What If Fun Is The Missing Ingredient In Your Marriage

If your home feels like a command center for schedules, bills, sports, and stress, we get it, and we’re not here to pile on more rules. We’re Greg and Jess, and we’re making a case for something that sounds simple but can be revolutionary for marriage, parenting, and blended families: choosing fun on purpose.

We talk about how “fun” became a real family core value for us, especially when life felt heavy and money was tight. We share stories from our own chaotic house life: the legendary step-ladder joke, the surprise waterfall basement moment, pranks that went a little too well, and the kind of silly decisions that turn into the memories your kids still talk about years later. We also get practical about what fun looks like when nobody’s watching: quick games, low-cost outings, thrift store challenges, and permission to be a little messy without losing your mind.

Producer Michael brings in relationship research from Dr. John Gottman on how humor can help de-escalate conflict by calming the body’s stress response, and we dig into why that only works when you’ve built trust and respect first. We also talk about why adults lose their sense of play, why “I don’t have hobbies” has become normal, and how to retrain your mind to find joy in the small stuff again.

If you want a healthier relationship, a stronger family culture, and a home that feels lighter, start here. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a laugh, and leave a review so more families can find us.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Fun Matters

greg 0:00

Hey guys, what's up? I'm Greg. I hope you guys are ready to unpack and get into some good conversations today.

SPEAKER_05 0:07

And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast, Baggage Claim. Thank you for joining us.

greg 0:17

What's up, everybody? How are you doing out there today? Welcome to Baggage Claim. It's your first time here. Thank you for checking us out. Baggage Claim is a place where we hope to create some community and conversations around blended families, marriages, friendships, relationships in general, and all the stuff in between. So, and if you call yourself a regular here and you've listened to more than one episode, we call you a regular. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for listening to us. And um, I mean, it only takes two episodes, and you're in the club. Two episodes. You do half of one, you're in the family. So it doesn't even have to be two full ones. But uh welcome back. You know the thing. Grab your favorite drink, if it's your favorite coffee, whatever it may be, whatever your day's been like, pull up to the table with us proverbally, no matter where you're at, what you're doing, and just kind of take a deep breath and let's jump into some conversation today. And I'm I'm really excited about this one because this topic, because it's really near and dear to me, I guess you would say. So it's just we we so many times in our families, especially as parents, um, we have rules, we have boundaries, we have all these things for our kids set and have all just there's just a lot of stuff. There's I mean, there's bills to pay, there's I mean serious things. Yeah, we talk about a lot of serious stuff on here, but tonight, today, whatever it is, where you're at. It's night for us. It is, but somebody may be listening to this in Vietnam and it's not. Who knows? Yeah. Um happy day. Uh I don't I don't know where that came from. I don't know where that came from. Whatever it is.

Michael 2:02

God help me, it's been a long one. Um Greg has worked out in the sun all day, so I think his brain might be free.

greg 2:08

Yeah, it is in a small capacity. It just decided to get really hot and really summery here in in Georgia.

Michael 2:15

Yeah.

greg 2:16

But we have all this stuff that we follow, all these rules, all this crap, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So tonight we're gonna do something different. We're just gonna talk about fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah.

greg 2:26

How do we have fun? What does fun look like? And you may be like, this is dumb. Before you hit stop and you go listen to Joe Rogan or Sean Ryan, you can do that later. Uh before you do that, just hear us out. This is something uh, and and we're talking in the us portion of our, you know, you family, us as as we talk. We're in the us portion today uh because we're talking about family, and we're actually talking about family

Fun As A Core Family Value

greg 2:53

culture. And so it's really kind of a cool topic to put it in. I I guarantee, hopefully, you if you stick with us, you'll walk away with something. Hey, Greg, I got a question for you. Okay, go ahead.

Michael 3:03

Do you have a stepladder? I do have a step ladder. Same. I also I I have a stepladder. Nice. Um, my my real ladder left when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Just curious.

Michael 3:20

I didn't in and out. We start with a blended family joke, honey. I thought that was appropriate. It's a blended family joke, right? That is that is awesome. Okay, Zen, say it one more time. It's like, do you have a step ladder? Yes, I have a stepladder. Yeah, I have a stepladder because my real ladder because my real ladder left. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I love it.

jess 3:41

So I'm giggly tonight, anyway, because um tomorrow for us is the us and where we live, it's the last day of school.

Michael 3:48

Yeah.

jess 3:49

And I have about three brain cells left. So tonight, even before recording, everything is funny.

greg 3:55

So I and we're uh summer just is just around the corner.

jess 4:00

Yeah.

greg 4:00

And so, just so you know, we have some guests coming on in a couple weeks. You guys are absolutely going to love. They're gonna record with us um this month. Uh-huh. It is a couple, they're both comedians. He is my barber. He's probably one of the funniest. Like, he's I love going to get my haircut just because I get to hang out with Richard. Uh, his wife is freaking hilarious. Uh, they're coming on the podcast and they're talking about marriage, relationships, and just life, and they are fun.

SPEAKER_05 4:31

Gonna be fun.

greg 4:31

Yes. So um, make sure to stick around, catch that in a couple weeks. So that'll be another night we'll talk about fun stuff. But Jess and I made this commitment uh a while back. We were talking about um we worked through core values with our family. And so um, if you're not watching with us, if you're just listening, you you can't show it to the crowd. But we have this small canvas painting of, and I'm not really sure what this is. We would really need Cody's.

jess 5:00

Well, I know the middle thing is supposed to be a skateboard. Other than that, I'm not real sure.

greg 5:04

Skateboard, and I'm not sure he was ten when he painted it. The uh the family value that we had written on here was fun. And so Cody got to he picked that one, and so he got to paint whatever he wanted that depicted fun to him. And so, again, if you're if you're not watching, if you're listening to the podcast, it is a picture with lots of fun stuff on it. Go to our socials, we'll post a picture of it.

jess 5:28

Uh, it's a really cool kind of I think the blue part may be the creek that was in our backyard at the tempy.

Michael 5:35

I was gonna ask how old Cody was when he drew that.

jess 5:37

10.

Michael 5:38

Because I was gonna ask him what the heck he probably doesn't remember.

greg 5:42

Somebody look up the Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 815. I got you. Because it's written on there, and I have no idea what that is.

jess 5:49

I can't remember why. Yeah, Ecclesiastes.

greg 5:53

Yeah, I'm not sure why we watch it be something really random. I was gonna say eight what?

jess 5:57

815.

greg 6:01

Wow, here we go. This is a moment that could just make no sense whatsoever. Yes, you could be like, yes, this is our family.

Michael 6:08

Oh, okay. And I commend joy, for man has nothing better under the sun but to eat, drink, and be joyful. For this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him another son. Look at us. Look at that.

jess 6:22

We are so intentional.

greg 6:24

We have fun. We have biblical. Yeah, we had it's biblical. We had no idea what we were doing back then.

jess 6:31

This whole circus together. Yeah, no.

greg 6:33

So Jess and I, we were we were doing family values, and that that was one of our our kind of core values for our family, and we had this hanging on the wall, but we also too made a decision, Jess and I, because there's so much stress in in blended family. There's just there's so many layers to it, there's so many things to think about, to work through. It feels like there's constant pressure, especially once you get back together, or once not get back together, but once you get together.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Uh-huh.

greg 7:00

Um, because there's past relationships, past hurt, a lot of things there.

jess 7:04

So And we had no idea how to be a family of six financially or living in a home together or just doing life. We had no idea what we were doing.

greg 7:12

Correct. And there wasn't a lot out there that helped us that wasn't too over-the-top spiritual or just made no sense at all.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Yeah.

greg 7:21

But we made this decision. We said, you know what? Life has ups and downs, it has hills, it has valleys. We're gonna make the decision. We're gonna be we're we're gonna be happy and we're gonna have fun, whether we have five dollars in in the bank account or we have five thousand dollars in the bank account. We're going to choose to be happy and we're gonna choose to have fun. And that's what we did. I think that kind of helped set the mantra of our house, though. Like the the kind of the culture. It helped, it really did help create the culture in our house to just have some fun.

jess 7:55

No, we weren't perfect at it, and we're still not perfect at it. Yeah, we remind each other here and there when we need it.

greg 8:01

Well, it's kind of hard to be fun when we're in the basement with our friends. This is the first house with it, and we're in the basement with our friends uh just hanging out. Like there was a theater room down there, but we had a pool table, and we're just there, and all of a sudden somebody comes running in and goes, There's water pouring out of the ceiling.

jess 8:16

It was a Super Bowl party we were having.

greg 8:18

I don't think it was Super Bowl party.

jess 8:19

It was the Falcons were in the Super Bowl.

greg 8:20

No, I don't think it was because there wasn't that many people there. There's only like a handful. But there's water pouring out of the ceiling. We go upstairs, and Erin Grace was in the shower, and she chose to put the shower curtain on the outside of the shower instead of the inside. So all the water that was hitting the shower was going down through the beside the tub, through the tall floor, into the floor, through the ceiling, and coming out into the basement.

jess 8:45

It was literally a waterfall.

greg 8:47

Yeah. So it's sometimes you're like, We're gonna, it's okay, we're gonna choose to be happy. Uh, we're gonna choose to be excited that our water's turned on and then we could flood our basement because the water's on. That's a perspective. Yes.

jess 8:58

She was so scared she was gonna be in trouble. We were like, we know you didn't do it on purpose, you're eight or however old she was.

greg 9:06

But still, this idea of having fun in our families is sometimes loses us. And but we we cup that with like, no, no, no, we have fun, we go to the ball field, we go to soccer field, we go to volleyball, we travel, we play club club sports, cheer, blah, blah, blah. We do those things. But I'm like, no, no, no. Like, when you're at home, no one's looking, no one's around, yeah. Is it fun? Like, if your kid walks in with a Nerf gun, shoots somebody, or you get attacked by water balloons when you go outside, is that something that you're gonna freak out about, or is that something you're not?

jess 9:42

Um one of Callie's favorite things to do was in the kitchen spray or things, she would sneak and put a hair tie around it so it was on, and she would only do it to him. And he it every time he he gave her the the reaction she was looking for because every time it surprised him, and every time it was uh oh my god, you know, but she loved it. Yeah, I was soaking wet. Yes.

greg 10:09

Um but it's just it's also too. I would love to give it back to the kids because um they were in middle school. I had this idea, I had this really, really, really big hair wig thing. Wig thing that I would wear, and I would put on a wife beater. If you guys don't know what a wife beater is in the south, it's a white tank top, really tight.

jess 10:30

A lot of people wear it as an undershirt.

greg 10:32

Yes, you wear it as it's what is meant to be. That's what it's supposed to be. Yes. Um, and I I mean, if you can't figure out what wife beater is about, go figure it out. Good just ask you, yeah. Um so I would go to pick the kids up from school in your Jeep with the top off, doors off, and I would have that wig on, and I would be blasting music and car rider in front of all their friends. Over the top, and my the they all hated it, but I think they kind of loved it. I think so. Um so it was just about oh, let's have fun, let's enjoy this time, and so let's get in there.

Movie Quotes And Question Time

greg 11:07

So we okay, we we totally jumped into our topic and we didn't even do question time. I was about to say, where are we going? Oh yeah. We didn't we didn't even do it. Sorry.

jess 11:19

Uh producer Michael has a white, a little dry erase board that I've brought from my classroom, and he'll like give us time cues and things like that. But right now he just held it up and it says question time.

Michael 11:30

Slides joke time. So Greg's getting a little bit too serious for the fun episode.

greg 11:36

It was because I want us to have fun tonight. So uh give me your best or give me a good joke.

jess 11:43

I don't have a joke. Mine's a question.

greg 11:48

Oh, okay. Then give me a question.

jess 11:50

If you could only communicate via movie quotes for a day, which movie would you pick? Only one movie? One movie.

Michael 12:02

Ooh, that's interesting.

jess 12:04

You have to use only quotes from that movie for the whole day. Nope.

Michael 12:16

The office.

jess 12:17

The office, yeah, that'd be a good one.

Michael 12:20

I mean I could do three amigos or Napoleon Dynamite. Wow, really?

jess 12:26

I've never seen the whole movie of a Napoleon dynamite.

Michael 12:28

You're not missing much. Okay.

jess 12:31

Um, mine's Anchor Man. I love that movie. I have loved that movie since it came out. I will I could watch it every day and never get tired of it. I also can quote about three quarters of it.

greg 12:41

Yes, that's true. And I do often. Yes, you do. Very often. I think I just quoted that the other day. I was like, hey everyone, come see how good I look.

Michael 12:52

You did.

greg 12:54

Just yelling through the house. No one was there but me and you. So, but anyway.

jess 12:58

Um and I ran to see how good you looked. I would say frozen.

greg 13:05

Frozen? Yeah. Man, that really shows where we're at. It's either frozen or tangled, one of those.

jess 13:14

Why can you not let Elsa why can you not give Elsa a balloon? Let it go.

Michael 13:22

Oh my gosh.

jess 13:23

Let it go. I don't joke.

Michael 13:25

Hey, there you go. All right, well, I got one. How do you plan a space party?

jess 13:32

I don't I don't know, but I want to go back.

Michael 13:34

I just kind of gave it away. You plan it.

jess 13:36

You plan it.

Michael 13:38

Stupid.

jess 13:39

Okay, what's your movie? You didn't say your movie. Oh, um I thought he said Anchorman. I said Anchorman.

greg 13:44

Oh, I really. No, I really love Anchorman, but I would man. It's gonna be a show called The Campaign.

jess 13:54

It's a movie.

greg 13:55

It is a movie. The campaign. It's got Will Farrell in it and Zach Alfhanacus. And it's it's it's making fun of it's really inappropriate, but it makes fun of campaigns and all that's within it. And I I love watching it during campaign season because then when you watch them on line on TV, they say the exact same thing, and it's so freaking funny. It makes me laugh.

jess 14:18

That is a good one.

greg 14:20

So that's mine. I would do that a lot. I've seen the movie a lot.

jess 14:24

Yeah.

greg 14:25

How about you, Michael?

jess 14:28

Who said movie? Is that either um Napoleon Dynamite or Three Amigos?

Michael 14:33

Or Nacho Libre.

jess 14:35

Never seen that.

Michael 14:35

Nacho Libre? Wow. Do you like your toast?

jess 14:39

I've never seen that movie. You've never seen it? No.

greg 14:42

I've been a long time, but I've seen it maybe once.

jess 14:44

I like stupid movies, but I feel like that's beyond.

Michael 14:48

It's on level of Napoleon Dynamite.

jess 14:50

Okay, well, there you go.

greg 14:51

It was weird that Napoleon Dynamite just really hit off like it did. It is weird. It didn't make sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yeah, it's just kind of like, eat your food, Tina. Go. Tina, you fat lord. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

It's like, what is up with that movie?

greg 15:05

It's so weird. So I unpacked the idea, or not unpacked. We're not unpacked yet. What are we unpacking the jokes? Yeah. So we did. Do we have a do we have a joke, Tom? Does it have a joke? Miranda didn't tell a joke.

jess 15:22

I don't have a joke. I didn't have a joke either. I just had that question.

greg 15:26

Do you have a question? Do you have a question about a joke? No?

jess 15:32

No. Or joke about a question.

greg 15:34

Yeah, but yeah, joke about. Yeah, that's a good one. Good joke.

jess 15:37

We all were doing jokes. I was trying to get the display. I know. You were. You were busy. You were in worker girl mode over there getting your little cool display going.

Why Fun Fades In Family Life

greg 15:47

So why like why do you think we don't have fun more in our families? Or everybody may. They may have tons of fun. Do you think the average family has a lot of fun?

jess 15:56

Nope. No.

greg 15:57

You say no, Michael?

Michael 16:00

I think to find fun. I think if if you say because I think everybody would say that they have fun. Thank you for asking.

jess 16:07

It's a good question. Thank you for asking it.

Michael 16:09

That's a good question. The campaign. I think that uh everyone would say that they have fun in their family, but if you were to find fun in the sense of being carefree or not letting your stresses or worries change your moods or like take away from your intimate reactions, things like that, I think you would find people would have much m more different answers. That was sorry. I tripped up over my words.

jess 16:35

We have fun, like we try to make things fun and we try to keep a lighthearted attitude, but you and me, we're absolutely ridiculous.

greg 16:43

Yeah, we're just we I think we crack ourselves up. Yeah, we were laughing at each other. I I was like belly laughing, hurting myself laughing at me or you the other day, and it was just the two of us here at home. And I can't remember what it was about, but it was hilarious.

jess 16:57

Well, I said a funny thing last night that I can't remember, but as you were walking to go let the dogs out, you were belly laughing at me. I don't I don't say positive things about myself very often, but one talent I do have is to throw out movie quotes that are funny at the appropriate times.

greg 17:12

Yeah, you are also the queen of that's what she said. I am like that's like every all the time.

jess 17:18

Yeah, and it works.

greg 17:20

Yeah, it does. But sometimes you eat you say it in the most inappropriate times that I mean you can't help it. Like if we're around, it doesn't matter who we're round, if something is said, Jess will say it under her breath. Oh, here we go.

Michael 17:35

Like she's going to say it even if she can't say it out loud. She's like that's why I would have chosen the office because there's way too many relatable quotes to use. Yeah. Can I uh can I introduce uh some research?

Humor As A Conflict Reset Button

greg 17:50

Yeah, absolutely. If you're okay with that, because I I was gonna say, let's unpack the idea, talk about what is what does fun? What is it?

Michael 17:57

Well, then why is it important to have fun? Right. You know, I mean, we're not when we say fun, we're not saying we ignore responsibilities. We're not saying that we ignore, you know, paying the bills or making sure we have food on the table. Like some those things have to take place, but also fun in your relationship makes a big difference in interaction and also your health on a personal level, but also health as a relationship couple. So uh Dr. John Gottman um is a relationship researcher, and uh he said that he can predict divorce with a 90 plus percent accuracy by watching couples argue for 10 to 15 minutes. And the primary thing that he looks for is how humor is involved in arguments. Interesting. So when you argument, when an argument escalates, when you argument Did I say that? Yes, I don't know what that means, but welcome to my life. Okay. Uh when you argue, yes, when an argument escalates, heart rates can spike over 100 beats per minute. Which, and I'm reading a bunch of things, I'm trying to sound smart, but this is me reading the actual research data. I'm not this smart. Um, it dumps cortisol into your bloodstream, which triggers a fight or flight response. When you are in this space in your mind, logical listening becomes biologically impossible. It's impossible to think logically in an argument.

greg 19:23

Yeah, that's when people say, Why don't you just calm down? That's the opposite of whatever happens.

Michael 19:29

Yeah, yes. But so when that happens, but what Gottman found was that inside joke, a silly face, gentle teasing, things like that, humor in an argument is the fastest physiological way to drop your heart rate and break down that baseline so that you can be more mentally cognizant, more logically equipped, and all of that. Does that make sense? Yeah. So and I've never thought of it that way, but that actually makes a lot of sense.

jess 20:01

It really does.

greg 20:02

I think it uh for us too, it also has to do with like when we argue, though, we made We don't really argue. But we made the decision like I'm not going to name call, I'm not gonna raise my voice, and I'm not gonna be ugly. I'm not gonna be ugly or say mean things.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah.

greg 20:17

Like those are things like I'm I'm those are things I'm not gonna do. Whether my feelings are hurt, whether I'm upset, I could be mad, could be frustrated, I'm not gonna do those things. And sometimes, I mean, we can't help it. Some like I'll probably say something stupid during an argument because it's just what I'll do. Um, and Jess will probably do the that's what you said. Um at that time, and you're just like, okay.

Michael 20:44

Like, all right, like um well, and I think it comes before you have those arguments because yes, you can throw a joke in the middle of an argument and just piss the other person off even more. Yeah, 100%.

greg 20:55

But it's like you're not taking this serious, you don't care about this.

Michael 20:57

But if you have an understanding and you have a mutual agreement to say, hey, when we argue, we're not in the right headspace. Right. So it's okay for us to have humor in our argument. It's not to say that we won't work through whatever issue it is that you're having, but it's more to say, hey, like I love you more than I'd care about this argument. And I would much rather us work through this in a healthy headspace. So yeah, let's throw some humor in there.

greg 21:23

Well, because the root of that is a lot of couples don't have fun together. Yeah. I mean, the only time they're to when they're together, it's okay, it's kids, it's business. Like we're paying bills, we're talking budget, we're talking kids, we're talking schedules, we're blah, blah, blah, this, this, this, and the other. It's never a sit down and just laugh and go, tell me something funny that happened today. And be like, let me tell you this. I ran into the wall and I didn't even like I I've and usually it has to do with me doing something stupid um and laughing at myself, and Jess joins in with me because I'm just But you know, it's like that shared moment of like don't be so because some people get really frustrated, they take that personal. Like, I don't like they don't they don't allow themselves to be vulnerable in laughter because sometimes that's a hard thing for people to do.

Michael 22:15

It is because they want to be serious, especially when we're mad or we want to drive our point home.

greg 22:21

Right. And and I would tell you this if you if you haven't figured out the laughter fun part of your relationship in the middle of an argument, it's not a great place to start. Like don't be like, well, let me tell you a joke. Um let me tell you this. Your feelings are like, it's not the best place to probably drop that. Um so I I think all that happens beforehand. It's it's very interesting, though. Yeah, interesting research. You were saying the there's medical were you saying that because I actually think I had I had looked at some stuff and said, lowering your corpus levels.

Michael 23:00

It lowers, it just makes you more logical. It says it uh in introduces endorphins, and I'm gonna say, I mean dopamine oxytocin as well. The cuddle hormone, I guess is what they call that. The cuddle hormone. I didn't even know that was a thing.

jess 23:15

I didn't either.

greg 23:17

Go get yourself a cuddle hormone.

Michael 23:20

I don't think you should pick that up at the local Walmart.

greg 23:22

Just go get it. Go get it. Yeah, scan that. I'm gonna pick that up. Can I door dash a cuddle hormone?

jess 23:30

That's a different thing.

greg 23:33

Okay, never mind. Sorry. That's a different podcast. Sorry.

jess 23:37

Oh no.

greg 23:38

But it it's it's it's interesting though, the like even the fun little things, like it it starts with each other. It does start with the couple, the husband and the wife. Because the kids will they'll imitate what they see from you guys. Yeah. So if you're always serious, you're not for fun, you're never joking, you don't play those things, then the kids aren't gonna do that either. Like they they're they follow the lead of the parents in the household.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Most of the time.

greg 24:05

So most of the time. It's very rare that they don't. So, like, you're the leaders, you're leading that. So whether it's in the fun, fun area or not.

Cheap Messy Ideas That Bond Families

greg 24:14

Um we had I love to today's election day, and I'm not talking political or anything, but I have a really good friend of mine, Corey Anderson, who was running for an office, bless his heart. I don't know what's gotten into him. But I would say this Corey would bring the most fun gifts to our kids on their birthday. Yes. And it was a blast. One time he showed up with literally grocery bags of two-liter, like cheap two-liter Cokes. I think like 10 to 12 of those cokes.

jess 24:46

It was a lot.

greg 24:46

Like he it wasn't like, oh, here's a two-liter. Like he had boatloads of two-liters, and then he had a massive bag of mintoes. And so he dropped a bag of mintoes up, and all the goes, he goes, let's go play in the yard.

jess 25:02

Yeah, it was one of our boys' birthdays. And then that same year, the other boy's birthday, I don't remember which was what, but um, he brought rockets. Like, we launched rockets at that birthday party from from him.

greg 25:16

He brought the most, but we I mean, like, even after that part, everybody was covered in Dr. Pepper and Cheap Cola. Uh like in the I mean, everybody. And we had a blast. It was just a lot of fun.

jess 25:28

Our grown-up sons still talk about that.

greg 25:30

Yeah. Yeah. And and I'll say Corey Mane gives give gave the best gifts to our kids because it was just about fun. It wasn't about, oh, this is messy. Is it gonna cause ants in the yard? 1,000 percent.

jess 25:42

It did and it worked.

greg 25:43

But we had a blast doing it. And so I think sometimes we look at the consequences of having fun, and I I wouldn't suggest this because this escalated one time. It was outside. We were in a water gun fight, and it escalated from water gun to water balloon to inside the house water gun fight. Yeah. Okay, and we had hardwood floors throughout our house. So it was a new level. Yeah, it was insane. But as an adult, I was fully bought in because I was gonna I was getting these boys. It's like I am not going to lose. I was, I think I was so focused.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Yeah.

greg 26:20

Like we but it's so you were in this water fight that was inside the 100%.

jess 26:25

And then I had a school event one night. This is early on, and we were planning a camping trip for either spring break or fall break. I don't remember. So we got a new tent because we had a big family. And so I was at the school event and I get a text with a picture, and the caption was the tent, does it fit in the living room? By the way, but it was in the living room. He and Aaron Grace had put up this this huge we'll post a picture of that. We'll have to find a post-the living room, but that was the caption.

greg 26:56

Um we've moved we had to move the couches out of the living room to see if it would fit.

jess 27:01

You and the littlest child.

greg 27:03

And so, uh, but it didn't fit.

jess 27:05

And that same night, y'all got two soccer balls stuck in that really tall tree in the front yard, and I got a picture of that too. And I'm like, well, I don't I how am I gonna help you with that? Yeah, so you're like, also, we don't have any soccer balls right now.

unknown 27:17

Yeah.

greg 27:18

So it's not it's not the fact of, oh, you gotta plan something silly, something fun. Like we talked about our things we used to do at Goodwill. We would go to Goodwill and we give every kid five dollars and go find something that we would go to five above.

jess 27:31

We give different rules. Like you could only get stuff that starts with the same letter of your first name.

greg 27:36

Right.

jess 27:36

Or some theme. It had to be there were rules.

greg 27:40

Yeah. And so the idea was is that we can have fun no matter what we're doing. It's not about budgets, not about taking a massive trip and going somewhere like, oh, we're gonna go on a cruise because we're gonna go have fun. It's like, no, I'm talking about simple things like go to the park and go do something fun together. Uh go do

Finding Joy In Small Moments

greg 28:00

uh whatever it may be, whatever that looks like.

jess 28:02

Do you think sometimes grown-ups don't remember how to be silly?

greg 28:06

Absolutely. I think the world sucks it out of us.

jess 28:09

Yeah.

greg 28:10

And we get so focused on careers and jobs and and we one, we can't like when we start when we act silly as adults, we feel like everybody's looking at you. Yeah. You feel that way? Like if you're doing something silly or something that's like that's kind of weird.

jess 28:24

Well, they are for they are looking at you. And it could be out of jealousy, or it could be out of judgment, but then also that stems from probably jealousy too. Because I mean, it's it's a carefree feeling to be silly. I mean, I'm fortunate to work with six and seven year olds at my job, so I be silly every day. Uh, but it's not that easy for everybody.

greg 28:47

Yeah, it's true. It really is true.

Michael 28:50

But also, most activities that are fun require cleanup. That is true.

jess 28:55

That is true.

Michael 28:56

And so many times we we don't want to get past that.

jess 28:59

Yeah.

Michael 28:59

Yeah.

jess 29:00

That's true.

greg 29:01

But it's also too the Oh my gosh. Matthew, if you listen to this, I'm sorry. I I built this tribute one time, and this is this has to do with Corey Anderson also. Um I built this tribuche. It was for a group development thing. We were trying to figure out if we could build one. We were trying to throw eggs and see if we could throw eggs, how far we could throw an egg for our group development, group building, team building project. But I threw an egg and it hit um Strike's house. And Strake is Matthew Strickland.

jess 29:33

It was across the street.

greg 29:34

It lived across the street from me. I couldn't believe it went across our yard, the drive, the road, his yard, and hit his house. First off, I was impressed that I built that. I was like, bro, I built something that throws an egg like a long way. Um Strake wasn't too happy that we hit his house with an egg. Um, he was okay with it after a while. We're like, dude, we're just kidding. Like, we, you know, we um we hosed it off and tried to tried to be good. But it was just a fun, like I could always count on fun. Like fun was one of those things for me, it's like, let's just enjoy life. Like we're we're we're in this. We only get one shot at this life. You're you you're so stressed out over your kids, the sports, all this. I guarantee you, you're gonna turn around, it's gonna be gone. Yeah, and you're gonna wish you would have slowed down and had more fun. And just enjoy it, laugh more, tell some jokes, cut up together, yeah, enjoy your time together, and just just chill, just relax. There's enough stuff to be stressed about.

jess 30:35

And honestly, I mean, not to get too serious, but don't wait till you have to learn a hard lesson to realize the value of the life that you have.

Michael 30:42

Yeah.

jess 30:43

To then start to enjoy it. Like you don't have to wait, like you don't have to have a, you know, sad, traumatic backstory like Greg and I do to realize, hey, we'd we don't we like you said we get one shot at it. So why not make it the best you can? Like, don't wait until that's the only choice you have, you know?

greg 31:02

Yeah, because there were a lot of people, a lot of people talking a lot of trash about you and I. Not so much about you, more about me when we got together. Um, but it we're like, I don't care. We're gonna have fun, we're gonna we're gonna enjoy this life together. Uh, and we're gonna do we're gonna do it to the best of our ability. So I know tonight may seem kind of crazy, and you're like, we're all over the place. There's value in laughter, there's value in fun in your family. I I literally, I today at our house, I came home and I was like, I'm getting the cold plunge because this is I'm just I'm getting in the cold plunge. So I got in the cold plunge, and Lucy, our little granddaughter, was amazed that I was getting in this thing. So I get out, and so I lay the towel on the floor, and she's crawling all over, she wants to sit on it. I was like, lay down, I'm gonna show you something. So she lays down. We have hardwood floors throughout our house. She lays down and I start pulling her through the house of laying on the towel. Absolutely love. She had a black laughing, smiling, having fun. I'm like, that's what life, like, that's what life should be about for us. It's like finding the joy in the little bitty things. Not the, not the it doesn't have to be the huge things. We can, but the little things of just saying, like, she got so pumped when I poured dog food into the container today. She's screaming, excited, because I'm dumping the dog food in the container so we can scoop it out and give it to the dog. Yeah, we lose those over time. We're just like, oh god, I've got to feed the dogs, I gotta do this. She was so pumped. Like, this is a fun thing.

jess 32:37

And watching her joy with bubbles.

greg 32:39

Yes.

jess 32:40

I mean, if we're grown-ups, but if you think bubbles are cool, yeah. And we have this really fun bubble gun, and it has it does all these little bitty bubbles, and it is the coolest thing.

greg 32:49

Yeah, she squirted me in the face with it probably five or six times this past weekend.

jess 32:53

Yeah.

greg 32:54

In the face with the bubble gun.

jess 32:55

But it's okay to find joy in bubbles.

Michael 32:57

Yeah. I think it's more like so important, like just simply find joy. Yeah. Fun is different for everyone. And and I remember like I ask people all the time, just you know, is working with a lot of different people managing teams. Like, I ask people consistently, like, what do you do for hobbies? Like, what do you do for fun? And they're like, Oh, I don't have hobbies. Like, I don't have interests, I just work and you know, take care of my family. And I hear that all the time. That is the normal response. Right. And I'm like, why? What is it about adulthood? What is it about society? Was it about whatever it is that we're going through in our culture that we don't just do things that are enjoyable for us? We get so caught up, and don't be wrong, like I understand there is a pressure to earn enough money to get the things you want, to live the nice life. But I'm also like, we spend all this time to buy materialistic things that are gonna break within a year or two. It's like, why can't we? And I don't know if it's a retraining of our mind. Yeah, I think so. You know what I mean? Like it, and it might be that a retraining of our mind so that we can say, it's okay to just sit back and cut up. Yeah, it's okay to not worry about rent next month for a bit. Yeah, it's okay. And I mean, sometimes you gotta flip that switch back and forth, you know, because sometimes I get when things get tight or things are hard.

jess 34:19

Well, it's just like what Greg and I decided a long time ago. We're gonna be do our best to be happy and joyful, whether we have five dollars or five thousand dollars.

greg 34:28

Yeah, yeah. And I mean because you're there's gonna be times when you have nothing, there's gonna be times when you have plenty. And but my happiness, if because if my happiness is based on my bank account, then it's just based on feelings. Yes, and it's not a choice. And I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. I don't want to live that way.

Michael 34:44

Yeah. So well, that's the question. If it's based on a financial number, then it's not really joy.

jess 34:51

That's not really joy. Right.

greg 34:52

Because that'll go away. Yeah, it will. So the

Weekly Challenge And Free Relationship Audit

greg 34:56

challenge for this week for you guys is do something fun with your family.

jess 35:00

Yeah, choose to.

greg 35:01

And if it's just you and your wife or you and your husband, go go do something fun. Choose to be happy, choose to laugh together. Uh I love to hear Jess when she barely laughs and the smile. I love that. And it just makes me happy when I see her that way, and I know she does with me. And we do that a lot of times when it's just the two of us. Yeah. Uh and and I would encourage you, if you don't find yourself laughing or cutting up a lot with your spouse, go find that. Go find that happiness, go find that fun. Um, you may have to dig because it's probably buried pretty deep, but keep digging, keep dusting it off, and you will find it out there. I promise you. Anything else to add?

jess 35:42

I don't think so.

greg 35:44

So I want to encourage you. Um we've developed a tool for you guys to kind of help see where you're at in your relationships in your in your marriage. It's 27 questions, takes just a few minutes. It's unpacktogether.com. You'll say it. It's a it's an audit. You'll like when you go to Unpack Together, you'll uh you'll see it right there on the front page. Take that. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I just want to give you a snapshot. It gives you free. Yeah, it's a free thing. It just gives you some questions, uh, some pondering questions. Be as honest as you can.

jess 36:17

I did it and it was very accurate.

greg 36:18

Yeah, it was very accurate. Yes, very much so. And so kind of lets you know where you're at, uh what's going on, and if there's any way we can help, anything we can do, uh, just let us know. You got free resources on there, free things you can do. We're going to try to uh post something up and we'll try to give it away uh maybe on our website or somewhere, uh, maybe on social. We'll just see. Just hey, here's here's here's some fun things you can go do with your family that are really cheap. Here's some suggestions. And so we'll help put those together for you so you can have those out there. But again, go visit us at unpacktogether.com, take that audit, check it out, let us know what you think. Follow us on all our socials, all the fun stuff that's going on out there. We're still growing. Uh, 54 countries still. Um, we're hoping to hit a hundred by the end of this year, which is kind of crazy. But if we hit a hundred, we're over half the countries in the world, which is kind of nuts. Yeah. Uh, but that's what we're after. That's our goal. But help us get there. Help us share. Um and give us your feedback. Let us know what you think. Let us know how you're having fun. Share some fun stories. Anything else?

Michael 37:24

Mm-mm.

greg 37:25

All right. Well, as usual, it's about that. Good dogs. Go dogs.