Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 67 Bode and Morgan Miller

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

This week on Couple Things, we got to talk to Bode and Morgan Beck Miller. If you've heard the name Bode, it's probably because he is an Olympic and World Championship gold medalist, a two-time overall World Cup champion in 2005 and 2008, and the most successful male American alpine ski racer of all time. No big deal. On top of that, Morgan is a model and professional volleyball player. They have a really powerful story. Some of the topics that we cover are: When they first met How they bonded The rollercoaster of the first six months Getting through the ups and downs The experience of a homebirth Relationship advice they want to pass on Follow Bode on Instagram here ▶ https://www.instagram.com/millerbode/ Follow Morgan on Instagram here ▶ https://www.instagram.com/morganebeck/ If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething... And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. We're supported by the following companies that we love! Check them out below: Juneshine ▶ Receive 20% off PLUS Free Shipping on their best-selling variety pack. This is a great way to try all of their delicious flavors. Go to https://JUNESHINE.com/EASTFAM or use code EASTFAM at checkout to claim this deal. Amp Human ▶ Visit https://amphuman.com/EASTFAM and use code EASTFAM15 to get 15% off D+ Lotion today. Honey ▶ Start saving money today. Get Honey for FREE at https://www.joinhoney.com/EASTFAM. Follow us on the following channels for more! Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You guys dropped a bomb on us before we started recording. Shocked us, might shock other people. Would you care to share? Yeah, we are pregnant as we speak. With quadruplets. Yes. No, one baby. What's up, everybody?

Welcome back to a couple things. What's Sean and Andrew? A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. Boy, do we have a treat for you today. I'm so excited. I, this actually happened in the moment. I found out this morning some huge news about this couple.

We are talking about our favorites, Bodie Miller and Morgan Beck Miller. That's right. What did you find out, babe? Tell us. Okay, you're going to hear this whole story and why this is such a big deal because we filmed, we actually filmed this interview a few weeks ago. Yeah. But Morgan and Bodie just found out they're having a girl.

A little baby girl, which is a massive deal. A huge deal. Yeah. It's a big deal. And we'll get into why, but Bodie and Morgan are two professional athletes. Bodie is one of the world's greatest skiers that we've ever seen. Of all time. And we'll ever see.

Olympic champion, world champion, like multiple times over. You would probably recognize him. And we met Bodie a couple years ago, I think it was 2016, when Sean was doing the CNBC show, CNBC show called Adventure Capitalists and... One more time. You're good? CNBC. CNBC show called Adventure Capitalist.

There you go. And we got to meet a lot of fun people, including Tony Gonzalez, Vernon Davis, and Bodie Miller, who were co-investing in companies with you. long story short we loved him had a great time with him he's just nonstop laughs as you'll hear uh in this interview him and morgan are just good people have amazing stories and then his wife morgan model slash professional beach volleyball player yes who is just a beast and her story and their story how they met how they started having babies their whole mission in life around children it just, it's one that I don't think you guys should miss.

Yes. So last thing we'll say, and then I'll get into it, is a couple of years ago, Morgan and Bodie actually tragically lost their daughter due to a swimming pool incident. And they've been very public about it, shared a lot of the experience and what they learn from it. And it's actually because of Bodie and Morgan, we've talked about this in previous videos that we put Drew into ISR swim classes to make her safe around any bodies of water. And gotten so many people within the Nashville community and then friends that we have outside of Nashville who have babies gotten them into ISR.

It's something that can truly save a baby's life. And yeah, I love their mission behind it. It can go a long way to helping the situation. Anyway, Bodie and Morgan are doing a great thing by spreading the awareness and spreading information. And if you want to find out more about Bodie and Morgan, we will link information about them down below. Without further ado, let's just go ahead and jump. into this one with Bodie and Morgan Beck Miller. All right, Morgan, Bodie, thank you so much

for taking the time to join us. I just want to get this out of the way. Boady, we met three years ago via the show that you and Sean did together. It was long. It was four years, wasn't it? Four years ago? Dang. Yeah. Or if not five. Regardless, that's how long, that's how long I've had a man crush on you, Bodie. And I know you're into horses. I know you're into horses. I don't know if you've looked into this. I am recently the new proud owner of a digital horse via NFTs. Anyway, I don't

understand anything that's going on, but I was like, buddy would be proud of me. He owns real horses. I own digital horse. Or I'll be disappointed because it has nothing to do with. Yeah, you're right. There's a chance for disappointment there. Anyway, it's good to talk to you guys. It's been a while. Absolutely. Wait, I am curious. Five years ago, four years ago, when we were on the show,

you guys had just bought a boat. Yeah. No, no. We had a boat. We had a boat. when we first met was in Florida and I was there getting the boat from Turkey I'd shipped it over from Turkey and Morgan was there playing a volleyball tournament and I poached in on our volleyball tournament that's where we first met that was in 2011 12 and um and then we didn't you have to like drive it all the way but that was my original plan was to take it in Florida and go down through the Panama Canal which I sort of always wanted to do just I think it's a pretty amazing thing

And then we met and the boat was trashed anyway. It had gotten just crushed across the Atlantic on a container ship. And so we just hung out from that point until now. And when we lived on the boat, we got married on the boat down in San Diego. It was awesome. And then we got pregnant. Morgan was like, we're not living on a boat. So since then, we've bought a place up here in Coto, right near where she grew up

where their parents came back to and we've been here ever since the boat's been floating down in San Diego. Wow. Are you good living on a boat? No. I'm trying to just take Sean on an RV trip and she keeps shooting me down for that. I'd rather do the boat. I think that's so fun. Thank you, Morgan.

I think I see an RV trip across the country with two babies under two. Morgan gets it. We almost did it. We almost did it with we would have five boys from two under under three, you know, one and a half, one and a half, two and a half, two and a half, five, and

eight. And it would have been crazy. We would have probably had to get like a PlayStation or something and just strap them to the ground in there. But I think it's awesome. I lived in a motorhome for 15 years over in Europe when I was racing. So I'm really comfortable with it. It definitely would be a little different. I think more for us, it was just like what motorhome has places to sleep for that many kids and like how can you semi-child food but such a small space it's actually for you guys probably be awesome because you can clean up in three minutes and you don't have to worry about them really escaping or going anywhere crazy because there's nowhere to go you're not helping my case out of all thank you buddy okay so let's start let's start from the beginning you mentioned

you met morgan in a volleyball game so we have the most quote unquote successful skier in us and history of all time no of all time dude it's this is the quote i'm reading of all time and then we have morgan who complex magazine says is one of the 25 hottest athletes you know this professional beach volleyball player what was that initial interaction like did the universe blow up we have a pretty you know as you are married for you know years coming up on a decade your story changes quite a bit I like to think there was a simmering desire underneath there. But the basic story was that she wasn't buying it at first. She had been, fact story, she'd been to the 2002 Olympics when she was an awkward 12-year-old.

And I was double silver medalist there. Her parents had been, and her parents say they saw me rowdy and around with my buddies, like, you know, burning out of my car or something, which wasn't me because I didn't go to where they were, but still, it was probably one of my buddies like, I'm Bodie Miller, woo, whir, and it's actually more than you'd expect. But, so she was there. So her parents had, her parents did not have a positive impression of me from then. And so, you know, when we met, it was kind of like, I don't know, in a way, I guess it was love at first sight, although it wasn't really sight, because, at least on my side, again, she was not buying it right away. But within a week,

and this is undisputable within a week we were both on board and we we haven't really spent any significant time apart since then what i love about what i just saw is morgan was cheesing so hard during that whole rind that whole story you were telling yeah is there anything you like to add the story here morgan or so we had the same agent and i'd see he said oh i picked up a beach volleyball player and he was like this is her and she had her little card and she looks like super mean like she's super hot but she looks mean like he has this like serious gal looks almost like a little bit softer russian dominatrix kind of thing like hair pulled back and i was like i was like oh god she looks he was like don't even think about i was like dude i'm not thinking about she looks way

i need like a happy friendly like easy going and so i hadn't even considered it after that um at all and then we were in the same place completely randomly for like a month and a half leading up to that meeting in Fort Lauderdale where she was at the preface. I was there for the race. She was there for volleyball, Under Armour or something. We were like in random places around the country for a month straight week after week after week within a mile of each other. And Lowell was like, you got to check out her Facebook. And I looked and I was like, that's just kind of weird. And I love volleyball. I played, you know, just messed around in high school. And I was like, cool. The volleyball tournaments literally 800 yards down the beach from where I was staying in Fort Lauderd.

I was like, I'm going to go. And he was like, oh, yeah, you know, I didn't know if you need tickets or whatever. So I called her and she blew me off and was like, yeah, I don't want you to come. I don't need distraction. And I was like, whatever. Like, I'm going anyway. I don't give a shit. Like, I'm going.

So deal with it. And then when we got there, it wasn't like a visual love at first sight. It was like I watched her play. I saw that kind of when you see somebody play at the right level and the right sort of scenario, you can see right to who they are. And that was that was it for me. and then it took a, she's a little slower. It took her a few days to buy into it.

But by the time we flew back to California together within a day after that was when everything clicked. Well, here's the best part. He told me, he's like, when I realized that you were the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with, I was actually really bummed out because I knew you were going to be really bumped out. I was just like, oh, man, that's a lot. I knew you were going to be really complicated.

I was like, maybe she'd keep that yourself. I love that you had decided she was the one, even though in the back of your mind, you're like, oh, man, this is going to be rough. Well, you're right, but that's the thing is, like, I think I have a perspective on it, like, the choices you make, you can't see the end result. And the marriage, ultimately, if you are serious about the vows you take and all that, it's a long road, right? So the person you marry is not the person that, you know, is the same 40 years later,

50 years later, in with kids. I mean, she was single and was playing volleyball and was like, like I was when I was competing. I was still competing at that time, too. so we're both like selfish athletes you know doing our own thing and so it was like i i just saw that she was definitely going to be you know she's a she's like an alpha female she fucking runs the show and i was like all right well he was a walk in the park there's that he was so yeah obviously yeah well it's it's interesting first of all i love how you guys are sharing a chair is

are you guys just yeah like one it's a big chair Okay. Okay, okay, cool. You know, Bodie, you've spoken previously about your upbringing and you had really unique. I don't think there is electricity, plumbing. You spend most of your time outdoors. And Morgan, you come from a different background, I believe. Yeah. But here you are. I guess you meshed immediately over competition. And that was the forming factor. I don't think it was competition. I think once we got to know each other after that first week, it really was we shared a lot of the same. values and the mindset that we kind of approached life with. And we started to recognize that the more difficult situations were kind of the better we were together and the more calm we got. And after a while, we just started to realize how compatible we were in those situations. I love how she says after a week when we got to know each other. It's like who gets to know each other a week. Well, no. But that's the truth. It really was. I think, you know, there's all sorts of different philosophies on

and how relationships work. But like some people say opposite the track. Some people say you need, you know, like-minded people who share a lot of values or interests or whatever. In our case, we both were athletic. We both competed. We both had lots of kind of things that were similar. But as you pointed out,

you couldn't get further apart in terms of geopolitical, geographically, socially, everything in terms of the way we're raised. She was raised in Cota Rica, California, you know, wealthy family, like first cars. car was a Mercedes. You know, my first car was a 79 diesel rabbit that I bought for $185. You know, I didn't wear clothes basically until I was like nine. You know, so all that was was really kind of on the side. The parts that were really interesting and cool was that we had really like interlocking qualities. Like she's really organized and likes to like plan things and I'm really

flexible and just like to go with whatever and um i have a ton of patience and kind of that side of tolerance and she has a lot of like discipline and focus and like um so we i think as a team like you know which is partly one of the criteria of being married as a team we kind of filled each other's weaknesses and gaps and and there wasn't a lot of confrontation over strengths like i don't think either one of us really argue with what the other person's better at and just kind of like okay defer to them wow he was also what i love is that there were no secrets he was incredibly forthcoming incredibly honest even if i didn't like the answer um and insanely committed when he he bought my wedding ring in front of me a month after we met

and he said what would you say if i asked you to marry me and i said no no way and he said to me he's like that's okay i have a two-pronged approach i'm going to get you to say yes and in my mind i'm thinking good luck like this is yeah we're not we're not there and he just was so committed to making it happen and he hasn't changed since the day we met and that's just something about him that for me where he's like a total safe space where I feel like all the things that were my worst qualities he made better and so I she has tried to divorce me not like maybe as serious as it sounds when I say it that way but like at least eight times where it's like and I'm like nope sweetie it takes It's like the nuclear code.

You have to turn both keys, and I don't turn my keys, so it doesn't happen. She's like, damn you, foiled again. I'm like, yeah, well. It's true. I don't know. Are we laughing about it? How serious were, like? How serious?

I think there's only been like one time that I've been super serious. Well, a couple of times there was a little bit of drinking involved. One was in Denver. And I literally, we're in Denver, which is, I know this town well, but it's not an entirely safe town at like 1.30 in the morning. And she had a meltdown because I'd taken a picture when I said I wasn't going to take. I've been doing the ski day thing in Denver, the big expo there. So I've been taking pictures and signing autographs all day. And she was like, I just want you not to take pictures at the bar. Like I just want an hour of your time.

But it was all the people there. And while she was in the bathroom, two guys with their wives came up and were like, we want to take a picture. And I was like, okay, quick. And like we took one. she came back right then it was like fuck there and like was out of there so we went back to the room we went back to the room and was like trying to pack her shit but was pretty drunk and was like i'm out of here through this 10 years ago and then and then she left her bag there and walked down it was just walking down the street and i was like i can't let her go she's going to get mugged like she's tall hot blonde walking through sketchy denver so like i'm like half a block behind her just walking along, like, following her, like, total stalker looking.

Was not one in my finest moments. And then there was a couple more that weren't like, again, it's a lot of it is she has she lives in her emotions, like her emotions go all over and that's what's real for her right then. And I'm able to like, be like, look, I get that you're feeling this way, but it'll just give it a little time, like, relax. And so I think that's where we end up getting through those. I think that's Anna and I 100% of it.

Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Roger Stadium with Go Transit. Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fairs, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday anywhere along the Go Network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online go pass ahead of the show at go-transit.com slash tickets. I live in my emotions. That is my reality. Yeah. And I don't know if you experience the same thing, Bodie,

but when I tell Shonda just chill out, it usually doesn't go well. It doesn't go well. And when I say, I've implied and actually straight up a couple of times said, like, your behavior is delusional right now. I'm not going to that.

I eliminated that one from the restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. I think just get out of thesaurus and like try to figure out different words for delusional. Yeah. Delusional does not go over well. No, are you kidding? Especially when, like, as a woman, I'll be like, my, like, my emotion is actually fact in the moment.

Yeah. And he's like, it's, what you're doing is delusional and it's not reality and it's not black and white. And I'm like, yes, it is. The worst. The next day, I'm like, our first child, it was, you have postpartum depression, you're delusional before I even had the ability to recognize it. And I was like, I might suffocate you. in your sleep. Like, yeah.

I slept with one eye open. I will say that for a little while. Okay, so get engaged after a month and a half or so. No, we got engaged. Oh, okay. Middle of September. Yeah, five months. Four months.

Okay, okay. He's mad. We met May 26. We got engaged in middle of September. And then the next day, he went down to Portillo, Chile. For, he was supposed to go for like a month. Yep. And I came back early, and we were, her parents were like, okay, whatever you're engaged.

It's like, don't go. fast. Don't do it. Yeah, don't do it, but like, certainly don't do anything fast. We were like, totally, yeah, we're in no rush. And then I came back from Portillo and we got married the next week. So do you think there's something? Wow. And then we got pregnant a awesome. Well, Morgan had been married before and she had like a big OC wedding and like did the whole thing and it lasted six months. It's not very long. Something like that. Some very short period of time. The guy was not not the right one. So we basically, we didn't invite anybody who's just us and our cat and an officiant on the back of the boat and that pissed everybody

off pretty yeah pretty much but hold on let me find that letter so the situation was Morgan had been previously married you and she stepped into a situation where she was stepmom did two kids previously is that right yeah so it's not like it was a no there was no soft transition it wasn't like Like, oh, let's get engaged for a couple years, live together, maybe have a dog or whatever. It was like, yeah, it was like super duper accelerated the whole thing. And that was really admirable is that she was able to, she was a great stepmom. I mean, look, this is another layer that is nutty is two weeks after we met. We've been together every day since we met.

We literally had, you know, been a part I went to the boat, I guess, you know, and she was in Hermosa. and then And he had a fun night and the result was another baby. So we found out two weeks after we had met and we'd been together the whole time that I was going to be a father to another woman's

from before Morgan. And so she, that's what she was referencing when she said the more difficult it was. Like that was gnarly. And that was actually one of the times where we almost broke up was after that I did it.

I was got hammered was absolutely inappropriate and then well just we don't have to see details but the point is the point is that when we got through that that phase that was like that was in my opinion really impressive that she was willing to try to work through that and and pull it off well so let's just a little bit of a back story from basically when he was said five months old i grew up in a very modern family I have my step-sister, all of my aunts have married men who have children previously. So for me, like, blended families are very normal. So when I found out that he had a daughter, he was a great dad, it didn't scare me.

When I found out there was another baby coming, I told them, like, listen, whatever you want to do, totally fine. I'll support you. We don't have to stay together. And I go, it's a child. It's not anything terrifying or scary you've done this before. and so he did which respect to you by the way yeah yeah but it's kind of terrifying you're like it's kind of terrifying it was I was you know dealing with all it was a very deliberate approach and it was you know but if anything there was a lot of animosity on my part towards that even though

I knew I'd love the kid and I wanted to be a great dad it was like there was other elements of that they were really frustrating so it was really impressed but if anything it's credit to my parents for showing me that a blended family can be beautiful. It can be normal. And it was all about putting the child first. And if you could let go of your ego and focus on the kid and what was in the kid's best interest and find a way because parenting, even when you're married, like, it's not a competition. And especially co-parenting, you sometimes parents default to making it a competition and making the child upon. And my parents showed me that that was not how it was supposed to look ever and so for me it was not scary it was very normal it was how i grew up and obviously they never

really painted a picture of the parts that were hard so i was a little bit naive because it's not easy but no it's not and yeah her parents are kind of that way where they they show the good parts but um but yeah that was that was immediate like so the first call it like five six seven months of our marriage or of our relationship from when we met was nutty it was like And then we had, yeah, court stuff and everything else that she was there for and helped. And that was, again, part of the different skill sets because there was a lot of detailed stuff. And we had a court battle with that mom in California. She moved to New York when she was seven months pregnant because they had different child custody and child support laws that are more favorable for her.

And then we won in New York. Then we came back here and won again. And it was just like, it was an ongoing ass kicking. Well, I mean, at least in terms of the, right, in terms of the judgments, I mean. But so anyway, then we had Nate more or less full time from that point forward. So as you said, then it was not just a stepchild. It was like we had him and she was a mom while I was competing and we traveled all over the world in Europe and stuff. So she was, she jumped right into like full time mom.

I. It's scary. At the beginning. I mean, we've come so far. we've come so far and we've all of us now co-parent together in a way that is amazing for Nate but the beginning was really challenging I absolutely love everything you guys have said so far and Morgan you kind of interjected at one point and you're like oh you're going to just share all the details and spill all the like dirty laundry basically

but it's honestly why we started this show because we got so sick and tired of people saying how marriage is supposed to be perfect and you are like the wrong person if you're arguing and if you blend a family that's right like we got so tired of it so I actually love it I love that you guys blended families and you've made it work and you've you don't believe in like the winning and losing of like either side and no you're not going anywhere as you used with like the bomb if you try to live your live your life like it's an Instagram post you know where it's edited like you show all the right stuff like good luck no but the reality of the situation is there are we have four parents involved and there's three moms and there is still you know there's still a child that

is the center of that and i do believe in sharing what the reality is i do believe in sharing the truth but there's still a part of me that's like protect the kid because the last thing i want is for them to turn 14 15 16 and go online and be like wait what like you guys went to course and there was a messy battle and you guys argued. And I would rather have that be a conversation that we have with them where we can sit down and say, listen, it wasn't perfect. And this is kind of what we went through. And but look at how far we've come because we love you so much.

Like you are the reason why we get along. But we do operate with that premise of like everything's pretty, we've gotten accused of sort of infecting Koto with our philosophy. Like our kids like are not like the typical. Orange County kids like like to take their clothes off they're like way more we like let them have at it like the other parents like honestly it's awesome it's so refreshing now we don't feel weird about doing it's like somebody's got to do it we had no choice really it's just how we are and our kids are too crazy so now all the parents are kind of like it's so refreshing to just feel like

be a normal you don't have like when you go to the club like for dinner whatever you don't have like have everything totally you know buttoned up and look perfect and try to act perfect people love our story they're like wait so Nate has one mom Dave says another mom. You guys have like 13 kids. Yeah. Explain this to me. People do find it refreshing and it's, it's just our reality.

So it's not something that is not normal for us. It's our daily routine and our daily interactions. But I can definitely see how some people will be like, whoa. Yeah. That's a lot, especially from May 26th, we met to two weeks later finding out another woman was pregnant, to getting married, October 7th, to getting pregnant in November, miscarrying in January, and then having my stepson, his son, come live with us full time in August. So I became full-time mom with lots of ups. Like, I can see how people are like, that you should write a book.

Accelerated, accelerated process for sure. Yeah, I'm on that team. Yeah, I'd read it. for sure I am curious though you guys have gone through every roller coaster that a relationship can be tested through basically totally and we do these interviews I don't sure there's more but yeah we we do these interviews though where we will sit down with one couple who's gone through one thing and they're just like I don't know if I can get past it or forgive them or ever put it in the past and kind of move forward how do you guys continually go up and down and move forward and actually still have such a strong relationship in marriage that's tricky um i think there's we're we're very different in that sense like i i think maybe through competition at least in

my upbringing the way that i took responsibility for things had to like i think it honestly started internally for me because i'd do stupid things or make mistakes or not prepare or blow races, big competitions for various reasons, either, you know, bad tactics, whatever, just being stubborn. And I had to like move past those. So it started like incrementally small. I started to be like, okay, doesn't do me any good to carry that forward. I had to figure out how to forgive myself for whatever my actions were. It was reality. It's in the past. I can't change it now. And just try to adjust and adapt. And then that sort of morphed into getting really good at tolerating, you know, mistakes and errors and, you know, we're human, right? We make mistakes

daily. And then when I was dealing with all the sort of crap of being at the top of a sport where I was shouldering all the media, all the fan attention, and it was just, it was every day. I was racing, you know, four or five times a week all winter. And I was doing interviews for Sweden and Switzerland and France and Austria and Norway and the U.S. and Canada, whereas all the other guys only had to do the interview for their country. You know, it was like, only the Austrian news want to cover the Austrians in there in you know for each and I just got so burned out and I was so negative and that was around that 06 Olympics where I just basically had a tantrum um petulant tantrum and I was like over it and then I realized like I had the skill set to actually

apply it to that where I just kind of each if you could sign a hundred autographs before you went up to race the 101st person you're like look I got to go dude there's a race they're like oh what a dick like that was inevitable it happened every single day over and over and over again. And I realized, like, I had to not carry that one person forward and, like, lump them in with everybody else. So it allowed me to, like, forgive real time. And, like, each individual thing was a new one. And I could just reset and move right past it and move right past it. And whether that's male compartmentalization or not, like, it is what it is. And it was a really good skill set. And then when we had to go through all this stuff, I'm kind of like,

I'm able to do that really quickly. I just process. And then, and then, you know, deal with, with it and then move forward and then Morgan has a different process of like she recycles a lot more and revisits a lot more either past tragedy past events past everything and I and I have sort of the ability just to keep her moving forward chronological time and then chronological time helps with everything because just kind of you normalize them I've learned so I will give him I've learned so much from him and I've learned that no matter what everything carries an emotional toll and emotional burden. And what I try and do is look at what I want the end result to be. And to get to that end result, you have to constantly move forward. And every time you hold on to

something, it just slows you down or holds you back. And so, and one of the things that for me is I only have so many fucks to give, honestly. And so I don't waste them in areas where they're not necessary. And I know that my goal is to move forward. Hi. You want to go see my name? This is Easton. Yeah. I think I think I'm going to ultimately. Hi, buddy. But so for me, it's about, can you say hi? Hi. Hi. Hi. Cudy. Oh, man. I figured he's like Houston because it's part of your last name. So. And he refuses to cut his hair. But he has the most unbelievable. head of hair, so I'm not about it. Beautiful. But it's about, and plus the kids, to be able to show up every single day as the best version of yourself. Yes, stuff recycles all

the time, but you have to learn how to realize the things that serve you for the greater good and the things that don't. And just because you let it go in that moment doesn't mean it's not going to come back. You might have to let it go 15 times, 150 times, but you have to make that choice, the conscious choice, to be like, this is how I want to show up today. Stuff's to come up and that's fine and kind of accept it and then be willing to let it go and that's the biggest thing is like I'm going to be so mad at him some days and then I'm going to be like you know what I got to get the laundry done I got to clean the house we got to take care of the kids together and I can't do this without him so I got to let it go and definitely we wow we had that at various

times like my brother passed away in 2013 and then losing Emmy you know those were times when we both I think were completely like swamped right there was just no so there was a there was a difference between dealing with more manageable smaller things that maybe would overwhelm certain people but because of our skill set or because the way we work together in our environment we were able to kind of manage that sort of built a foundation of kind of that's our pattern but then when something like that happened with any in particular we both were like in a time warp like we couldn't move forward we were like stuck in that day and that emotion in that spot for even though chronological time moved forward we were like completely like stagnant and then again that that sort of I think one the other of us on various days because we had

to still take care of the kids we had we had other kids and there was they were a huge tool in like forcing us because even though they saw that we were upset they still were able to be happy and they still were able to like play and have fun and then they they pull you into moments of just kind of living in that moment with them and moving forward and enjoying things. And then you'd feel like weird because you were enjoying something when you were suffering so badly. And then, you know, I think in that sense, it really educated us in terms of how to do that better, how to how to actually still process your feelings and emotions and grieve and

all that, but still continue to move forward. Without keeping that anchor in time. Right. Without sticking in one place. Yeah. It's the anchors. You have to kind of find a way to let go of those. Otherwise, they just keep you from moving forward.

And I think the best thing that we can do for our kids, and I think the coolest thing in life is growth and being better and improvement. And I think that's been one of the coolest things for us the past 10 years is we've both changed so much in a way where we've just become better people. And that has been the motivation. Incremental improvements. Yeah. There's never like leaps and bounds. It's just tiny little incremental improvements every day.

well that's why i respect about both of you is first of all you're both terrifyingly intense i can tell that uh but also just talking about the situation that you uh walked into together with the with the kids and the previous merit and all the complexities it's like there's no emotions coming off of uh anger or disappointment or any negative emotions just like okay well this is a situation we're going to deal with it and this is how we're going to move forward And that's what's so powerful, you know, with everything you've been through. And Emmy is a great example. I feel like you have experienced that.

You went through it. And then you said, this is a situation. How are we going to move forward? And now you have directly impacted our lives and our daughter's life because we put her in swim lessons because of your story and all the wisdom and resources that you guys have shared. And it's just, I just get chills thinking about it because you've truly made. made the best out of a situation and haven't gotten sucked down. I'm sure there's so many complexities, but you've made a positive impact out of some complex and disappointing,

tough situations, you know? I think that was, it was part of the healing process was to like, there's so much that we don't know right now. And I think that shed light on that sort of paradigm of like, as parents, we sort of already mentioned this. when we were chatting before like you don't really no one's prepared no one knows what to do and

there's no manual there's no book it's too it's too um in flux all the time it's too circumstantial every every decision you make every nuanced thing and you know you guys probably recognize how how fine a line you walked in your lives right one decision differently one slip differently you know one one different thing we could be in a totally different place or not be here at all and that's um definitely definitely a scary thing as a parent because To some degree, it makes you feel like there's no way to prepare. There's no way to really keep your kids safe. All you can do is do your best thing.

And for us, that was, it was really cathartic to kind of, you know, try to help other parents in that way. Like, you know, if we all really were super open about all the things that, you know, we went through and information and really had a great platform to share all that, you could prevent a ton of these tragedies that parents face all the time. Sometimes it's not a death. Sometimes it's just a broken arm or something else. But like, ideally no parent wants to deal with any of that stuff. And a lot of it is just we're kind of isolated as parents, right?

Even though you have friends and all that, you don't really have, we don't have that many friends. We try to like create good dialogue where you share everything, right? You share the good, the bad, you know, all the little things. You just don't know what piece of information could make a huge difference for somebody else. But that was a huge part of that was like, at least in that one space, we felt like it was our, obligation to Emmy and to each other and to actually try to make an impact on people like share what we did what we wish we knew before and that we were able to find out fairly quickly afterwards but only because we were searching today show um I say what started out is probably

four little babies in our swim class has now turned into about 24 so it keeps growing and everybody in Nashville is asking for this lady's number So thank you for that. You guys dropped a bomb on us before we started recording. Shocked us. Might shock other people. Would you care to share? Yeah, we are pregnant.

As we speak. With quadruplets. Yes. With one note, one baby. That was the first thing. I had the ultrasound tech come to the house. I said I have to know because I was so nauseous. And I mean, I've had so many kids.

So I'm not surprised that I'm showing early, but I was showing very early. And my pregnancy test came back very positive five days before a missed period. And so I was slightly terrified that there was going to be two in there. It's a lot of work. Two is a whole new ballgame. And I think twins stacked on twins would have been a bit much, but it was. It's one. It's one.

and we have a gender reveal coming up. I was trying to convince her to wait and just, like, find out, you know, as the baby was born, but she didn't want to do that. So we're going to do a gender reveal, and hopefully it'll be exciting and fun for everybody. We didn't find out with our first, which, honestly, after a homebirth and going through that for the first time, I did not care what it was. Like, the baby was out, and that was all that mattered in that moment. and then the second one we waited until like 23 24 weeks just because we had stuff going on in

our life that really felt like it was pulling us backwards and we wanted something in the future to look forward to and to celebrate and so I wanted to know so we found out with emmy and he did a really cute gender reveal for me which was really fun he did um little figures boy and girl figures in balloons and dark and i put them on this huge board i just stuff all these little characters into balloons so as they as they had to count you had to count for the boys on one side for all figures on the other side yeah and it got ohy it was like creative genius right up right up out of here i never uh and and and morgan we're hoping for what this time around this a girl i mean we we have You want to peanut butter and jelly?

That sounds pretty good. Yeah, it sounds great. Yeah, we can wrap up here to make that PB&J. Yeah, we definitely have, we have a lot of boys. They're awesome, but I think five is good. So we're hoping that, but if either way, I mean, I'm honestly, I'll be happy either way. I would really like a little girl. In a way, I feel like, it's not that we were robbed of being able to have like that

relationship with a daughter. But being able to be able, being able to have that would really be special. And I think it would be good for the boys. Yeah. I mean, they love their older sister, but she's kind of enough older that she doesn't. She's 13. And she hasn't been right. We share time. It's not. I think it would be great for the boys. And you can imagine having a little sister with reading, reading, stella's lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia so your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control learn more at sloor.com and ask your family eye care professional for sloor stellas lenses at your

child's next visit five older brothers it's going to be it'll be pretty awesome she'll never get married that's what will happen yeah never did you do a humber with all the babies Morgan I did wow yeah my mom and I delivered the twins by ourselves with no midwives or anybody there because they didn't get there in time it was too fast so it was just my mom and I and a lady taking pictures and it was the most unbelievable thing I mean it was absolutely insane um like I caught one who was born in full in the sack like in a while yeah in a full like a phone And then and my mom was like didn't have I was like get like a towel or so my mom was a midwife so but she hadn't delivered a baby in 25 years and never twins so I'm like passing one baby underneath Morgan's leg to her and she's like got like kind of a rickety ass towel like wraps him up and then like Oregon's like call the midwife and I have like vernix and like every sort of shit on my hands. But don't you love that he actually knows that word?

And I'm like what the call like what like just yell? I'm like got her phone. I'm just like gumming up her phone and then she's like I have another contracting coming I'm like like throw the phone and then another man they were born two minutes apart I mean so the second like and I got the second one out I'm like making sure they're all good and then we hear the door open and the midwives are coming in and I'm like I'm literally like a kid with a hand in the cookie jar like I have one and my mom's got the other and like they come in like what the fuck I was like I didn't do it I'm just holding the baby what do you want for me can't put him back in I That's not how works.

It's almost like you got a room of, you know, like screenplay writers, like people who write movies together and they all just like wrote different stories, put them in a hat, and then dumped it out on your life. And put them all in our pocket. Yeah. But that was like one of the coolest moments for Bodie and his mom. And so like this is the crazy part. Since Bodie was like 22, 23, he said, I will have identical twin boys.

born on my birthday. Like the first or second day we met, he's like, I'm going to have a twin boys born on my birthday. And I was like, I don't care and you can't order that stuff. And then we get further down the path. And we start having kids and every single time we're like, do you think these are going to be your twins? And he was always so enthusiastically, yes. Yes. Yes, yes, So, Easton was three months old, and we flew to Sweden because he was over there for a few weeks and I was there for five days. And it was Valentine's Day. We woke up and I had an email from a friend of mine who's an intuitive and she said, I don't normally reach out when someone is reaching out to me that someone is lost,

but your daughter has been just contacting me over and over and over again, and she's recognizing something really special about today or this week, and she's sending you a lot of love. And I wake Bodie up, and I'm like, whatever happened last night, I'm pregnant. I know what happened. Like, I'm telling you, whatever happened, I'm pregnant. And sure not two weeks later, we get a positive pregnancy test. And I said, like, Emmy's got her hand in this.

It's going to be a little girl. I was so excited. And I go, do you think it's going to be your twins? He's like, no, I don't think it's going to be twins. I think it's going to be one little girl. So he went golfing. I got a phone call. I was like, I was almost telling me he's pregnant.

And they said, we have an opening for an ultrasound. Do you want to come in? And I think we were getting ready to go out of town the next day. I said, yeah. So I asked Bodie, if you wanted to come. He's like, no, I'm going to go golfing. I was like, okay. We've done this enough.

I get it. She makes that sound worse than it was. That's true. Um, and so I get there and the ultrasound tech asked me, why are you in? I said, well, I get my blood test tomorrow. We're leaving tomorrow. I want to make sure the baby's healthy. And my husband's always wanted twins.

So I want to make sure it's one baby and not two. And she laughed at me like, okay, good luck. And sure enough. So she has it up on the ultrasound. She's like, do you see the flicker that's a heartbeat? I was like, yeah, I've done this a bunch. And then with that, she turns off the monitor and she turns it back towards herself because it was projected up on the wall.

And so now I'm panicking, thinking that something's wrong with a baby. And she's going like this across my stomach. And she looks at me and she was, there are two heartbeats. I go, does that mean there's two babies or just a one baby of two hearts? And she goes, it's twins. So she turns it back on. She turns the screen back towards me. And she shows me.

And you could tell it they're identical because they're in the same sack. So I FaceTime him to show him like, I want to introduce you to baby A. He's like, cool. I'm like, and baby B. And he's like, what? And he throws his golf up on the ground. He starts crying. And so now we're convinced it's girls.

I buy maybe 50 matching girl outfits. Like, it is going to be girls. So many. She has a real retail problem. They're so good. It's actually a lot of it. Have you ever been on milk? It is the most dangerous app ever.

It's like 2 o'clock in the morning. I get it all in the morning. I'm like, what the shit? shit somebody bought like a bunch of stuff on guilt last night in the middle of that i'm like credit card tax she's like maybe or maybe i woke up at two and shop for an hour um so we do the blood test and we get the blood test back and my midwife calls him and says well yeah obviously we know the midwife really well and she's like it's it's a boy or their boys you got to tell Morgan i was like shit no you tell her i'm not telling her and they're paid i'm not paid shit you're

telling her and I just I was like she laughed for like 20 minutes and then she was like oh god we didn't talk for like five days and I said we got to redo it it's wrong there is no white chromosome in this area it is a girl there are two girls in there so we really take it comes back sure enough wide chromosome detected and it was like wow we had already we had three boys at the time and easton was four months old five months old but and then actually she did my birthday is October 11th. She went into labor on October 12th, and she went to labor on October 11th,

and I was like, I knew it, it's on. And then she, like, took a bunch of herbs and, like, made it stop. And then they made marijuana herbs. Like, like midwife herbs and made it up. So they stayed in there and cooked for another. She carried them full term. I mean, there was 15 pounds of baby.

Oh, my gosh. It was insane. They were 7, 12, and 6.13. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And then you delivered him. Yeah. And then popped him out of there.

And two minutes flat. Yeah, athletes. I feel like we could talk to you guys forever about a lot of things, many babies. And we might stop it too. Don't take offense to that. Honestly, it's not a bad idea. Coming from almost eight, it's a really good place to stop. Yeah.

I feel like it's a slippery slope. But if you got passed too, it like can sometimes spiral on you. Because they are wrong. Like, what's another one? If you have the, if you have the means, I mean, honestly, you really don't talk to old people who are like, I wish I'd had less kids. Usually they're like, I wish I'd had one more. I wish I'd had kids.

And like, you guys are young. I mean, but yeah, it's a no pressure on anybody. We, we sometimes look longingly at parents who are ripping around with one kid and they're like, oh, you carry them. Okay. It's like, if I try to carry my kids, like, there's no, no, possible mechanism to carry all my... You're outnumbered.

It's not in the cards. Yeah. Well, we're so, so excited for you guys. We ask every couple of the same exact question, though, which is, with everything you've gone through, what is the one piece of relationship advice you would give or have been given? I mean, for me, it's, and I think it's probably, maybe it's not universal advice, but like, you got to be honest with yourself. Like if you're committed, then that means something different than if you're just married, you know?

Like, I see it all the time. People like get married since they're just want to be married and they're not really committed. Committed is a different thing. It's like I like think of it in terms of the way you're committed to, you know, breathing or the way you might be committed to a kid or something. It's like a real commitment. Like you're going to do it or you're going to like die. And that to me is like that informs all your other decisions. Then you priorities start to make sense.

It's not like there's this big. gray area it's just it's like there's one mission and it's to be you know the best spouse and father you can and if you if that informs all your other priorities it makes everything really clear it's it's a lot easier mine would go back to it's not a competition like you are not incompetent you're not competing with your spouse and some days one of you is going to do more than the other but other days it will reverse and know that um being able to communicate communicate effectively and in a way where you can remove the emotion and know that you're coming no matter what when someone's saying something they're coming from a place of love that they're not

it's not coming from a place of selfishness it's coming from a place of love your teammates you're doing it together effective communication is huge in forgiveness all right well bodey morgan thank you so much for taking the time i i feel like we could literally sit here and just talk for hours. But we're so thankful that you gave us the time. We're thankful for the difference that you made in the world for all the good that you've created out of some tough situations. And we're excited to see how you guys grow and evolve as a family over the next little bit. But look forward to staying in touch.