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Eric's Podcast
Welcome to Eric's Podcast – a journey through faith, life, and the lessons that shape us. Join Eric as he shares personal stories, reflections, shares insights that inspire hope and encourages. Whether you're navigating life's challenges or seeking motivation this podcast offers a blend of authenticity, inspiration, and thought-provoking conversations.
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Eric's Podcast
#12 Navigating Family Travel: Finding Humor and Balance Amidst Holiday Chaos
This episode unfolds the ups and downs of family travel during the holiday season, reflecting on post-travel stress and the importance of taking breaks to recharge. Through personal anecdotes, the discussion highlights the lessons learned from flying with children, managing expectations, and preparing for the inevitable hurdles while setting goals for organization and harmony in the new year.
• Exploring the emotional letdown of returning home after the holiday hustle
• Differences between flying and driving with children
• Choosing first class to alleviate travel stress
• The balance of enjoying family time while managing clutter and gifts
• Utilizing babysitting services for couple time
• Unexpected challenges of returning flights and health issues
• Importance of planning rest time after travel for mental health
• Setting goals for organization in the new year
Eric's Podcast.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. This is the Eric's Podcast. I'm your host, eric, and Happy New Year. We just got back from a short break. That's why there wasn't an episode for the last couple of weeks and it was great. We had, uh, visited family, um, had a great christmas and a good new year's party.
Speaker 1:But I have to tell you like we laid around a lot, but there really is this huge letdown scene, like, at least for me and for my family, there's this huge, huge letdown. After all that travel, we get back, we settle in and it's, and then there's this big snowstorm coming into which is like, ah, it's good to be back home. And the thing is my parents' house, we have our own room and everything and it's great. And you know there's not a, there's not a lot of drama or anything, but there's still that whole weighing kind of all this new stuff around traveling and I don't know you're managing your kids in a different environment and all this extra stuff and you don't. I don't realize how much stress is happening and, just like you know, you can offset that with maybe a mimosa or something in the morning, and but it's also just the routine. Yo, it's the. Your routine is all off, the day is all off and it's like, what do I do with myself? I feel like I need to work, but then there's nowhere to work because it's not a normal environment. I'm not able to focus the same and all this extra stuff. So if you hear that, that's my coffee maker in the background, but yeah, and then when I get back, huge letdown. But let me, let's just okay.
Speaker 1:So we, we learned early, sometime last, last year, after we had our second baby girl, we figured out that okay, usually, so we fly, there's no way that we're going to drive in the car. Well, for one, they don't plow the roads very well where we are. If there's a snow. It's one of those situations where they don't know what to do. Nobody knows what to do and they just hope for the best, which is what happened to us about a year ago, and that's when we drove and we only had one back then, our one old, and we came back and there were four sheets, four inches of ice on the interstate and all these guys are going 60, 70 miles per hour. You have semi trucks and it's just one of those things and we're just in this little you know, uh, 2006 taurus trying, with no four-wheel drive, with no nothing trying to. Uh, just, I knew in the back of my head, if anybody had to stop, we would all, just you know, there'd just be this giant crash right here. And so that's when I was like we're not going to ever do this again. If we're ever leaving to go see my folks around Christmas time and we're going to do the New Year's and everything with them, we're going to fly. We're not experiencing this again because it's too dangerous. Even if you had four-wheel drive, ice does not matter. Ice is not your friend, ice will defeat any car.
Speaker 1:So we did some test runs, we, we flew, and it worked great. And then we had our second, and so we're like economy is great. Economy is cool because it has those three rows all together and the hand rest can come up, so it kind of feels like one giant couch, awesome. So we did that during the summer when we flew down to go see my parents. And so my son, completely chill, just wants to look out the window, look at the clouds, wants to experience everything and has a seatbelt on. So he's okay, he's chill as a bill, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, guess what? My baby girl doesn't want to sit, she wants to go and explore and roam the airplane. She wants to stand up in front of us and show us the different magazines that are in the pocket of the airplane seat. She doesn't get what she wants and she's going to scream and let everybody know in the airplane just how how bad we are and how she wants to stand and roam around. There's no room in economy for your one-year-old to be standing. There's no room, and so what we decided to do is upgrade to first class the next time and try that out. We'll do the same three rows and see how that works. And it was the best, great experience. She was able she's able to stand up, do all her stuff. Perfect, awesome. And plus, first class, you get drinks. You get as many drinks as you want. So that's, you know, two birds with one stone.
Speaker 1:So anyways, so going back to the, so we flew this past Christmas over there to my folks' house. We did first class. We had first class to come on the way back, everything is dandy. This is great. My brother came, picked me up, picked us up, drove us to our house into the mountains, because we don't have our own airport Super close, and it was great to play in the snow, you know, kind of for the first time Not the first first time, but it had been a year since he last seen it and so he was having a great time.
Speaker 1:But even with all that like preparation, where we flew in on first, we didn't have all the stress that we had before because our bags were all checked, because with first class you get two free check bags per ticket and they're 70 pounds each, which means you can pack more in those bags, which was great. So all this, we don't have all that. We're supposed to not have all that stress of travel, right? And yet there's still a tiny bit of stress, just because the heightened emotions at least for me that I have whenever my kids are in public, whenever they're in public, I have these heightened, like a watchdog, constantly looking for danger, constantly monitoring what they're doing, monitoring what they're saying, making sure no one's getting offended by what they're saying, making sure I don't have to step in and do something. There's all this extra level of mental processing that I don't even realize that I'm doing and then, when I don't have to do it, it's like this giant letdown of oh wow, I don't have to do anything anymore, which is interesting. I never realized that that's what I do, but I do do that, and this goes back to like managing stress, managing, like those things, and the fact that I didn't even know that I was doing that until after the fact. I mean, I think it may be mean, it's instinctual or something like that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, we had a great time, great Christmas, got a lot of gifts. You know grandparents love to give gifts, shower gifts. We live in a two bedroom apartment, so if anybody who live in an apartment or a small house you know what I mean when it's a lot and I've been you know I spent all last year getting rid of stuff to help to prepare for this time and it worked out there. That's another great benefit of flying. You know you can't give big gifts because you can use the excuse you can't bring them on the airplane. But my parents get around that by just saying, oh, yeah, we'll ship the stuff to you, which is, you know, nice, very nice of them, very kind, and we appreciate it. It just means we're going to have a lot more noise in the house, I'm going to have less peace, but I think I can mitigate that a little bit by taking the batteries out of most of them and just leaving one on. So and then when they get tired of that, I'll put the batteries in another one so that works.
Speaker 1:But, um, after that, we went to new year's and so what we did? Um, my parents gifted us with a little three-day vacay before uh out, uh, before the, we all get together for New Year's again, which was awesome. It was the best thing because this is over, like a two-week, a little over a two-week period of time that we're with my family. So having a little three-day break into where we as a family can just get together and have a good time was perfect. Just get together and have a good time was perfect.
Speaker 1:And also, we use this app called Care and we've used it lots of times to get a babysitter or like a it's kind of like a glorified babysitter that is certified and a bunch of stuff basically a nanny, but who's willing to work by the hour and not have to pay for like a career. But so we found this really my wife does all the magic with that and she found this really great person. And we have never done the Grove Park spa before. Awesome spa, by the way, if you guys have never been in Asheville Grove Park. But, um, we went there. I always wanted to do the spa, never been able to, and so we went there, got the nanny and we introduced the nanny. So the way that we do nannies is, whenever it's a new person, a new babysitter, glorified babysitter, whatever, what we always do is one. My wife video chats them first before we even get together to begin with, and then after they pass the video chat, because not everyone's profile picture is the way they look in current time, and so once they pass that, then we move on to like, let's say, a two hour trial or a three hour trial, and that is where we are with the nanny, with the kids, for that period of time. And so that's kind of what this was.
Speaker 1:The big spa day was going to be the next day. We just arrived there, the nanny's there going to be there for a couple hours while they walk around. The nanny's there going to be there for a couple hours while they walk around. The babies were screaming for the last 30 minutes of the trip. So I'm like I got to go get the nanny. Nice to meet you, good to meet you. Here are the kids and I'll see you guys later.
Speaker 1:I got to go use the bathroom. Didn't really have to use the bathroom, well, I did. But I passed by this really great kind of bar and I just suddenly I'm there and I'm drinking a gin and tonic. Ah, de-stressing, this is great, great. I see the nanny and my wife go by while you know they're talking, getting to know each other, don't even recognize me there. I am in disguise, okay. Then they walked past again because they got to end of the hall, go back again, still did not recognize me. There I'm on my second. I'm like I'm pretty good at this, so, uh, then I still had to use the bathrooms. It's getting, it's catching up to me now. So I go up to the room you know, let it rip come back out and now I'm like where are you guys I'm? I walk all the way to the end of the hotel, all the way all over the place. I get out my little tracker, because we share each other's locations, and she's back where I last was. So I went over there, came up, it was all good.
Speaker 1:Next day we went to the spa awesome experience. They the like again. It was all great experience overall, perfect. Next we went to the next hotel and this is the family, everybody's getting together. Great experience overall. You know, fireworks, big old showdown, big huge party. We had the nanny that whole time. Longest the kids had ever stayed with the nanny before it was 10 hours she stayed there from, I think it was like 2 to 1 am or something, and it just the kids would. The kids did not. The kids were breaking apart at the very end because they were extremely tired and they would. They just refused to go to sleep without us. But we ended up bringing them down and hanging out with them and everything. We all watched fireworks together. Overall, awesome experience, great time.
Speaker 1:Now it's time to leave. So you know we wake up. You know floundering around. We have a late checkout. Our flight leaves at 1.30. It's a two-hour drive Actually it leaves at 1.45. But it's a two two hour drive and my wife wants to order some room service. Kids have to eat. She says I'm not, you know, I don't disagree. I had to eat too. So we ordered a bloody mary. You know, some water, some, some eggs, some stuff, and uh, we're packing up, nice leisurely packing up, and I get the car brought up, we, we get the valet, we get all the stuff going, pop everything in the car. My brother's going to drive us back to the airport.
Speaker 1:And we get going and we realize, wait, we're going to get to the airport and we're going to have 35 minutes to get to our flight. Oh no, well, it was actually more like 40 minutes to get to our flight and we're like that should be enough time, I think. So, of course we get there, we fly down the road, we get there and we already have checked in. We go to check our bags and our tickets. Our bag, our bag tickets, won't come out. It's like sorry, we don't recognize your ticket. Like what are you talking about? Go see customer support. So we go over. The customer support lady is like oh yeah, the one who controls the gate is the one who controls the bags and she's already closed the bags and this is to ensure that all the bags get on the plane in a timely manner. You're going to have to see customer support and you're going to wait in this line. Well, our flight leaves in 35 minutes and I guess that makes sense. She said that we have to check our bags in at least 40 minutes before the flight takes off, to ensure that all the bags get on the plane in time, and that makes sense. I never thought about that. I've never missed a flight in my life and that makes so much sense now of why you get there two hours beforehand. Provide plenty of time to get your bags checked and to get through security.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we went to customer service they had. She was able to find us a flight left at 630. They had to move people around, but it was economy and it was a three-row seat. But at this point we're willing to take whatever we can take. We're just needing to get home and this is just the way it is. So they moved some seats around. We got economy. You know we're here. We made it. We were able to get a couple drinks while we're at the airport. We rented one of those easy sleep rooms where you pay by the room, so everyone kind of had a nap. It was still a good experience overall.
Speaker 1:It was just highly stressful at the beginning and then we finally made it through and we're back home at like seven or eight something. And thankfully Ann did not, my baby girl did not scream and yell the whole time, which was great, but it was also dark, so everyone was tired, super uncomfortable seats. Though, let me tell you, don't ever book the seats in the very, very far back of the plane Like we sat. I never sat back there. I'm talking about the very last row where you can't lean your seat back. You can't, so you're sitting straight up the whole the whole flight. Thankfully it was only a like a hour flight, so it wasn't terrible, but I would hate to sit back there if it was four hours. I mean, talk about can't even put your seat back at all. But anywho, we made it back. We got back home. Ah, now you can relax drama's over.
Speaker 1:Well, well, guess what? It's not over. It's not Because it shouldn't be, it can't be. It wouldn't be a proper trip without someone getting sick when you come back home, which is what happened. My wife and my son had all of the. Their eyes were bloodshot and they're coughing all over the place. I feel completely fine, my baby girl feels completely fine, but they don't. So we take them over to one of those walk-in emergency clinic-like places. It's verified that it's pink eye, of course, the most one of the super contagious. Change your pillowcase out every time you sleep in on it, which is you know like how many pillowcases is that? So that's been the last week. Well, it's been since we got back, but everything's kind of cleared up now and yeah, so that's our story.
Speaker 1:Great Happy New Year and intro to the new year, guys. But you know, in all seriousness, we had a beautiful snowfall, very relaxing, and just now it's time to take down the tree, which I'm very excited about. You know all those pine needles, because we have a live tree and it's pretty dry. I need to figure out how to tramp that through the apartment, chop it in half or something, or maybe throw it off the deck, I don't know. I don't think that's safe, actually, probably not. But anywho, transition time, woo.
Speaker 1:So anyway, guys, I hope you all had a great, uh, happy new year, a good Merry Christmas and, um, I guess one of the lessons I mean talk about de-stressing and everything. I think doing a trip, factoring in some time, that you're going to de-stress and not jumping right back into work, cause I've tried that before and I have made more mistakes trying to do that than trying to just decompress of all the events that happen, because the rest of my family is doing the same thing and it just kind of helps everybody kind of just get back into the swing of things and get back into life. I guess, and how the new year is going to be and I'm excited there's a lot of things in the pipeline we're going to shift the show to be a little bit more I don't know we're going to choose. We're going to figure out some seasonal, like a topic per season to kind of go through or something like that. I need to figure that out for the show. But yeah, and if you guys have any suggestions, feel free to shoot me a text or whatever, using the link in the description, any questions you might have or anything like that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, right now, the big transitioning period that we're looking at right now, at least for kids, is one we want our oldest to sleep by himself. We want to transition baby girl to by the end of the year not right now, but maybe by the end of the year, maybe using the bathroom by herself and we want our oldest to to get off nursing. We also need to establish some kind of our pantry needs organization like crazy. So that's a goal. Like we need to figure out a system for that and a system for the fridge. I don't know if you guys are like us, but our fridge is just a hodgepodge of just throw it in there and keep it cold and then you go to find it and you're like, oh, reach in and pull like half your fridge out. Same goes for the pantry. Everything's just kind of it's almost like you know the Grinch with the letters. You know shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo. Kind of in there you just throw your chips, throw your cans, throw everything. All that needs to be organized.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I guess yeah, that's the big thing that I focus on at the beginning of the year, because it kind of sets the rest of the year up. If we're able to kind of coast into summer with some form of organization and kind of keep it like that, that would be great. And then just overall, like a habit of just kind of cleaning. That's something that we're teaching our kids to clean up and trying to stay on top of that. It's important, yeah. And then, um, I don't know. And then the rest is just regular kind of day-to-day work type stuff and figuring all that out, and of course I'll share any tips, tricks that I have right now along the way. But that's what we're doing and that's Yep, so anyway, yeah, and that's yep, so anyway yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys for listening. I don't. I hope it was a good little story. I don't know what life lessons or anything to learn from that. I guess biggest one is, like you know, if you're going to ride with your kids and you can afford it, do first class if you have small kids and make sure you know get to the airport two hours beforehand at least.
Speaker 1:Factor in taking a few days off. I think what really helped for us in terms of work was that we got back on a Friday and that might be perfect. Factor in when you take your vacation to get back on a Friday. That way you can coast into the weekend and kind of re-capture, you know, reconfigure to what your normal routine is, because you know when we're out and about we're going out to eat a lot more, sometimes we might be drinking a lot more. Things are just usually clean. So those habits of trying to pick up and keep things clean kind of fall through the cracks a little bit and having those extra two or three days of transitioning back to we're not eating out, we're eating in, we're not really drinking that much because we have to work and we need to clean up because there's not a cleaner coming in to clean. Every day really helps transition into that and just overall the anxiety and everything kind of getting cleared out really helps. So anyway, thanks for listening guys and I will talk to you guys later in the next one.
