The Unplanned Podcast with Matt & Abby - Welcome to Plathville, Saving our first kiss, and the tragedy that broke my family w/ Lydia (Plath)

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Lydia Plath Wyse and her husband Zac join Matt & Abby for an honest conversation about growing up on Welcome to Plathville, falling in love, and getting married on reality TV. Lydia shares what shaped her upbringing, how faith and family influenced her relationship, and the personal loss that deeply impacted her family. They also talk newlywed life, community, and what it’s really like living parts of your story in the public eye. This episode is sponsored by Esker, Rocket Money and Huel. Esker: Get up to 48% off sitewide at Ekster, plus an extra 20% off your order with code UNPLANNED—shop now at https://partner.ekster.com/unplannedpodcast Rocket Money: Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster—join at https://RocketMoney.com/unplanned Huel: Grab Huel today with our exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with my code UNPLANNED15 at https://huel.com/UNPLANNED15 Chapters: 00:00 - Lydia Plath 01:52 - Falling in love on Welcome to Plathville 04:40 - Growing up Plath 09:59 - Our family's religious beliefs 13:53 - Zac's upbringing 16:51 - Rumors that almost ruined our wedding 22:16 - Getting married on reality TV 22:50 - Sponsor: Ekster 24:20 - Why we got married so quickly 30:03 - Planning to grow our family 34:13 - The importance of community 35:29 - Our biggest fight before we got married 38:50 - What reality TV pays 40:34 - Newlywed life 45:19 - Sponsor: Rocket Money 47:17 - The blessing and curse of the public eye 53:46 - How my parent's divorce affected our marriage 57:05 - The loss of my baby brother 1:10:53 - Sponsor: Huel 1:12:25 - The family band that started it all 1:19:32 - How do you tailor your content for your audience? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On game day, pain can hit hard and fast, like the headache you get when your favorite team and your fantasy team both lose. When pain comes to play, call an audible with Advil plus acetaminophen and get long-lasting dual-action pain relief for up to eight hours. Tackle your tough pain two ways with Advil plus acetaminopin. Advil, the official pain relief partner of the NFL. Ask your pharmacist at this product's rate for you. Always read and follow the label. I was in the car when it happened, and I got out, I saw him, and I just, it's terrible. And I just told Isaac, I was like, don't look, just get out the other door, we got to go.

You're a freaking four and I have to tell your sibling, like, hey, don't go out this door. Yeah. Just like, no four-year-old should have to experience that. The hardest part for me, as I've grown up, was how little he was acknowledged. Honestly, I think that has more to do with my parents' divorce than the show. Not talking about the hardest thing in our childhood. I can't imagine how that affected my parents. Today on Unplanned, we sat down with Lydia Plathwise and her husband, Zach, from Welcome to Plathville,

the TLC series documenting two parents raising their nine kids on an isolated farm in Georgia. They met, dated, engaged, and got married all within six months while saving their first kiss for marriage. But there's a deeper part of Lydia's story that she rarely opens up about publicly. In 2008, her 17-month-old brother Joshua was accidentally run over on their family farm. In addition to that, we talk about behind the scenes of filming a reality TV show, the rumors about Lydia's husband, Zach, and so much more, all on today's episode. I feel like America was fascinated by your family for a number of reasons. Can you say that?

Yeah, like the way you live was just, you were brought up was just totally different from, I would say like the average American child experience. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I come from a family of nine kids, grew up on a farm in South Georgia, and when I was 15, we started on a TV show called Welcome to Plathville, and to this day, I still don't know how I'm in this place I am in now, and just trying to make the most of it, and married the best man in the world nine months ago, Sack Wise. Therefore, I am Lydia Wise now.

I'm still getting used to it. When you guys met each other, had you ever seen the show? No. That was very important to me, because if he would have seen the show, just dating in general, anyone who had seen the show, like, I would have 100 questions, 1,000 questions. So, Zach, not knowing who the show, anything about the show, who I am, anything like that, like, none of his family followed me, like, nothing, just genuine, raw us. And then I told them about it later.

So that was a fear of yours because you didn't want some creepy stalker to, like, find you and try to marry you. There have been, there have been instances, I won't get into it, I won't get into it, whether it was me or someone else in the family, but there have been instances where, um, come to find out they've been watching the show for a long time and it's creepy and so yeah, how did you vet him? Was there like a questionnaire? He filled out like a Google form. Answer these questions. No. But yeah. So we've gotten to this point of our relationship. But no, like just in general, like if they've watched the show and see. every season and followed all the things then then they already know me and now it's like hard to like genuinely like both of us get to know each other on the same level because they already know everything about me supposedly and like but half of it's out of context or all these things so it's just like starting from scratch both of us not knowing anything about each other I think it's also like

he knows everything about my life right you know that makes sense I think it goes to intention too like I think if I knew all this stuff about her it's like our kind of intentions as yeah I've been like what is your intention here like do you actually think I'm a cool person or do you think being in the public eye is cool like explain yourself so then you knew that there was no like

inclination of him wanting fame out of this yeah there was no motive yeah no motive of that has that happened before has there been not really to me okay not to you but maybe to someone else in the family yeah maybe it's purely just speculation like nobody knows for sure I know for sure

I'm just not going to disclose anything there. We just got into some deep tea there. I guess we want to stay away from that. Okay. I was actually just thinking about this last night. So we didn't have like TV growing up. We had like a box TV that we would watch old movies on, but we didn't have like anything mainstream.

So I never had this like perception of like being on TV was cool or the cool people were on TV or anything like that. So when I was on TV and it just, it didn't mean much. didn't like, I wasn't all of a sudden cool or anything like that. You know, it was just me living my life. So, but, did you say? I said, you're pretty cool, though. Oh, yeah, but yeah, lots of things with my childhood, looking back were quite different, even though I thought it was normal at the time. I'm sure, yeah. But yeah, like, we didn't, a huge thing was like, we didn't drink Coke, but it was like no sugar. We didn't have any sugar of any kind. You wouldn't find it in our pantry, nothing. So,

but for that like we were all really healthy everything we ate was organic natural we grew a lot of our own stuff and like even when like the season would come around and people would get sick like it would go through the family in in a week in a week's time um with 11 people so it was like we were like really healthy and active and grew up on 45 acres with uh how how not houses horses cows horses, cows, chickens, ducks, guineas, gardens, we all had our own garden at one point. I remember, we had, like, the family garden that we would all tend to, and then we all reached a certain age where we wanted to do our own garden. And some did better than others.

I had my garden not do good. I remember, like, trying to keep my garden alive for, like, two years. And I got a few things. I remember getting a watermelon this big. I was so proud of that one of them. But it was funny, because, like, after I just let my gardener. garden go the soil there or like the weeds there were so rich it was like the whole field they were thriving brown and then the the weeds there were so rich it was like well at least i helped the weeds out

that's so funny now your family like living i want to i'd say like kind of like homesteading style would you say that i guess we set the trend because that seems to be really trendy now it's been on tic talk now was it ballerina farm you know nar smith right everybody's doing that it's a trend wearing these nice dresses and hanging the laundry on the line. That's beautiful. You guys are the O-Gs. Wow. Wait, you guys hung laundry on the line and everything.

Yeah. Would you have to wash the machine? Yeah, we had to wash a machine. We would do about six loads laundry a day. Your parents' motivation for raising you guys like this, was it like religiously motivated? I think for my parents, they both just experienced a lot in the world and just wanted to protect us from that. My mom was the own child with a single alcoholic mother. her mom was really in her life until she was like 12, 13 years old when she was threatened to be taken away.

So my mom had a pretty rough childhood and was just like experienced a lot of just the world and the hurt and the, you know, just all the toxic things that come from that. And so that led to just being a lot more sheltered than most people, which I think there's definitely an aspect of that. but I don't think you need to like pretend like it doesn't exist to protect your kids from it. So I think I couldn't say that like it was like, yes, I was raised in a Christian home. But I don't think my parents did a really good job of like I never perceived that the way I was raised was because that's what God wanted type of thing. You know, it wasn't like you have to do this, you have to dress this way, you have to do these things. to be good and like it wasn't like that it was more just a lifestyle that I guess my mom wanted she wanted to have lots of children she wanted land she wanted all these things and they just

we were way out in the country and I remember going like two months without even leaving the farm I was like I haven't been to town in a long time and what is town how many people are in town well our address was Wiggum and that was 600 but But Cairo is where we would go. It was only like 10, 15 minutes away. And that's, what's popular Chicago? 25. No, not 2,500.

I think 10,000. 10,000 people is nothing, though. Yeah, 10,000. Like, that's, Man, so you guys were really out in the boonies. Like, you're really, there's nobody. Well, you didn't seem to go to town very often. Yeah.

And so all you see is your family all the time. Yeah. And the goats. Man. Did other families come to your house? Yeah, we would have, there's one family that we've, we've known them my entire life and still to this day like can't get away from them they just we wind up in the same place and friends forever and um we had other families that we would hang out with

um but even some of that got to the point where it was like okay a lot of these there was yeah i don't want to get into that but there was one family that we would like go to fellowship with for a while and then eventually my parents were like this is not healthy this is not god this is just pure legalism and so we like I think it was hard for my parents because they didn't want to um like they wanted us to be in church but they didn't want just the I don't know the production of it if you know what I mean yeah what do you mean about a family like just following pure legalism were they doing things or there are certain actions they were taking that they were it was type of thing where like women couldn't speak oh and like you had to wear dresses and like all these things so it's like

Like no pants for women sort of thing. Was that IBLP or was it something different? I have no idea. I didn't hear about IBLP until a few years ago. But no, I think it was something different than that. Just their own big family. That's so interesting. But anyways, so like the first church I was ever a part of is the one I'm a part of now.

I started going there when I was 17. So like growing up, we were raised in a Christian home. We would like read the Bible together as a family every night. But we weren't like a part of a church. we would have home groups now and then with other families other people but it was always hard finding people who were like families who are like truly after you know the heart of the father and not just like a lifestyle or you know legalist or legalistic or just like production or all these things so fundamentalist or things like that so which I think that's that's

something that was perceived like my family was a fundamentalist Christian large family homeschool these things with like that yeah that's when you when you say fundamentalist like I'm yeah just enlighten me here a little bit because when I've seen videos and pictures of the show you know I'm I'm thinking of like the visual I saw of you and all your siblings like playing instruments and you're like yeah nicely dressed yeah and it's just like the first thing I thought of was oh they're like the Duggers like you know they're it seemed like a very similar sort of thing going on I didn't know if you were I just assumed maybe they're, maybe they're Mormon, maybe they are Mennonite or, uh, what's the other Amish? Amish is like

another group of people that, you know, I don't know, it's just that that was like my initial assumption. Yeah. But I guess what you're saying is that wasn't really a group that your family like went into. Yeah, we weren't even like part of a denomination or anything. Like we were, I look back on it. I'm like, I don't know. Like my parents never taught us like, this is how you should dress or anything like that like my mom just like yeah we grew up wearing dresses but once i started doing my own shopping it was never like it was never told that you had to wear dresses type of thing okay it's like my mom shop for us and those were the clothes she bought us and then you know when i'm 13 14 out there buying my own clothes i bought whatever i wanted so it wasn't the type of thing

where uh i could i could totally see how like looking at a picture of my family it's like oh they are you know, X category, whatever. Yeah. But I don't know what. If I was to have to put my family in the category, I do not know where I would place us. Yeah.

Out there. I mean, I would just kind of. Out there. It's a good one. I would just say like, I feel like there's so many assumptions around just different denominations in general. And what's so often misunderstood is that there's a lot of belief systems around

denominations that are very similar. I'd say honestly like 80% similar across denominations, but what is disagree upon is like is what's most talked about. And so that's what's coming to the light in terms of the show. It's like, oh, this picture of them, look, they are this denomination. So we can talk about that with them. And like, even though they probably agree on all these other things and they're probably living in a good way or following practices in this good way, it's like we can talk about the things that may be controversial more. because that's often just what is more talked about in general. And so I feel like the big question everyone's,

everybody probably wants to know is, do you guys drink grape juice during communion and do you baptize babies? I know. I know. And this is like, you know, what's the difference? We can't move on until we get an answer. Well, I've had grape juice and I've had real wine for. Oh my gosh, real wine.

Alert, alert. I know, but this is the thing. This is the thing. There was an episode where, like, after she turned 21, she was having a drink with her parents. I had a champagne to celebrate with my parents. And I can't tell you how many people were like, shame on you. I'm like, oh, I didn't realize having a few steps of champagne was a sin. I want to talk a little bit about your upbringing.

Yeah. I heard a lot of backstory on Jeremy and Ginger's podcast, which shout out to their podcast. Shout out to Jeremy and Jimmy. We love them. They're your friends of ours. No best. Something that you had still a decent size family is you and two sisters. Yes.

not nine siblings like not nine kids altogether but um something that stood out to me that I wanted to ask you guys you said you grew up in a household where um basically like you were able to talk about emotions and like it was a very like emotionally I would say it sounds like intelligent household where people were like very open about that stuff I want to talk about that a little bit because I feel like that is something that our generation is struggling with now because it's like it wasn't talked about a lot like when we were kids and it's like what did your parents do right that like made your house seem like such a safe place for that. That's helped me so much too.

Well, I think like there's a lot of balance between my two parents. My dad was just always present in a lot of ways, very intentional about his time with us. He would work like 14-hour shifts as a nurse and then play tennis with me or like go do something with the girls or something like that. And so he was always very intentional about his time and always always. was a man of his word. So it's like, if I asked him like, hey, can we play tennis tonight? And he's like, oh, sorry, I'm just a little tired, but we can do it tomorrow. Like, he would make a point to make sure it happened. And so that was just like super encouraging, not only as an example, but also just as a son, just to have a dad who is just that intentional with me. So, but then my mom, she was very,

very, very just emotionally in tune with each of her kids, just very much like, okay, like, you know, she'd ask us about school, but she would actually like want to understand how our day at school was. It wasn't just like, okay, how was school? Oh, math sucked. Okay, have a good one. Here's some food or whatever. Like, it was actually like, we would say something and she could tell that like something was a bit off and just like, hey, like you can, you can tell me. It's okay. And like, it's like, yeah, someone kind of like picked on me today. And like we would go in depth about it and she'd help us understand our feelings or understand our anger and talk it out instead of just being like like not having a conversation about it. And so that was just really

helped us just through our school years and just our years at the home where we all talked to each other. And even when, you know, siblings had our tiffs, we would we would talk to each other and we'd, you know, apologize and actually mean our apology, not just be like, sorry you feel that way it's like no sorry i did that to you and like i have to own my piece it's not it takes two to make this happen so i'm sorry that i did this and so i mean it just bred that natural i guess you could say emotional intelligence in me and we dealt with a lot you know around our wedding and i just i didn't have reactions a lot of people expected in terms of like you know people you know there's people calling me gay you know literally the day I proposed and like all this

extra stuff that didn't make sense and it's like okay but coming from the standpoint of your life and what you've been through you might be projecting things and like Ethan in particular he has dealt with a lot he just went through a divorce recently and then like he sees his you know sister getting proposed to and it's like on the same form that he got married on and everything like that so it's like there's a lot of emotional tension i'm sure for him and so recognizing that and not being like how could you ask that or like getting all frustrated at him i'm just like i just answered the question and moved on because was that something that happened like on the show was that like yeah that was the that was one of the big things on the show actually

which that kind of protected me from a lot of that like you just weren't even aware it was going on when it was being filmed essentially well so okay so was like leading up to the proposal i didn't even know zach was in town he completely surprised me oh wow with everything and um yeah so like he was dealing with a lot leading up to it my whole family was there with him like setting up everything and when i got there you know proposed beautiful all these things he surprised me it was crazy so like i was experiencing the beautiful side of it while he was like just it was beautiful for me too i had a great time yeah he was just like protecting me from all that and you have like had the conversation with my brothers and everything and he later told me

like yeah like Ethan asked me if I was gay and I told him like that's ridiculous I just proposed your sister um you know they asked me some questions that just I don't know where they were coming from and of like I was really frustrated about it and everything but it was never like I didn't even watch it either because Zach just like he was like this is our proposal day like you you just remember our proposal. Yeah. And we'll, you know, deal with everything else later as it comes. Yeah.

I just, I didn't feel the need to fuel that fire. Like, because I wanted to give fuel to what was going well. Yeah. And, and so, you know, there was a lot of things that happened. And I did tell her about a lot of them in due time when they were necessary. But it was more like in the weeks following and even just like until after we were really married. It was I was like, oh, yeah, like this happened and this is a big deal. We can talk through it and figure it out.

But in the time, you didn't need to know it because that, it would have hurt you. And it's not like, it's not like she didn't get some of that in her own, right. Like her brothers talked to her several times about like different things. So she knew some of that stuff already before the weddings. It's not like I'm like, your brothers are saying all these things and I'm not telling you about anything. Like, no. That must have been really hard for you because I can't imagine like in marriage, you're becoming your own family. But at the same time, there's so much connection.

with your existing family too. So that probably felt, they're probably very hurtful to hear that from someone who you're about to essentially be brothers with. So I guess, I guess like my question for you was, how did you handle that on your own? Because regardless of the context of the situation,

just accusing somebody of something without really like knowing more. And then that being like publicly, something that shared all over the world. Like you're, you had no idea who should. she was when you when you guys met this was never about famous was never about a TV show it's kind of just like a life you almost married into yeah so was that like a very stressful time for you then

i wouldn't use the word stress i would more say it's just it was confusing yeah i didn't know how to react really especially because it was like the last thing i expected yeah terms of like okay like i approached them to have the conversation i was like hey guys like ask me any question you want, I want to be an open book. I know this isn't usually, you know, this is a quick timeline, everything like that. I want you guys to be as engaged in understanding as possible lead into our marriage. And like of all the questions I was going to be asked, I didn't think that was going to come out. And so was the quick timeline any, was that a concern for anybody or was that not even like it was brought up, but it was very brief. It wasn't like the main point or the main

focus. It was more so like just quick judgments on my character of like, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do that. And it was like off of very little things that I actually didn't, like was just honestly taken out of context. Like when I moved there, I had to put all my stuff in a very small room and I couldn't really keep it tidy because I was in transition. So it's like you can't really tidy up until you're in a place where you can actually put everything. Totally. And one of the brothers saw that as I'm messy and I don't clean up after myself. And I literally was just going there to sleep and then I'd help Lydia with the wedding. We planned a wedding in two months. That's very, that's super fast. Abby's mom planned our wedding. So that was a huge blessing for us. Neither one of

us. We just showed up. We're like, what's happening at this wedding? Okay. So you brought up the timeline a couple times and I'm sure that was like a part of the show as well. Like you guys from meeting to getting engaged was like less than a month, right? No, meeting to get engaged was like four months. Four months. It was engagement to married that was two months. That's okay. Yeah. Yes. So meeting to day of marriage was three days shy of six months.

Okay. That is gnarly. Yeah. I looked at up once. I think it was 187 days. Dude, you guys need your own TV show just about you. I would watch it. If the cameras could have only been there from day one.

That's such an interesting social experiment. We've talked about this though. We were like, we need to like write this all in a journal and like write a book about it. Thank you to Esker for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. One of the most frustrating things we've run into when we travel is trying to fit all of our stuff in a suitcase. There's a lot of clothes, diapers, there's wipes, binkies, and that's why we're huge fans of Esker's travel pack. What this travel pack does is you put all of your clothes in it and then you suction all the air out. That way, it's nice and

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So the reason behind the timeline, our idea, we both talked about it. I don't know what it was. We both talked about it well before we were like, yeah, six months, we're done. Like, we didn't expect that at all. But our idea behind the timeline would be like six months to two years is like engagement period. Like you would know in that about that amount of time. Right. And just like how much we did in such a short amount of time, those first three weeks, we hiked five 14ers in three days.

We went skydiving. What's a four? 14er? Yeah, it's a 14,000 foot mountain. Holy crap in Colorado. We did five of those. We did five in three days. Oh my gosh. So it's like, you guys are so fit. That's amazing. She's fit. Okay. Like we get here. I'm like in Colorado, I'm like hyping her up. I'm like, okay, you got you have to experience Colorado for real. Because she was telling me with her friend. She's like, yeah, we've, you know, gone to Loveland pass and we drove to a 14,000 foot mountain. I'm like, all right. You guys haven't experienced Colorado then. And I told them, you have to hike a 14,000 foot mountain. It's a challenge, but it's also an experience because you get to, you get on top of this mountain, 360 view of just mountain range. It's stunning.

So tell her about this. She freaks out. She's just like, yes, I need to do this. And so I plan it with her friend. I bring a couple friends and we go. And we like get out of the car, round a corner. And I'm like, guys, look, there's the peak. She's gone.

She's, like, going already. I'm like, Lydia, where are you going? And so, like, I have to catch her, make sure she's okay because she's from Florida. So I'm like, you're going to die about to tasting this. And she just keeps going. And we're talking back and forth. She's trucking that mountain. Yeah.

I'm, like, trying to get to know her because I like her. And I'm like, yo, like, you're amazing. Wait up. And, like, we're talking back and forth. And I'm, like, I'm from Colorado. This shouldn't be happening right now. Like, how is she outpacing me? Well, she grew up in a family who doesn't eat sugar.

All the organic food. She's like, fueling you. No, she's super healthy and we had a great time. But like, it gets exhausting. And it's like you're huffing and puffing. It was kind of funny because I hate to admit this. But it was in the time where I was still trying to avoid you. We've all heard about that.

I was trying to avoid him. But I also at the same time really wanted to spend time with him because I was curious about who this guy was. And so, like, yes, I wanted to just. B-line it to the top of the mountain and just get there but I also was wondering curious if I got ahead if you would get ahead and then we could be together the two of us she was luring you because if I would have stepped with the group you would have spent half time with me half time with other people so in my trying to avoid you I went ahead so you could get ahead so we could

hike together she got me now that is some mind games hotline and singer right there had you guys dated before you met no you mean other people yeah like Oh, yeah, I didn't phrase that question. I was like how we date before we... Yeah, most people date other people before they meet. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah, just weird.

Did you guys date before you ma'am? No. We actually didn't. We literally didn't. Yeah, we... That's a weird question. I said that really weird. There could have been a much better...

Yeah, like from our story, we had never dated other people before we started dating. I had gone a couple days, but I wanted that to be my story, but you don't marry someone... You're obviously ridiculous to be your standard. But, dude, five months and 27 days, though, that's hard for. I get what you're saying, though, because like when you, I feel like when you, especially when you go on a hike, you do a challenge together, you're talking the whole time. You, I heard that on when you first met, you like, go in right away asking all the deep questions.

Yeah. You find out a lot of things pretty quickly. And also, we like, before we even started dating, we kind of just established that like this dating world out here, people just play too many games. And we're not about that. Like, I'm not going to. to talk to you for five months to see if I want to go on a date and then go on a date to see if I want to date you and then date years and like take three years to see if you might be

okay. It's like you should know their like it shouldn't be take that long to know their character because that's what matters like you know other things are going to change about them but it's their character that matters so. Yeah and how you view marriage because like I feel like ultimately we've talked a lot about like ultimately and there's lots of different fields of thought on this But what we believe is like, it's a choice to stay married and to keep working on your marriage and to, you know, keep strengthening it. And so ultimately it's not like we're going to ever reach where it's like, oh, you got a perfect score. You get to be my partner. It's like, oh, no, we just like are aligned on like what marriage is for and like how we view it.

Actually, it's funny you say that because our pastor during our ceremony, it's in our wedding video. He says love is not an emotion. Love is a decision. and it's like choosing daily and sacrificing for each other daily to stay together. And you know what's going to-day, I'll choose you every day. That's beautiful. Boom. You know what's going to prepare you for marriage to the most?

Marriage. There's nothing else that's going to prepare you for marriage that's marriage-full because same with children. We've been talking about that. But here's my other thing. Has I ever had- You guys are talking about children? That's been a topic of conversation.

Okay. So we talked about the five, 14ers in three days, right? He's changing the topic. I'm getting through the topic, okay? We did four in one day, and that was when she was like, all right, I'm going to say yes to this. You know, this is a big deal. I'm going to say yes to moving forward with us. And in the rain on the side of the mountain dancing.

That was fun. Wow. But we were driving back and we were getting to know each other, and I was like, okay, do you like cats or dogs? Which one do you like better? Babies. She said babies. Yeah, she said babies, like, from the beginning. So she's had baby fever forever.

I get that. So my youngest sister was like my baby. I like, she was everything. And so the minute she started walking, I was like, I need another baby in my life. So I keep telling him like, yes, I have baby fever. But I've also wanted a baby in my life for like nine years now. So I'm surviving. I'm doing okay.

I can wait another day. day. Another day. I love the pause there before day. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing good. We, yeah, we decided, you know, wait a year and have the conversation. But we, I think we want to be parents pretty soon, just young parents. That's exciting. You're going to be the best out in the world. So, yeah, what's going to happen is a year from now. She's going to, like, she's going to approach you and say, okay, so we're having a kid. And like, here we go. Yeah. That's what happened. Matt said the time on. I was like, on the day, I was like, well, here it is. It's time. Yeah. Yeah. How long did you guys wait? Uh, two years before we started trying. Three years? Oh, three years before we had our first one. Yeah, but we, yeah. But what happened is on our anniversary, our second anniversary, I was like, it's time. And you were like, no, I'm not ready.

And so we waited a few more months. Well, I think, well, yeah, I guess we got, we officially got pregnant in October. Yeah. And our anniversary was July. Yeah, so it took three months, three months from our second anniversary. Of me convincing you. Yeah, three months after our second wedding anniversary, we got pregnant. Yeah.

And what would your advice be to Zell? because I know like as a dad provider all these things like you want to be a dad but at the same time there's so much like not fear but just like unknown around it so like and there's nothing that's actually going to prepare you to be ready to be a dad so I'm not saying convince him that's not at all what I'm saying but what advice would you have for him if he is going to be a dad in the next two three years oh totally yeah I think I think if you just like go right into it I think you're definitely going to be probably unprepared paired right away and just be like what has happened like that you know you're you're keeping

another human alive that you're fully responsible for 24-7 and it's it's a lot but then you know you get past those those initial months of having a baby and then you know you get to where we're at now where we have a two-and-three-year-old who not only entertain each other every given second they're like they're like glued together they do everything together but they're so fun and now like where our kids are at an age where we have like full-on conversations with them so yeah I don't know. I would say you can't go wrong either way. I think it's just you have to recognize that maybe, yeah, if you have kids right away after getting married, your life isn't going to look as if you had taken a couple years and just live the, you know, no kid's life for a bit.

But then you also get this unique cool experience with kids at a young age that other people don't get if you choose to do that, you know, like right away. That's awesome. For sure. Yeah. And I'm just Like, I mean, even this, even this year we've, like, had that kind of, like, married life, just the two of us experience. We've been everywhere. Been to two countries, 15 states. Okay. You just done a lot. You, okay, you said 15 states. I thought I heard you say on a podcast or something, 38 states. Yeah, that was 2023. Oh my, wait. So you already did. Before you guys met, you went to 38 states. Yeah. Yeah. And now together you've been, now you've been to 15. Yeah. So I'm just like, we've seen it all. Like, we're ready. Have you guys ever thought? Have you ever thought of like doing van life or like getting a pilot's license?

You could fly a plane and go to different places. Yo, I haven't thought of that. But now you're making me sponsor me. Dude, because I've been a van life. I've been a big fan of van life. But then recently I was like, okay, Abby doesn't like camping. But what if I learn. I've never camped?

What if I learn to get like fly a plane and then maybe one day we can like lease or rent or whatever it is like a small private plane that could just fit our immediate family? And if I have enough hours and I don't know. Like that's just like such a cool way to travel. The reason I bring that up is, yeah, you guys like to travel. Yeah, so I think 100%, like I've totally thought about van life. I'm like, I've traveled so much, it might even make sense. But at the same time, like, it wouldn't work for us because we're so much, we're such people, people.

Yeah. And we need community. We need, you know, time with our friends and rich, you know, rich friendships. And I feel like the van life would just take from that. So the travel aspect and the, you know, waking up at sunrise and in the mountains with your coffee. like that would that would be the dream but all of that would just be for myself and my own enjoyment and there wouldn't be giving there wouldn't be community there wouldn't be the rich aspect that comes from that i've thought many times about like what i want to accomplish to travel and lydia and i

have very similar like travel motives in general and it's just like i think the big ones are like just i think the western national parks just like going through california and looping back around to Colorado that kind of big loop with national parks and then we want to go to Switzerland and that sort of stuff but like Alaska is one I've been to Alaska and every time I bring it up she's like we need to go now but so we have our ideas but I think for the most part we've also traveled to almost all 50 states now and somehow our employers have kept us yeah I want to know getting met being engaged like your timeline just under six months yes had you guys had a fight before you got married

a couple disagreements but nothing like major the biggest tension actually before we got married actually was whether or not we were going to film our wedding that was the biggest tension that's sad and it was pretty big because it was like his family you know just wanted it to be the wedding and and this was like well this is my life and it's hard no I don't want so that was it was really hard but we um we resolved that within three hours I think we were both just like okay we need to take our own time and then we came back together and we because I think initially Zach was like you need to make a decision this is your wedding I was like no it's our wedding this is our life we need to make the decision so yeah there were definitely aspects that were

tough about it and we wanted we tried to like make it as guest friendly as possible and and yeah we told the guests like if you don't want to be on camera just don't sign this and because you have siblings right that don't want to be on camera yeah I have I have an oldest sister she's amazing she's living her happy life with her four kiddos and her husband wow and and she like only five more to go she loves she loves she loves the family too and like I think a lot of people think that because she's off camera she hates the family but she's like everybody's close people have spread lies people have spread lies but like the family was toxic so she moved away type of thing it's like what are you saying but now she yeah she's close with everyone she comes around as often as she can she

this far away though but um yeah she just her and her husband don't want to be in the public eye and i 100% respect that and i am jealous sometimes yeah a big thing that we've like learned with just disagreements that we have is like i think that one of the things we focus on is we're a team against whatever struggle it may be in terms of like whether that's dealing with the cameras or um just disagreements at our wedding we're just like yeah well this is our wedding and like we're getting married and you know some people may not understand the timeline but this makes sense for us and and so let's let's face this as us and not you know let it be like i'm i think this way and you think this way and i won this argument and you lost this argument or something

like that it's like yeah we are a team it's not you fighting against me it's us against the problem and that's what that's what happened with the cameras you guys versus the producers okay well but that's what that's what happened is I was like this is your decision because you've dealt with this more I was putting it on her and she's like no like you're in this with me I need I need to help with this decision yeah yeah it's all the same yours that's good because then when if something does go wrong it's not like you chose this it's like no yeah we both have to face whatever consequences come of a decision we make together because I feel like that's like that is just a common thing in marriage where it's like okay well you

did this and I did this is like nope everything's us everything's we yeah this might this question is too much that just no need to answer it but I'm just so curious because I know a lot about the social media side of things but not the reality TV side of things when it comes to like revenue and finances with the revenue you get paid on the show is that enough to like pay your bills or do you have to get like another job to supplement what you're making when you're on TV. Lydia went about this, like, in the best way possible. So, I mean, maybe you could live just off of it, but not, not really. But so when I was 16, I was just like, or just at the beginning, when we started filming, I was just like, I don't want any of this to change who I am,

how I go about life, how I see things. So when I was 16, I started working, and I was like, I'm not going to, like, I'm just going to save the money from the show, set that aside, get a job, live off of that so that I'm just a normal person. Like I want to just be as ground as possible. So I started working. I had like six to seven part-time jobs when I was 16, 17. And then when I was 17, 16, yeah, six to seven part-time jobs. Oh my gosh. Everything from like, you know, just two hours babysitting in the morning to like working eight hours a day, seven hours a day for a mechanic and his wife who had a farm. And so I did everything from like office job to helping him in the shop to digging trenches and cutting down trees building fences all the things um that's so

so i started doing that when i was like 1617 and then at 17 i started working as a bank teller worked that job for about a year and then um worked at a jewelry store so yeah i kind of just went in it like i don't want to rely on the show i don't want that to be my identity i don't want like that to to be who I am so started working and live off to that but it was awesome because

you know that that just set me up for you know even more savings I want to talk about newlywed life because that's so fun and it's such a special season and I still look at our first year of marriage like so fondly we talk about it all the time so what has that transition

looked like for the two of you guys very young and married because you're 21 in 24 like what is that like because I think a lot of people are like thinking about getting married like late 20s 30s like they don't know what this kind of can look like in your early 20s yeah I mean obviously the big thing moving in together I think that was really fun just wait yes because I remember this was a part of the show you guys didn't even kiss until you were married yeah they were crying about everything I didn't realize that yeah we saved our first kiss the wedding day.

You saved your first kiss for the wedding day. That is right. Wow. Hey, that one's the story is crazy because right. It was only six months. Were you like making out with your hand to prepare? I legitimately did that before our first day.

I don't think they would admit that if that was the case. We had relationships before. We had kissed people before. So you knew how to kiss. We knew how to kiss. Okay. But we had to practice like, okay, how are we going to kiss? We practiced the dip.

We would not kiss. It was like. temptation it was it was tough but it was good and how long did you hold the kiss for was it was it was a quick one you guys it was a long we kissed probably five times on the first kiss did people have to look away at the wedding where did you make it we didn't make it uncomfortable okay dude you should have you should have made people uncomfortable just for the heck of it right just make your grandma uncomfortable everybody we're on the top oh my gosh you can wait for five It's just, like, tongues your life.

Ew, Matt. Matt James. Sorry. Sorry. That was too far. No, but, like, the show really, like, pointed that out, actually. It's, like, they took, like, all the clips of us, like, during our photo shoot and during, like, our reception and every little piece of us, you know, kissing each other. It's like, now that they're married, they're kissing.

And they had, like, a montage for a minute of us kissing. You're like, no one needs to either. I'm like, everybody kisses on their wedding day. Like, boom. Did you guys watch? watch this season or no no i i've watched some here and there with like friends but it wasn't yeah it wasn't like a lot it was more just like because my friends were watching that must be crazy to have it all go out and you don't even know what's getting posted well you know because everyone's DMing you

oh that's how i find out what's on the episode i don't watch it i just look on social media see read like two three dms i'm like okay interesting or like they'll comment on the post they'll be like i'm so sorry that this happened or all you know i'm so excited for you this go, but I've already moved past that. Thanks for the reminder. Is that how you found out about like the whole like thing with her with her brother when people the people like reach out to you and they're like, dude, I just like saw you get in this massive argument on live television or like I don't know like no, like it was more I had told

her like they had done some things that happened but it's definitely but when it like I think the details came out when the show was kind of airing and everything of like they this is the timeline of when they did it and this is why they did it and like just some of the details weird too to relive all that stuff yeah that is the hard especially because it's like I think it was like six months yeah and so the thing about it was like we had had a lot of conversations privately with some of the family and so we're like getting past a lot of this stuff and then it like comes up again that's such an interesting world to be in yes what happened was awful and wrong in all these things but then then you're having thousands of people message you like

like you need to move away from your family they're toxic all these things and it's just like it makes it so much bigger yeah than what happened i think the biggest thing that makes people say that stuff too is like their own experience yeah 100% so many times you would get like we did the tortilla slap challenge i'm sure you've seen it all across and like it was so fun like it was a great experience half the comments were like this is this is abuse this is the early signs of abuse and trauma and everything like that. I'm like, what is Lydia just

taking her arm back? She's slinging dorothy. I'm worried about Zach. His face is red. That's what I'm saying though, because like we edit it so that like, it was almost every one of Lydia's slaps. She was just like and it was just like real quick form. And like, it was funny.

I guess how we edited it was a lot of I need to see this video. I wouldn't see Lydia just take you out. I'm sorry. Why am I laughing so much? No, it's good. It's good. It's, it is.

She does take me out. I'm like, oh, wow. Thank you to Rocket Money for sponsoring this portion of today's episode. We're in the new year, and this is the perfect time to get your budget figured out. I know Abby and I have been having a lot of money conversations recently. And one of our favorite personal finance apps is Rocket Money, because they help you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitor your spending, and help lower your bill. so you can grow your savings. I know we've talked about this in the past,

but there are so many subscriptions nowadays. It is so easy for them to get out of hand. I know in our household, we had so many subscriptions. We didn't even know we were paying for every month. We were just hemorrhaging money regularly and weren't even using the services provided. Plus, sometimes you never know. Your kids could even be signing up for some things

because our son, our youngest, signed us up for several TV subscriptions that we weren't even aware of until we downloaded Rocket Money. Rocket Money tracks your subscriptions and has the ability to cancel within the app with just a few taps, saving time and avoiding charges. You can also set budgets and goals, get personalized insights, and regular reports.

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Okay, now we're on the spot. Ask us a question. Welcome to unplanned. Yeah, the unplanned way. But basically, like, you guys went from, obviously, working jobs together. Yeah. The only way, like, we really prepared for this was listening to, like, your two interviews from, like, 2023 or something. Oh, we're going to interview each other.

Yeah, it was awesome. We're really excited to just get to know you guys generally. But you guys work jobs together and then, like, this stuff blows up. And, like, it kind of. of, I feel like changed your life in a lot of ways. Oh, yeah. And so it's definitely changed mind being in the public eye. Obviously, you get a lot of opinions, and I feel like there's, haters are going to hate.

I feel like that's the common thread around influencers and stuff like that. What has been kind of the biggest, one of the biggest blessings? And then what are some moments where it's like you realize it's just overwhelming or it's like. Yeah. Because I mean, several times for us, it's been like. like, okay, let's go buy a farm and, like, just exclude ourselves from all this and just be done. Yeah. And it's like, have you guys had moments like that?

And, or like, what does that look like for you? I'll start with the blessings. Yeah. The blessings that we get to work together. That is something that it's like, we spend so much time together. I think about a lot of my friends where their husband goes off to work all day. And I'm like, that's so sad. You only see him, like, from six to like whenever you go to bed.

I'm like, that's sad. And then if someone has to do something that night, you don't. see them all day. We spend a lot of time together and we've always just been that type of clingy couple anyway. So it's like so fun that we get to spend all this time together. And now that we have kids, we get to spend so much more time with our kids than most families get to. And I feel sad that that's their experience. But for us, I'm like, gosh, this is so great. Like we get to really, both of us get to be the biggest influence in our kids' lives. And it's not like a stay at home mom or a stay at home dad. Like we both get to be so hands on with

their kids and that is something I do not take lightly at all like I am so grateful for that for sure as far as the downsides they have been we have therapy I mean truthfully that's what it is we have individual therapy we have marriage therapy we have um a lot of things because no one humans are just simply not designed to have this much feedback from people like you're used to having your neighbors random people you see in public who would never say the things that they say online I I kind of love, sorry to interrupt, but I kind of love that you guys were able to work through family conflict off of the TV show without outside opinions. Even though, like, all that stuff still aired six months after there was, you know, conflict and drama on the show. Yeah.

Like, think about going through that live and then trying to navigate that when you have a million different people telling you what to do. So that kind of almost makes me, because I don't want to, yeah, the content we make is so different. reality TV, but there are some similarities. And so it's like, man, sometimes when we're going through stuff and there's like all, all this noise that's happening, it's like, man, that'd be sick to, like, you know, film everything and then slowly release it like six months later. So if anybody has an opinion that could mess with you, you're just like, oh, they just, they're just, they're kind of just sharing their own experience and it has nothing to do with me. Yeah. We hate to talk about like the negative stuff, but it is a reality of it. And I think the thing

that's been such a blessing is that we were married when we started all this and then it started slow we had a really strong foundation not that you guys like this isn't like comparing our situations because they're totally different but um we had this foundation of like okay we'd been together for three years we'd been married for a year before anything like really four years of like us really growing up and being together like we were a unit and so there was never a time where someone said something about me and matt questioned anything about me or someone said something about matt and i questioned anything about matt or if someone said anything about our marriage and i questioned our marriage it was never that it was always like you're saying us versus this and um like

it has it has been such a like there's a maturing process that this has expedited in me whereas like okay I have to really know what I believe about myself I really have to know what I believe about my husband I really have to know what I believe about our marriage and our family and all these things because there are so many other voices that could be telling me otherwise but it's like oh wait we come back to I know where our identity is I know what this is all rooted in And nothing can shake that. And so it has made us stronger in a lot of ways. And I also, and I don't want to like get too much into stuff that like involves your family, but not necessarily you guys.

But just with prepping for the episode, it also made me sad that there's been like divorce in your family, which like the first thing I thought of immediately was like, man, the public I was too much. Yeah. Like literally like that was the first thing that I thought of and made me so sad because it almost made me think like, man, would it would. these relationships would have worked out if there was no sort of outside, you know, pressure because some people can't take it. Like some people can't take all the other voices and all the noise and it's very hard. So I'm sure it was, I'm sure being on reality TV was very stressful on your parents and really stressful on your sibling and their spouse, you know?

Yeah, I mean, that's something that I have to keep myself from thinking about is what would life be right now if we weren't on TV. Yeah. Because it would be completely different. and there's so many unknowns, and, you know, could make me just not grateful for where I am right now. Because, yeah, there have been, we've walked through some really hard things in the public eye, and there have been, you know, it's been a struggle doing that. And I'm sure if we weren't in the public eye, life would look way different.

But I can't compare an unknown to where I'm at right now and not be grateful for where I am. So I know being in the public eye did add a lot of stress. With my parents, I don't think it was being in the public eye. With my brother, I think the public eye really affected his ex. And I think she put too much of her validation and identity in what people thought and how much attention she got from that. And so that kind of just carried her off. But with my mom, with my parents, I don't think it was, like, I couldn't say if the show didn't happen, my parents would still be together.

Yeah. You know. So, yeah, but it's definitely something I have to keep myself from thinking about. It's like, where would life be? I do know, I wouldn't be married to you because I wouldn't have had the freedom to travel for six weeks to go to Colorado and meet you and just go hikes and 14ers and say yes to whatever the Lord has for us. us to get married six months later. That's sweet. Yeah, that's the thing.

You can't pick and choose only the good or only the, you know, you get to. You take it as it comes and then you do with it and steward what you have well. And I think you guys have really done that. I'm curious, since you brought up like your parents separating, was that difficult planning like a life with someone that you're saying like we're going to spend forever together? Is that difficult coinciding like with the reality? of what was happening with your parents' marriage? Yeah, 100%.

I think there was a point shortly after my parents separated where I was just like, I just didn't want anything to do with any relationships. Like, it's like, what's the point type of thing? Because this one marriage that you've looked up to your whole life is kind of nothing. Not nothing because there's children and there's proof of it. But it's like, so what is it worth type of thing?

So I definitely had to work. through that for a while of just like you know love is a choice and you can choose to work through things or you can choose to go your separate ways also just like I'm not going to let fear hold me back from anything like that's not going to be the reason I do or don't do something so but then with I think with our relationship like my parents had been separated for like three years of that when we met so I had kind of had time to process that but what was really hard was like I think it was like a month after we got married was when their divorce was finally finalized. So it was just like, well, we're starting our marriage and we don't have.

And actually, I'll even add to that my parents, they didn't have like, like, it didn't go big or anything like that, but they've had their struggles before. And so, like, I also had that in the back of my head. And so it was like. So like my parents were getting, got a divorce right after we got married. his parents were struggling so it was just like what's happening here so like for her like there was resolved because it finally was like the divorce was finalized and for me it's like they're they're getting to resolve my my parents are stepping in the right direction which is great and they're learning a lot and doing great and so it's it's interesting to start a marriage when you see

struggles in the examples of what marriage is to us and so And so, like, I think the biggest part was understanding that we're creating our own family and we're creating our own understanding between that. And so, like, a lot of our conversations were around, like, how does your family do this? And how does my family do this? And, like, what do we want for our family that's different from the two? And so, like, really creating our identity as a family instead of kind of taking what expectations we may bring from our own families yeah what do they say there's like a quote says

like you marry your unfinished business like so just like the fact that you're already forward thinking of like okay wait we need to dismantle rebuild and start from scratch in some areas and i think that's what every new couple has to like examine or if you don't it's gonna you're just going to keep repeating yeah i think that's what that's just what humans do that's what I couldn't help but think with, you know, talking about struggles in marriage. Something that just like absolutely shattered my heart when I was listening to you guys share your story on other podcasts you've been on was hearing about your sibling that died at 17 months.

Yeah. And I just cannot, like as a parent, I can't think of a more horrific thing to go through. As a sibling, I can't think of something more horrific to go through. How the heck do you navigate that? like how how does that work honestly i think that has more to do with my parents divorce than the show i think that brought a lot i'm like i think because our household um i think because our household was necessarily one to just talk about everything and be vulnerable. When that happened, we didn't know how to talk about it. And especially with it, you know, being in the hands of my mom, we weren't going to

dare talk about around her. So, I think, yeah, definitely with us, like, not talking about the hardest thing in our childhood, it kind of just bred that in general. Like, we just don't talk about hard things and I can't imagine how that affected my parents about just like not facing the hard things not talking about the hard things and kind of having to shut up your emotions a little bit because it's too painful to feel again after something like that so like it's so sad because I can see it in my mom sometimes which is like does she know how to connect and how to feel and how to like know her emotions and all those things and I'm like at times I can be like can't you just see this and other times I'm like

I can imagine she can't. And because she's had to shut that up because it's too painful. Yeah. So I think that's definitely affected our family more than most of them realize because it happened so long ago, so it's not relevant today, but no, it's here still with us. But, yeah, that was definitely really hard to walk through as a family, but I think the hardest part for me as I've grown up. was how little he was acknowledged.

Yeah. Well, that makes me so sad. Yeah. I don't think I visited his grave until I was like nine. Because it was just too hard to go back to. That's so hard. Because like you said, like you have so much empathy for your parents being like, I want to visit these emotions.

I don't want to visit the guilt. and the pain but they're there and I think even just probably having to talk to their kids about it in a much different way like even talking we just had a late term miscarriage and figuring out how to navigate that with our kids I'm like how do I talk about this like how do I I can't imagine with your parents without outside support knowing how to have those conversations because how old were you at the time I was four four yeah and you remember i remember everything too well yeah i i saw that as a massive just piece in the puzzle of a lot of struggles she had and like we've been to his grave multiple times since we've been together

and i've asked her every question i can just for her to remember it because i know um i know it means a lot to her i think like coming at a place of support instead of like no we can't talk about this This has really been helpful for her. And like she's said earlier, like given her a voice to understand things. And so. And it's not like, like now my family and I can talk about it, like we do. But I think because we didn't like talk about it when it was raw and real and right there, there's just, I don't know, it's just kind of built a wall to your emotions.

Yeah. So, yeah, like there's a timing aspect to this. Yeah. And it was unprocessed, so it seems like you had a process, you're still processing since it was something that you kind of just couldn't really talk about. Yeah. Yeah. Like I remember very vividly when I was still four talking, like asking questions about Joshua

to my dad and some of my siblings and like we started talking about it. but then mom walked in the room, he was like, we can't talk about this anymore, because she was there and just couldn't talk about around her. So the one time I remember tried to talk about it, I couldn't. Yeah. And yeah, I want to clarify, too, like, all the family members are going through this. So it's not just, like, this is nothing against the family for not doing these things. But I think there's a very real experience of, like, what they're going through today, like, she's. said it's still very much present in what they're going through today of like just not always understanding the hard things or not always talking or acknowledging them and so you know nothing

against how Kim went about it and you know I think there's a lot of healing that she needs to go through because of it but I think um and obviously there's there's probably some things that needed to be talked about in those moments but I just I guess I just want to clarify like yeah totally like it's like it's a really hard thing there's not necessarily a guidebook on what to do and things like this happen and everyone's hurting but um i think while a lot of people listening to this can't relate to that specific situation i think families go through traumatic events and they don't know how to talk to their kids about it but hearing you being brave enough to say like i do feel like it should have been acknowledged more and i do wish that in that time there were

more open conversations i think that can shine a light for a lot of families And it's like, it also gives you confidence and bravery as a parent and being like, okay, my kid, I can't just, you know, pretend like nothing happened and they're not going to know because they're four years old. Yeah. Like, it's like, oh, they're so perceptive. And this honestly lays a framework for how your family and any family would continue to have emotional circumstances. I know what do they say? Like, people go through traumatic mini traumas every five years on average. and then like a big trauma every like 25 years like these things will continue to happen yeah we just

interviewed a Harvard professor that said every five years something horrible happens in your life and it's like how do you keep moving forward knowing that like you're still going to suffer you're still going to struggle there's still going to be awful things that happen in the world to you and around you like how do you move forward amongst all that yeah like that how you handle that as a family lays a groundwork for how you will continue to handle many traumas bigger things even just conflict in general. Gosh, thank you for sharing that. That has to be really hard to navigate

and process this many years later. Yeah. And yeah, it does make me feel so much just compassion towards your parents because I can't imagine a marriage. The statistics aren't positive when a marriage undergoes something as traumatic as like a child loss.

They're not positive. And so it's like, I know that they were, adult like an incredibly hard hand in that yeah yeah yeah that's sweet that you visited his graveside i think that's really precious and like that's very meaningful i like it was really fun i was like okay well we got some extra time like what do we want to do and she was like we can go to the farm we can do this and i'm like well i'm hungry you're gonna go grab lunch and go have lunch with joshua and it was just like a super fun time and it was just like really i palt my eyes out for now yeah it was like feel special though to acknowledge it was fun it was it was fun it was just like it was

sense of like just kind of sit in there kind of picnic style and like having her reminisce with me and just like interactively and it was just like cool to be brought into that yeah i think about that because because i didn't necessarily know too like i knew some like i heard the stories but i was i just wanted to ask the questions and like be really like brought into who he was before everything so yeah it was really cool being four like that has to be one of your earliest memories yeah some of the earliest memory i remember when he was born okay i remember a few memories of his childhood like waking him up um i remember you didn't did you carry him yeah let's go um you already have that many kids you're like yeah pick him up um yeah i remember specific details

about his childhood. I remember that afternoon he was sleeping on his blankie out in the sun. And then every detail of the accident, I remember too well. I was in the car when it happened. Oh, my God. I, my mom, she, like, freaked out, got out, pulled him out from under the car. And then her and all my siblings ran to the house to grab the phone. And Isaac and I, my youngest brother, younger brother, were in the car.

And I got out, I saw him, and it just, it's terrible. So I go and bring him back in the car, and I just told Isaac, I was like, don't look. Just get out the other door. We got to go. Those details I remember too well. But I am blessed to remember some moments of his childhood, too. gosh you're freaking four and have to tell your sibling like hey don't go out this door just like yeah no four-year-old should have to experience that and I can even hear now you

navigating like younger and then our youngest younger like having to like reframe all that and I remember on a podcast you shared like one of your first times like driving together in a car you played a song that your mom wrote about your younger brother and I feel like there's no coincidence that you felt safe enough to open up about like this incredibly hard thing because something very not to compare again but something very similar happened to matt and i the first time we drove in a car together i told you about a loss that what i had never really talked to many people about and there's just something like there's something you can't explain when you just feel like your soul is safe with like with someone else like and um yeah that's

That was after our first mountain before the four, before we were dating and anything like that, we were in the car at like 1 a.m. to try to get to the mountain before the sunrise. And he started out with just like, all right, let's, you know, pick a genre, pick your favorite song type of game. That's good. I call it the Spotify game. That's fun. You learn a lot about something that way. That's good. Seriously.

You're like, let's get to the serious stuff. Yeah, he started out, you know, with his genre, I did one, and then he did one. and then and then I just went I went deep all the way I think I like jokingly said like what's the song that just like has a lot of meaning to you or like something you play often or even like something sad I think yeah and I didn't expect that but it was good I like it was awesome to like that was probably what I told you like about the family band about me losing a brother like I just dumped everything and then played the song she like gave it the context and I was like like thanks for sharing like I really appreciate that and then she shared the song and she started

crying and she put his hand on my leg just remembers he put his hand on when they do that you can't move that's a big move that's a big move yeah Abby put her hand on my leg when I put my hand around her on the first date and I remember I was like I felt like I was being struck like lightning I know my body was just like you can't move you cannot oh girl it's like you know that inside out like It's like, girl, boom, girl, girl, and the guy just froze and he's like, it's like, he's looking at Riley, the guy that thinks Riley's cute or whatever. That was me on that first day with that. I remember the way my hip hurt so bad, because the way I was leaning about it was like, I can't. Right.

Yeah. You're in college school, but you're just like, boy. I'm glad that moment was, is remembered by the hand on the leg. That's a special moment. So then later that day on the first mountain, he put his arm around me. Oh, my God. And then I leaned my head on his shoulder. Aw.

And same thing. I was like, girl. girl girl that's sweet well I love even in that picture of like you guys in the car it's like hey like

this is this is how I'm feeling and then you saying like I'm here and I think that that's really that's really beautiful and that's essentially what marriage is

the rest of the it was what I'm learning so far like and I think that marriage is about like this lovey-dovey newlywed stage is like that's so fun and then like also like later on like there's a harder stage like harder season like we're going through a harder season I'm like oh I think back to that stage I'm like wow yeah like everything was so fun but we were all like laying the groundwork to prepare us for like this event and then we still feel closer because of it thank you to Hewell

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offer of 15% off online with our code Unplan 15 at huel.com slash Unplan 15. New customers only. Thank you to Hewle for partnering and supporting our show. I do want to talk about real quick. We've talked about so much, but you gradually mentioned your family having a band. I feel like that's so unique and so not like ordinary for a family to like go on tour as a family. To have enough members of their family to create a whole thing. You guys have that whole orchestra? Like what exactly is? Pretty much. I mean, we had everything. They went everywhere. We traveled everywhere from like Minnesota in Texas was the farthest west we went. And then obviously Florida was far the

south. We went Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, like Kentucky, Virginia. That loop. All in there. Kind of went there. But yeah, we had a family band. We had. see if I can name up all the instruments. So piano, violin, accordion, mandolin, banjo, guitar, upright bass, two violins, two guitars. Yeah, we had a nice variety. And then my oldest brother has the best bass voice. And then, yeah, that's so impressive. We just jammed out. It started with us just jamming out at home because my mom was music major in college. So she just naturally taught all this music, you know, just the simple stuff, piano. music theory.

Music theory ain't simple. It's not. I was like that. I said that was like not simple, but still. It started with just us growing up learning about music. Some of the children excelled more than others. I wasn't one of the ones that like really stuck to a certain instrument. But then like my oldest siblings, they would get together just with their violin, cello, and what else?

Guitar maybe and just play songs together. And then we decided to go to the local nursing home and just entertain the old folks. There's nothing better. That's adorable. It's the best. Anyway, so it started with that. And then some of like the nurses or some people there would just be like, you guys should come sing in our church.

And I remember the first church we got invited to. We were just like, we should probably learn some hymns or something. Because we were playing like folk, I forget the names of the songs. We were playing like Red Wing, I think is one of them. Just like just folk songs. it would have been funny if you guys would have learned like modern pop music and done like a folk version of it like like i've seen some really funny tic talks of people yeah taking like a unique style like yeah folk family music and then using especially like a rap song yeah i think that's hilarious

that i would come to that show i would i would find that very entertaining they're like we need some hymns here right so we got invited to our first church saying about and apparently somehow do that I look back and I'm like, oh my goodness. But I think we're more just entertaining than sounded good because seeing, you know, nine kids up there, including like a two-year-old who's just going around and picking at different things. We eventually got her like this little banjo that didn't make any noise or anything, but she would just stand there and picket that's cute. See, I've made to differ, though.

I've seen these videos on YouTube and it's cute. We did get better. We did get better as time went on. Like the videos you've seen are much better than our first performance. But yeah, it grew. like crazy, I think, like within two years. I remember one year we, uh, sing at like 111 churches in one year or events in one year. And that was, wow, that was our busiest year. And then after that kind of, kind of slowed down a little bit. And then it's actually full circle,

um, kind of how the show came along too, because we had out of nowhere, a connection from a friend of a friend, this, um, videographer from California needed a place to stay. And, And so we had a guest house. We were like, come stay at our place. First night he was at our place. We sang a few songs for him and he was like, I need to make a music video for you guys. So kind of as like, as a place, you know,

he stayed at our place for free. He made a music video for us for free. And that's how you got discovered from that music video? Sunnyside was the one that we did. And that went pretty big. And then, yeah, about a month or two later, we had production reaching out to us. No way.

Love this. Would you guys want to do a show? And I think we said no for about two years. But then here we are season. So they kept coming back. They kept me back and wanted to do a show on you guys. Yeah. But then by the time we actually finally said yes and got everything's worked out, all the things. And they sent the crew out, the band had ended because my oldest sister got married and she was kind of like the leading force of it. So she got married. She married a musician. So now they're doing their own thing. Did they release music together? Yeah. Wait, that's so dope. yeah that's the one that doesn't she's not on the show anymore but she's the one that's not on the show but she's doing live shows yeah so that's cool that she's like following her passion that's really neat oh yeah yeah yeah she's a violinist she married a pianist and they they're together amazing together um so yeah like when when she left and got married and some of the older siblings were just growing up and they were like yeah i don't like this music that we do anymore we need to do different all these things so the band kind of just ended but then they were still like well we still love your family

we'd still want to, you know, cover you guys. So we started filming. That's how it came to be. That's how it started. Okay. That's cool. And now here you are. Now here we are.

Just finished season seven. Yeah. Yeah. Starting your own family now. See, but this, for me, it's completely different. Like, I remember we went to, uh, we went on this road trip, kind of going around. We did 11 states and 30 days, and we, um, went to my hometown. And we went to church at my hometown, to a church I've been to many times.

and we got recognized there. And they're like, what are you doing here? They're like, what are you doing here? It's a city, 20,000 population in Kansas, middle of nowhere. I'm like, I grew up here. Like, this is where I grew up. And it's just like, it's surreal seeing the difference of like, I'm still the same person, but now I'm on a TV screen.

And so people like recognize me and just the difference. And so, yeah, I just really, I call my sisters all the time. And I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to. be on on on you know mat and abbey or whatever and like my sister's like no way and just like that sort of stuff and like you said that too casually like I'll be on the phone and I'll say it like yeah we're just going to Arizona I'm going to be on a podcast it's like what podcast and it's just like see that create so much disconnect in me I'm like that's so crazy that they even know who are but I know but like that's where I'm at I'm just like I don't know how because when I really got to know

them I'm like they're pretty normal people like yeah and I think the more people we've gotten to me, even people will... Add normally normal. Sure. I have you describe it. You said it earlier, you said out there. Yeah, out there, yeah. That's awesome.

So are you guys going to have nine kids as well? Is that the plan once that happens? Not the plan. I think the number we agreed on is three to five. Yeah, three to five. That was the number I said. Three to five. Let's go.

See, that's a good number. And it also gives you a little bit of, gives you a range. Yes. Just try to feel it out. Yeah. See how it goes. But also, like, Zach has to be a girl dad, like, at one point in other. So if, like, if the first three are boys, we're just going to have to keep traveling until we have some girls.

Random change of subject, but I just want to get back to something you said. Oh, yes. It's kind of been poking. You talked about, like, just dealing with the public eye and that sort of stuff. And even both of you kind of going into therapy and that sort of stuff. That's great, yeah. And having to really know yourself in, like, what you're saying, how do you know when to, kind of adhere to your audience and like what they're saying of what they want versus staying true

to the content that you want. Whoa, that's so good. That's a really good question. What would you say to that one? I mean, I think that's something we've messed up and corrected and messed up and like learned through and falling into such. Because also it's like us as a couple, right? Like it's like that is different than like us as individuals, but I kind of like created like a mission statement as we, so we're about to start another big project. And I was like, man, this is something that I've learned is that this is a hard thing to navigate. That thing is like one of those things you don't anticipate necessarily. So I think it's so incredibly like it speaks to you guys as people like the fact that you're even asking this question. Right.

That you have such good intentions. Creating a mission statement, it sounds so cheesy. It sounds like something corporate like someone's going to have to like. we have to post this, we could check off a to-do list, like how to start this business. But creating that like mission statement helps create a standard that it's like,

if there is ever a question and it's like, oh, it's this, we're kind of, it feels iffy here. Go back to that. Does it fit that? And I think that you could create a mission statement

for your marriage, for your family, for your social media, for any business, any project you start. And that just helps create so much clarity where you're like having, you're facing so many decisions

that you're going to have. to make and it's like okay well we can't have this many conversations we can't always wait back and forth but when it comes to like an area where it's like okay I can't really step forward just bring back to the mission statement that adds so much clarity and that's such a cheesy answer but it's it's very helpful but also even just creating that does so much for you yeah to be like okay what is integral what is like the most important thing what is my goal in doing this like what's the point Abby is so she's always been so authentic online line. She just gives no Fs, which I think is like really, really cool. I've never described myself

as that. I give, I do give more Fs than Abby. You have a couple Fs to give. I do have a couple Fs to give. And so I think that's like, yeah, that's definitely made me, you know, bring things up in therapy to work through because I'm like, man, I need to figure out like, well, yeah, how my brain works and why. I think the truth of it all too is like you show up as you are. Yeah. And if I'm not showing up as the best version of myself, then that's what's portrayed. And I think that also just is a heavy responsibility and a high responsibility when you have a lot of people

looking at you. It's like, well, they're going to see who you are. And obviously there's a ton of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, straight up lies and rumors. But ultimately. That has to be hard to have lies and rumors about like, because for us, like it's just about our. relationship but then now with your family you have like everything well i was going to ask how you guys

handle that because like you know there's some rumors some lies out there that's just like whatever but then there's others that are just like why would people do that so not true so out there like i've seen some where it's like post that that my grandpa died or that my dad has cancer or that like all these things like why would you do that just for likes and clicks when or once that we're pregnant It's like, why are you, like, what if I'm struggling with infertility and I see this that you're posting a pregnant picture of me? Like, how hard would that be? So, like, how do you handle with that? It's the big stuff with AI, though.

Like, these are all AI stuff. It's all, like, I fault for that sometimes, articles and stuff. I'm like, what? I'm like, oh, that's not real. I have to crack my mom and grandma a lot, too. I'm like, this isn't real. So just, like, wondering if you guys have come across that or if that's just the reality TV world? And if so, like, does it ever come big enough for you guys to address it?

or you just like, no, just live your life. Keep focused on what you're doing and just let that fall aside. Because I've gotten so many messages of people are like, you had a baby in July. Why don't you put it on? Like, why are you hiding your baby from us? And here's the thing. There's no into that.

There's no into that stuff. And I think that's something that I've just had to completely, like, lay aside. At this point, it's your life. And you can continue to use this as it aids you in your marriage, your future family. And if it's no longer serving you, then it's like okay well we were doing this for ourselves anyway so like and we were showing up as we are and all these other things just feel so outside yeah and so I think that's all you can do

honestly there's so many different ways to approach it but for me I'm like I just had to tune everything else out yeah and like it's just it's been so freeing too because then I feel like I can also just show up as authentically as possible like for our audience and then I also can just sleep well at night like knowing like I don't have to I don't have to cater to all the of these other things because I only have to cater to my own family who's in my own under my roof and that's just yeah that creates so much peace in life and ultimately I feel like that's what we're all searching for it's just a little bit more for sure and so yeah I think that's where I've come to because there was a period of time where I was just like so fresh-rayed like people are spreading

these rumors right and it's like just clarified we didn't have maybe in July that'd be impossible um so so yeah I've had to come to a place where it's just like you know that doesn't matter and it's been like a good month now that I haven't like looked into anything seeing what people are saying so that maybe you guys brought with you it wasn't yours no I think that would be my best advice from what I learned obviously you know longer you've been in public eye longer but I think that it's just like just

as long as there's peace with under my own roof then that's my world it is funny though like I started to interrupt but like mega mega celebrities like legitimately do stuff like that like Kylie Jenner hiding her pregnancy for I think she hit it for like six months and then she's like boom I have a baby but like to think about people people like us that I guess happen to have people that know who we are in the world but it's like that's a completely different thing. They're not have like bodyguards like covering us you'd be able to tell like yeah so someone's like oh it was a shotgun wedding they did it because they had a baby and they hit it from the public eye look I know it's true insert AI picture actually no those are the posts it's like it was a shock on wedding but yeah I think oh what was I going to say oh yeah they're like I don't I totally have had moments where I'm just like I need to meet the person who's creating this oh yeah yeah yeah because it's like if they could just meet me face to face and have a one-on-one conversation with me and see that I'm just just just a human being like you and just live my life and just trying to figure out this marriage and just working and just doing all those things girl but if they're monetized effort listen your efforts are so much more rewarded right through doing

something that's going to build you up. Yeah. So, yeah, I definitely have my moments like that, but I've moved past that. It's so hard. It's so hard. I'm acting like it's easy. Just back to live my life. Yeah.

As much as you can tune all that outside stuff up and like guide your energy and your focus and your just attention towards what's going to make you the best version of yourself. Yeah. Then like I can definitely work on that as well. I'm speaking to myself as well. But I think that's my best advice. And I think that you guys are stewarding it so well. And I just know that I was like just living.

listening to your conversations, like, it impacted me so much. I'm like, I just want to go home and kiss Matt. I, like, miss this, like, newlywed, like, lovey-dovey stage and mushy-gushy. Should we kiss right now? No. Let's all do it. Dang it. He had that.

Okay, I'm sure. Oh, it was bad. This was great. Everyone, go kiss your husband. Yes, go kiss your spouse. Lydia, Zach, thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having it. So much fun.