep it is in the sense of the culture

yes but it's not in the sense of like the terrain and being able to get around yeah yeah the traffic the roads are really skinny everyone's riding these little vespas and they're ripping by you you're like

we almost got in 20 car accidents I was a designated driver and it was you did a great job terrifying and I'm so glad we didn't get the van because that would have been on that we would not have not been able to drive it was it was a manual shift and it was way bigger and I'm glad who didn't get it

me too um but we had a phenomenal time and we just got back from our three week trip last night 10 hours ago it was a 16 hour travel day 20 20 hour travel day I feel way better than I expected to feel same and our kids did so well I'm so proud of them I know I do have some takeaways in the sense of like I feel very passionate about this the amount of people who have said you're such a braver woman than I am I would never travel with my young kids like that I couldn't imagine being on a 20 like a 10 hour plane ride I think you've got to give your kids more credit I think our kids do better traveling almost and they do at home truly you see different sides of them yeah yes it's work but it's work at home but to

To see how much they thrive and being included and doing adventures and being able to share that with them is so incredibly special. Yeah. And even like people have asked about bear, do you keep him on a schedule? How does he nap? How did it? Like, you just kind of figure it out. I was also really impressed with you on that issue as well because we are really routine regimented here in Nashville. and like the kids go down no later than 7.30, Bear goes down at 7.

They have their naps. They have their food. And we were kind of just going with whatever worked, whatever the day called for. It's like, all right, we go to Versailles or we go to the beach volleyball. We're going to wake them up early. The kids slept in bunk beds for the first time. Oh, that was so fun. They shared a bed for the first time and they thrived.

They, for the first time, would like sneak out of their beds in the moment. the night and come sleep with us. Which I'm here for it. Which I loved. It was amazing. It was amazing. I felt this first with Nash actually when we traveled with him. When you put this person who's in your, what do you care in a new situation, like a dog or a young kid.

In my experience, they really lean into you and look to you in a different way. like they depend on you and they trust you and they want to be near you which maybe it's selfish I don't know like it was it was just really special time to see them see our family unit together in a new situation to see mom and dad in a new situation one of my favorite things was to see jet in a new situation and we had we had a couple like cooking classes essentially where chefs came and it was so fun to watch him interact with these people who didn't speak English but I was just so reminded by jet our three-year-old of how universal a smile and a wave is yeah and um it was really inspiring i i've been trying to figure out better words to say this but bringing our kids yes it was more stressful more work more bags more all of that so many bags which again is it's that's such a tangible yeah negative right and people are like oh it's just so much more work there's you have to pack all the stuff and it's you can't do as much but i it's also so much more special i felt like for us to be able to include them in that to be able to see them in a new light and to understand them

differently um to see them grow up like bear change so much so much it's just awesome i'm so thankful and to see them see different sides of them like one of our last nights in italy so coincidentally the place we stayed in Paris had little kids so there were so many toys there were so many activities for them it was very suited for them in Italy it was like a blank canvas there was nothing in the Airbnb I brought maybe five different little trinkets and toys and coloring books for them to do

but they were the most like at their root foundation kids in Italy their imagination they were just running around climbing playing being true kids. Creating games. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I also want to do two shoutouts to feeling Italy, right?

Was the chef experience that we had in Italy. They were the kindest people I've ever met, loved our children. And it was just like such a special experience. And then also, none of this is paid, by the way, Delta. Oh, frick, yeah, I forgot about that. Delta Airlines, so many stories here, long story short, my mother-in-law, his mom lost her passport. Tragic, very tragic. But thank you to Delta for literally holding our hands in Italy and walking us through a process and getting her home with us on time, on the same plane, and going above and beyond.

And then on the plane ride home. So it was a 10-hour flight from Naples to JFK. Absolute angels of stewardesses and flight attendants. We were on our hands and knees crawling around with bear and the flight attendants in the back of the plane. They were playing with the kids and laughing with the kids and truly embracing what traveling with kids was all about. And they were just angels. They were absolutely dangerous. Our kids were amazing on the flight

But I think a lot of it had to do with because of all of them Yeah They were phenomenal Also our kids got very slap happy The last hour of the flight Oh my gosh They didn't cry once on the flight But like the last hour they were slap happy

Screaming and laughing and giggling Belly laughing It was really fun to listen to So loud Definitely loud Man I feel like this pie podcast was really more just for us to capture these memories, which I'm glad.

We took so many pictures and videos. We shared some of them with you all. I'm excited for next year's trip. Should we announce where we're going? Do we know that's where we're going? No, but we have ideas that you can share. I think we want to do Africa next year. Afghan Safari. I think the kids will be at a great age. Yeah. duration wise I'm curious to finesse this with you because I feel like as soon as we left

Paris I was like yeah I could go home right now and that was six days we still had six days left yeah and then three days in Italy you said yeah I think we can go home right now but there's this thing at the end of the trip no matter how long it is like you're just ready to go home you could be gone for three months or three days and if it's the last little 20% of the trip like you're ready you know to go home yeah Yeah, I think it was great. You think it was right direction? I was reflecting on it on the flight home.

I think it was the right amount of time. Because if we're going to be doing these trips, this was a very unique experience because we had to work so much. But there was a definite shift at one point where it was like, this is no longer, you know, something new that we're just partaking in. It's a new, like, it's a new home. It's a new temporary home. and we had to like find a groove

and I really liked it. Can we talk about that too? Airbnb versus hotel. Oh, Airbnb for sure. Why? Airbnb for the lifestyle we're in at the moment. So with toddlers, I 100% think in Airbnb because

you need the flexibility of being able to like have a kitchen and listen to a monitor in a separate room and like have that separation. I think when the kids kids get a little bit older, like Drew and Jett already can share a room and do great, but Bear is still needing to be in like a pack and play and kind of have his own space. I think right now being able to settle into an Airbnb in a home, and that's not luxury.

Right. I'm not saying that for like size. I'm saying it for independence value is a lot nicer than just having one room at a hotel where you have to go up and down and up and down. Which negatively impacted our staying. in the Amalfi Coast, because the hotel is probably like the more smooth experience. Yeah. But I agree, like, the places that you stay in Airbnb's is usually more of a residential place,

which makes you feel like you live there, which is fun. Then you find your grocery store and your restaurants, and you navigate however you do. But you're either buying, like, a couple hotel rooms probably with a party of seven or an Airbnb. It was great. I like, yeah, I like the Airbnb vibe. I think my preference right now, and like I said, I think it will change probably in a few years, is doing an Airbnb that has a partnership with a hotel, which you can find very easily. There's a lot of them. But a lot of Airbnbs do like a property management partnership with a hotel where you can get the...

towels and beds or yeah yeah and the help the like concierge service of i would like to find a restaurant but i don't know where to go and that can be really helpful or you can have access to like the hotel pools or whatever for kids yeah also shout out to mom mama jay griffin everybody who helped make the trip possible viator yahoo um with our squad specifically we did stay in smaller spaces and we were together all the time yeah and three weeks is a lot of time to spend with your son-in-law your son you know the kids your daughter it's like uh yeah and everyone did great um we got better we got better so there you go there's our personal memories of of the trip. I think we're going to need a couple

weeks to really step away from the situation be able to reflect and capture it well, go through our photos and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened because it all happens so quickly back to back to back to back back to back. It's overwhelming to try to think back on. I do want to say

I did ask you guys for all of your questions regarding our travel. So we will do a podcast answering every single one of those. A lot of it has to do traveling with kids and our opinions on things. But we'll do that next as well. But yeah, overall, I think it was absolutely amazing. I can't believe that trip is done.

I'm sad. I'm so glad to be home. I'm sad that, like, part of the fun of a trip is the anticipation for it. And we had anticipated that for over a year. I know, but now we talked about this. We want to do this every summer, like somewhere new and somewhere big. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not, like, boogey big, but like get out of our comfort zone.

New culture. New culture. Well, thanks for listening. we have if you haven't yet and you made it this far give the show a rating subscribe to it really helps us out congrats to the giveaway winners also and we'll see you next week i'm and i'm andrew i'm sure peace