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28. Balancing Family Life With Intentional Parenting with Alissa Lovett · A Heart That Beats for Home

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Let's dive in.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, welcome back to another week here at A Heart that Beats for Home.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We're so excited to have you in the month of July still cruising through our parenting series, and I am super excited for you to hear from one of my dear friends today.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Miss Alyssa Lovett is here and she is going to be talking to us about parenting and marriage.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: She has three littles.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: She's going to give us a little intro on her family in a minute, but in July here we're talking about that second stage of parenting, which is the training stage, ages five to 12.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: And Alyssa has two that are still in that stage and then one that has bumped over into that next stage of coaching.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So it'll be fun to talk to her kind of about even some of those transitions, how their marriage operates through these different stages, and just hear her wisdom.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: They have some fun life experiences that we're going to dig into.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: That, I think, will inspire everyone to take a little adventure and maybe get out of their comfort zone a little bit.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: But, alyssa, I am so grateful to have you here and would love to have you just kind of tell us a little bit about your family.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: What a privilege it is to be on here and just to be asked to do this.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: I'm so honored and honestly, kind of taken back a little bit, I think, to just share what I've learned, knowing that I still have so much to learn.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So we live in Edmond, oklahoma, me and my husband.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: This is where my husband grew up.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I am more from the Ozarks and so I came here for college.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: We kind of just ended up here and it's been a great place to raise a family.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Starting a business before my kids were born and building that alongside raising them has been just such a blessing.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And digging into parenting with my husband has been such a gift and it's been so fun to watch him in that role and honestly, just have learned so much from him as well.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: But we are an active family.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: We love being outside, we love traveling, we love games, we are very interactive and spend a lot of time just together as a family unit, and that's a huge priority for us.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: And so watching your kids grow up through stages and, like Nikki said, I have my oldest that just transitioned out of this stage that we're going to be talking about today is scary but also really cool.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I'm just so grateful for mentors and even friends who are maybe just a stage or a stage and a half in front of me.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Just gleaning from their wisdom and their poise and, honestly and honestly, their mistakes to just learning alongside them has has just been such a gift.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: So I'm excited to dig in today and, honestly, listening to this podcast has been such a blessing in my life just to hear from all types of different people that are where I'm at but even further along as well.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So I want to back up a little bit.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: So, you and your husband Jeff, how old were you guys when you got married?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: We were 23 when we got married, so we were young, but, honestly, everyone in my family got married a lot younger than that, so I thought I was old, but I wasn't old, I was still pretty young.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we were both 23 when we got married, okay, and then how long before you started having babies?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: We started pretty quickly and that wasn't necessarily the plan.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Both of us are very family oriented people and we knew we wanted a family.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: But we were kind of the first of our friends to start having kids and so we were.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: We got pregnant with our first at the very end of our one year anniversary of being married, and so we started young and I don't regret that I was a young mom but I also I kind of felt like I was growing up with my firstborn, which I'm sure a lot of people feel that way, but I'm also.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: I've loved that and I'm also just really excited about you know, I think I calculated one time how old I'll be when I'm an empty nester, and it's young.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: We got married as well.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: We were young, 21 and 22.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I had my first baby at 23.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I'll be an empty nester right at 50.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And it is fun.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It's like two different stages of life and either you live a lot of life before you have kids and then you're older when your kids are gone, or you do it this way and you have not much life together early.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And what you said about you feel like you were growing up with your children.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I just heard a quote that said your first child grows up with you.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Your second child is parented by you and I was like there is a lot of truth in that, just trying to figure it out as you go.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: But, alyssa, I want to just kind of start with.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Let's chat a little bit.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I know when you and I were talking about this podcast and you coming on, you just said man, I'm excited because I just really feel like we are just in a place where we're trying to be really, really intentional with our parenting and how we show up.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I believe Jeff has some background in schools and you probably see a lot.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: You've got these kids now that are moving into the junior high stages.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: What are you doing when you say, man, we're just trying to be really intentional, what would you say?
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: That are some things, maybe you came to them through mistakes that you've learned, or things that you've seen.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: When you say parent, intentionally, what are some of those things that you guys are doing?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I think this intentional parenting in this stage specifically my son, my oldest, who's really kind of transitioned out of and he's a teenager now I'm just going to be honest it makes me very uncomfortable.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: It's so foreign to me and I think that makes me lean in a little harder because I'm like, wow, this is uncharted water and I have no idea what I'm doing and half of me is scared and half of me is excited.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: So my husband taught and coached high school for 16 years and so I have watched him hands on, mentor this age group, specifically teen years, so well and I've learned so much from him and I think so much of it is just about building relationship, building trust.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: So there's that.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And then also just helping out with ministry at church whether that was high school or now we help out in the college class just seeing how important relationship is to truly being able to mentor or coach someone.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Intentionality, I think, is built on trust, it's built on relationship, it's built on getting uncomfortable.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And I just finished reading.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: I went to DC with my middle this past week and on that trip I took one book and that book was which I'm wondering if you recommended it to me.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: It's called Strong Mothers, strong Sons, wrecked me emotionally, but in the best way I learned so much Me being intentional, like being willing to say I don't know what I'm doing, like I don't know the answers.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: This is uncomfortable.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: We spend a lot of time as a family and that's a huge priority for us, and so we dinner together as a family every night that's a non-negotiable except for Wednesdays when we're serving at church and so things like that that I think we've created as foundational, built hedges around, protected.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: That time we also just have intentional conversation.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: So trying to look at everything that happens, whether it's a really great, exciting thing, like your kid making a sports team or being chosen to get to do something, or maybe it's a really hard, tough thing, which is obviously harder, right to be intentional about, because I anyway just tend to shy away from that, naturally, just because it's uncomfortable.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: But gosh, I have found that it is so powerful when we can sit in those moments with our kids and ask what's the lesson here?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: How can I teach my kid, or even partner with my child, in knowing how to navigate, maybe something that isn't comfortable or that's tough, but what could they learn from that that can equip them moving forward?
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: So for us, I think it comes down to those little moments.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: It's not necessarily the big moments, but it's those little tiny moments where I can find a lesson to teach my kid, and I mess up all the time and I miss moments all the time.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: But I think awareness is so important, and so if we have an awareness of, for me anyway, I'm like if I have an awareness of it, it's on my radar.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: If I don't have an awareness of it, it's completely not on my radar.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: And so, just being aware that every moment is a teachable moment, is every moment going to be worth digging into?
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Is it going to be an opportune time?
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Maybe not, but a lot of them are.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And so even you can always go back to those moments if you're like dang it, I should have said something, or shoot, I was really uncomfortable, and now I'm feeling a tug that I should have leaned into, that that's a bedtime conversation that you can have.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: So I think for us that that's what it comes down to is using the tiny moments to create lasting impressions for our kids that are going to carry them into, maybe that next stage when things do get tougher or more uncomfortable.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Alyssa, I love that you brought that up, because so much of what we're talking about in this series is just building relationship, and when we build that relationship and that's one of the core foundations that we're going after, you know, the ultimate goal is we have our kiddos.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Although childhood seems like forever, 18 years feels like forever when you have those babies and then as they're growing, I remember when my, when my oldest hit nine years old and I kind of had a panic moment because I was like, oh my gosh, at nine years old you are halfway done with that parenting journey, and I think then it becomes like this panic of the countdown I'm sure you're a little bit in that as well as you now have going into the older ages and knowing that your time is limited and so just really parenting with the perspective of I do have these 18 amazing years.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But then what I ultimately want, and what I think every mom and dad would say, is I pray that after those 18 years, when it's now a choice for our kids to have relationship with us, that they would choose to come back, because the foundation of growing up was that strong relationship.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And so just looking at that and how that ties in specifically when you're talking about all these conversations that you're having and finding these little moments and just all the things that are so teachable.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's not by surprise that the Lord taught so much in parables, because I think there are so many lessons in stories or word pictures of just all day everyday life, so much that happens in sports and in relationship where we can tie these things in with our kids.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: What do you feel like you have done outside of just spending time to make relationship in conversation specifically really feel like a safe space for you and your oldest son, your other two children, just approaching hard topics?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: What do you think are some key things that you could pass on to other moms that you feel like this has really helped us be able to have the platform to have those, whether it's just everyday conversations or kind of uncomfortable conversations.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Naturally, I tend to shy away from uncomfortable.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: My husband is more like confrontational, and not in a bad way, just like he loves hard conversations.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: That's tougher for me, but I know it's necessary and I know I want that, and so as moms, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do, and that's for me anyway.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: That's something that is tougher.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I want my kids to know that they can come to me with anything and it's not going to be shame filled.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I'm in trouble when something happens to my kids.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I want them to think I've got to tell my mom instead of oh, my gosh, what if mom's finds out?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And do they feel like that?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: I hope and I try more and more every day to create that space where they feel comfortable talking about things that also make them uncomfortable.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Because, as I'm approaching, my kids aren't babies anymore and so, as they are aging, it's uncomfortable to get older and to grow and to change physically and emotionally and mentally.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: That's hard in and of itself, and so I always just let my kids know if you ever need to talk about that or if you ever feel like you need to get something off your chest.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I want you to feel like you can come to me and tell me and that I'm going to be a listening ear and if I can help you, I want to help you, and I think more than anything, especially after reading that book that I just read moms are designed as the emotional support system for our children, but specifically boys, because they are wired so differently than us as women.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Boys are looking to us to mirror emotional intelligence.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And when we can build a safe space for our children to be sad, be angry, but really teach them how to properly channel those, I think that in that way I've been able to help my boys in a big way.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I have one that has really big emotions, and really big in both ways, right and so he doesn't know what to do with those emotions, and his emotions or sadness often come out as anger.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: And so, just specifically, this actually just happened we just finished up elementary school, which is a huge, monumental thing for me and for him specifically.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: And just so happens, we actually also moved, and so he's going to be moving into a different middle school with kids he doesn't know, and that's scary, that's big.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: So he's mourning the loss of elementary school, but then he also has this anxiousness about moving into a school with older kids, and middle school is so, just so different.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: And he came home the last day of school and was so mad and so angry and normally that's targeted towards the other boy and I could tell something was off and I knew it was deeper than him just being mad at his brother.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: And so I quietly took him into his bedroom and just asked him like what's going on, buddy?
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And we dug a little bit and we dug a little bit further and he's just sad.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: He was just sad, right, and so he didn't know what to do with his emotions and it was so I think it was so helpful for him to be able to label his emotion Like you're not mad, you're really sad, and that's okay.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: And I can, we can pray through this and we can talk about it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Sorry, that's a fresh one, but you know, I think it's when we can sit into those moments with our kid.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Old me, young me, would have been mad that he was mad, right, like I would have had a short fuse, I would have been mad that he took it out on his brother.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And as I age and as I hopefully gain wisdom, I'm learning that I've got to help my, I've got to equip my kids to go into the world and be sad and to be able to figure out am I mad or am I sad, or am I frustrated or am I, you know, whatever.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And so for me right now that just that came up because that just happened.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: But that's just a fresh example of just being intentional and really sitting in those moments with my children as they go through the ups and downs of life, just like I'm going through the ups and downs of life too.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being vulnerable in that.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I know that it is.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: It's hard, and when you see your kids struggling and again, the older we get, I don't know that we are equipped with the ability to handle some of those things.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And I think too, with your first child, you're also a lot of times mirroring the same emotion that they're experiencing, because in the same time that they're sad, you are probably a little bit panicked, like, oh my gosh, I'm pulling him out of the school, I'm putting him into a new school.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Are we making the right choices?
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Are we screwing him up?
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Are we making the right choices?
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Are we screwing him up?
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Are we making life harder?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And so you have all these emotions too, and just that beauty of with boys.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I know I was telling you I had two older girls, I have four sisters and not knowing what I was going to do with this high school age boy, but just being blown away at the preciousness of these little boys who do they're.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: They're in the stage of I'm tender and I still really need my mom, but I'm also trying to grow into this man and giving them a place.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: When we look out in the world and we see just so much, that is just overwhelming and scary.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: The ability to know I feel such a responsibility and I can tell you do too, obviously, even just with the emotions in that is such a responsibility to raise these strong masculine men but also these strong men who are fierce protectors and they have integrity but that also can recognize like it's okay to cry, it's okay to process through those kinds of emotions and just that safety.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: What I really took away from you in that is just creating safe space, that there's room for conversation.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: When it's not that, get it together.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Whatever it's summer, you should be happy, which is what maybe a lot of times in our busyness we want to do and instead just say, hey, let's take a minute, let's get away, let's pull aside, let's go somewhere quiet and let's look a little bit deeper into the root of that.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: So kind of piggybacking off of that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: We talked a little bit there about his emotions.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Sometimes then are against his brother, three kids pretty close in age 8, 11, and 13.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: What are some things that you've seen that you've tried?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe that you failed forward in sibling relationship?
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: You mentioned that you guys spend a lot of time together.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: We'll dig in maybe in a minute here about a year that you took in an RV together as a family.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: But what are things that you and Jeff have done specifically to foster relationship and protect relationship between your children and their sibling relationships?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I mean?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: kids are kids and siblings are siblings and there's always going to be some sort of disgruntledness or frustratedness and that's normal.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I don't expect my kids to get along 100% all the time, but I do believe in creating an atmosphere and an environment where we do foster those sibling relationships and that year that we took, which we can talk about in a little bit, was a huge, monumental piece in doing that in such a formidable season in my kids' lives.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: But I also just think that helping them figure out where their place is in our family and that they do have a place, and really creating an atmosphere where every family is different and every family has different standards and every family has different priorities and just ideas of what they think that they want their kids' lives to look like.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: And one of the stances that Jeff and I have taken which I do believe has helped my kids work together is just the lack of screens.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that my kids don't watch TV, because they do, and we love a good movie night.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: In fact, on Sunday afternoons it's our tradition to watch a movie together as a family every Sunday afternoon after church.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: That's just what we do.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: But we've never had like iPads or, and even my son, who's almost 14, he still doesn't have a cell phone.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And I just want my kids to be kids.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I want them to be bored, I want them to use their imagination, I want them to play outside and I want them to play together.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: And I think, when you take away all the distraction of our culture, kids do what they were made to do, which is use their imagination and play and get dirty, and they crave that time outside.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Kids don't really look like, I would say, your atypical kids that are growing up in 2024, just because I want to preserve their childhood and I want them to just play.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: When you don't have those things to be distracted by, that's what you do is you go play outside and you go get dirty and you go ride your bike or go get in the creek.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Lay outside and you go get dirty and you go ride your bike or go get in the creek, and they do that together, which fosters that relationship, because they have one another and are building these memories and experiences together, along with our family.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Dinner time is a really sacred time for our family and that works for our schedule because we have made that a priority just for us because that's what's working for us, and we do use that time to tell stories and what was the best part of your day and what was the saddest part of your day?
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Or did you get frustrated today Like what happened?
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: What was the funniest thing that happened in class today?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And this is a way for our kids to also have an interest in each other's lives and their friends, and that's fun when you feel like one of your kids is kind of getting to know the other kid's friends and there's some banter back and forth, and that's just fun, I think, just having some things in place.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't have to be perfect and you don't have to have it all together or even utilize the tools that we've used, but you've got to figure out what works for your family.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: But those are some things that I do feel like have fostered relationship and when we had our daughter, we had these two boys.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: They were five and three when she was born and since she was born, my husband has really kind of ingrained in them it is your job to take care of your mom and it is your job to take care of your sister, and so they've established this like they're so proud to wear that badge of I've got to take care of her and make sure she's okay and make sure no one's picking on her at school.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: And it's just sweet, it's a sweet little dynamic.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I love that you talked about dinner I'm going to take this away that we had not talked about so I'm going to throw you a little curveball here in a second but that whole dinner and the fostering of conversation.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Our college daughter came home for spring break and we were at a beach house in the Carolinas and she brought a friend with her and at dinner they said when we're at school we go around at the cafeteria and we do high low Buffalo and I thought that was so great.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I had never heard the Buffalo part.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I love the high low.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: You know the high point of your day, the low point and Buffalo is just something weird.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Like what is something weird?
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: That happened and you just share a Buffalo and so we did that at dinner over vacation and it's crazy how that just turns in to so much conversation.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: You talk about so many things that you would you would never typically talk about.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: It's just stuff that happens in life but there's so much richness in it and I love that tradition.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Also think that it's so crazy that we have to think about kids playing in the Creek and running around outside as something that is not the norm, like we just do not see kids anymore that are running around, that are exploring, that don't have a phone in their hand, just that old school of you know.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Obviously the world has changed in a lot of ways, but we were outside from the time we woke up until the streetlights came on.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: When the streetlights came on, you came back home and I know that's not just a reality because of safety and a lot of things, but just I love that, making kids be kids and preserving that and so something that we have talked zero about.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: But I feel just prompted to ask you because I think family dinner I've seen research, I've read the research on family dinner and what that does for family bond and for connectedness and for a lot of parents that feels very overwhelming and we're a family that lives by that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: You know our kids we have two in college now, so it's always evolving and now just having one son at home all the time, that looks a little bit different.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: But what would you say as a busy mom?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: You run a business, you have these little kids, you're always in the process of remodeling and moving and doing all kinds of projects.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: What steps do you have to take as the mom to make sure that every night.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: This is what happens, and I fall guilty a lot of times at five o'clock going oh shoot, what's for dinner.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Is that still the reality?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Or is this really a focus of your day where you have come up with a plan, where you're like this is how the dinner part is always cemented in the calendar.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I'm a pretty rigid person, not that I love that about me, but that's just kind of how I was wired and so and I like a good plan.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: But as a busy mom and as my kids are growing and their schedules are getting busier, I'm just having to be flexible with that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So I have found that one of the ways that I show my love to my family is by preparing food.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: When I don't have that ability to do that, I don't feel like myself, and so I am someone that does enjoy cooking.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: I love time in the kitchen.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I just personally love that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Not everyone does, and that's okay.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I don't think this has to be a super formal thing.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I bring my family along in that.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: A lot of times I ask what's the one meal that you want this week, and they get to choose.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Or does anyone have any ideas for dinner or is anything sounding good to you guys this week?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Even bringing your kids in that process of?
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Like my middle son, he actually really loves to cook and so he I find him in the kitchen a lot with me, helping me, you know, chop veggies.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: Or if my husband's grilling a lot of times that's where him and the boys have really great conversations is around the grill and so just bringing your family into that.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I will say like sometimes our, our life is kind of chaotic, just like I'm sure all of you listeners, you find yourself in that same situation.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: So allow yourself some flexibility, in that we just bought a house, we're remodeling, we are completely disheveled, and so the night that we closed on our house, we didn't have a house anymore and we were going to immediately start remodeling this house.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: And so what did I do?
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Got some things together and we had a little picnic on the back deck at our new house and that was our dinner.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: And it was still together.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: We didn't have a table, we just were on the deck with no chairs, like just sitting on the deck.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: But my kids are going to remember that and I'm going to remember that, and I just think it doesn't have to be this super formal thing and dinner doesn't have to take you a super long time to prepare.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: I think the most important part is that you're together and if you do have a little bit of time, pulling your kids into the kitchen to help be a part of that process.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: It makes them feel like they're a part of something.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: It helps them establish some good skill building when it comes to chopping up food or prepping food, and you're going to have some kids that are more interested in that than others, and that's okay, but I think it just is.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Again, it's just another area where you can create some intentional conversation, and for me, that's what really what it's become.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: But I have had to let go of everyone's brain works a little bit different, but I'm not the girl who, on Sunday night, is like this is what we're having every night of the week for dinner.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think that way.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: At about 10 AM I'm like, hmm, what should we have for dinner tonight?
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And sometimes I have the stuff in the fridge and sometimes I don't.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: At night I can ask, hey, is anything sounding good this week?
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Or what do you guys want for dinner this week?
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And my son tonight he was like I want beef stroganoff, and so he helped me place the grocery order online and figure out if we had the stuff that we needed to make it.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: And so, again, it's just bringing them in the conversation and really helping them see like what all goes into preparing a meal, like food doesn't just appear and meals don't just appear.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: There's a process for it.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: I think, one thing that we could take away.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I always try to give practical steps for our listeners, so you're not just listening, but you're hearing something and I'm sure anybody that is not intentional about their family eating together.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Intuitively, you probably have a stirring in you that man.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Family dinner would probably be something that should be a priority to us and it can feel like we haven't done it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: It would be too hard to start.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Number one I'm a huge fan of it's never too late.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how old your kids are.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how long you've maybe been taking your plates into the living room and sitting in front of a TV for your meals instead of talking.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: It is never too late to say, okay, hey guys, we're going to like, maybe we're going to try three nights a week and then maybe we're going to go up to four, or maybe for some families, three nights a week is what it's going to be, and that's just the reality of schedules and busyness.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: But even just listening to you, where I need to make improvement is I probably need to set an alarm on my phone for 10 o'clock, because for me those thoughts happen about seven hours later, which is at five o'clock, and then we're eating at eight and I'm like, oh my goodness, and again older kids.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: But I mean just those practical things of maybe this summer make it a goal to just set a timer on your phone that goes off at 10 o'clock, or if you're a working mom, maybe it goes off at seven o'clock at night and you're thinking about what's tomorrow.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I think so much of making these things happen we talked in the very first week of this podcast for the summer series is, if you don't decide what it is in this case it is eating together, it will be chosen for you and it usually won't be the direction that you would have chosen for your family.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And so just those little things that we can do.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: If meals together is important, what steps do we have to take?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Set that alarm, do the things that Alyssa is talking about and just make a commitment to have one more meal together this next week than you did last week.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: And if you do that one more time a week, that's 52 more intentional meals together as a family.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I think we so minimize the power of compound effect of small tweaks that we can do over the course of a year.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: So with that, alyssa, totally out of.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: If you are a structure person and you're wired that way, you have got to talk to us a little bit about how you guys came to the decision to sell everything, buy an RV and spend a year living in an RV with a lot of complications.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I followed you on social during that year and sometimes I was crying right with you because of some of the issues you guys faced.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: But what in the world got you guys there?
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: And tell us a little bit about that journey.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Oh man, what a journey, I will tell you.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I cry that it's over and cry that it can't happen again.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: And then I cry again because I'm like, wow, I'm still traumatized by so much of what happened on that.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: It was the most beautiful and hardest thing I've ever done.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: And I am.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I am a big structure girl, I am a huge routine girl, I'm very organized, and so this was probably the last thing.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Anyone thought that knew me, thought that I would ever do, and it's definitely the last thing I ever thought that I would ever do.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Just to kind of give you a little bit of background, I am a small town girl.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: I lived in rural Oklahoma.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: My husband is a big city boy and he grew up in the suburbs and so, camping, I would camp with my dad, I would go hiking with my dad, but that was kind of like tent camping.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: That was kind of the extent.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: It's not like we had all this amazing experience in an RV.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: In fact, the minute we stepped in our first RV, to purchase one, was the first time either one of us had ever been in an RV, and so talk about uncomfortable and like feeling like a fish out of water, the way the whole thing came into play was.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: It just escalated very, very quickly.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: So we found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I own my own business and I work from home.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I can work from anywhere from my phone, and so my job is super flexible in that way.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: My husband was teaching high school at a very established school here in Oklahoma and he there were just some things that our school district had put into place because of the pandemic, where my husband March of 2020, april of 2020 was like I'm not doing that, I'm not doing that.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: And so he was like I'm just going to homeschool the kids until they figure this out.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: And I was like, well, if you're going to homeschool the kids until they figure this out, and I was like, well, if you're going to homeschool the kids, then we're going to travel.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And then it was like, if we're going to travel, we're going to get an RV.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: So it literally was just like like this whole escalation, and so then we found ourselves RV shopping.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: We had no idea what we were doing, we had no idea what we were looking for and, honestly, it was the coolest thing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: It was so hard, it was so uncomfortable.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: It grew our marriage like nothing I have ever experienced.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: It grew my kids' relationships within one another like nothing I've ever seen before, within one another like nothing I've ever seen before and as a family unit, I really feel like it was just such an amazing experience.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: We traveled to 49 of the 50 states in a year.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: We saw 30 to 40 different national parks Really, really incredible, really incredible.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: But you know, as a rigid, organized homemaker, I found myself being like, oh my gosh, I don't know what this looks like.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: I can only buy so much food that's going to fit in this tiny little fridge.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I can only buy so much food that's going to fit in this pantry.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: How am I going to pack the clothes for the kids?
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Because we've got really hot places and really cold places.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: And I found myself like tail, spinning out of control inwardly, and I tell people all the time I believe that the Lord brought us into this to tame me.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I was like a wild Bronco going into this whole RV experience and I going into this whole RV experience and I that's what happened to me is he.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: I had to be broken and that's what this did it.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: It took away all my rigidness, it took away all of my plans.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: It took away all of my rigidity Cause I don't know if you know this, but like you don't have the luxury of being rigid when you're living on wheels Like you just don't.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: You know if your RV engine needs replaced three times, then guess what?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Your RV engine needs replaced three times, and there's no, really not much you can do about that.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: So I became very good at problem solving and taking you know in in in that in those moments, those really hard moments, when you're stressed out, you just want your bed, you're in the middle of nowhere, your kids are relying on you to be emotionally stable, your husband is showing up so strong for you and taking care of you and protecting you.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: You have the choice of being grouchy and annoyed or being joyful and having gratitude, and so I found myself gravitating toward joy and gratitude, and it changed everything.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: It changed absolutely everything, and I think what happened was our kids watched us, as a unit, work together to figure it out.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: And we work together to stay safe, to have a good time, to see everything and to be able to pivot, because plans change.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: And we work together to stay safe, to have a good time, to see everything and to be able to pivot because plans change and we have to change the way we look at things, and so we sold the RV.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll buy another one later in life.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: But I find myself weekly with tears of gratitude that we got to do that and then also being like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad that I live in a house with four walls.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: So a little bit of both, but, honestly, the experience of a lifetime that I am so grateful that the Lord led us in that direction.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Because, I will tell you, every single person thought we were out of our minds.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Everyone thought we were crazy.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Everyone couldn't believe what we were doing.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Some of it was because of the social stuff that was going on in our country at the time.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Some of it was just like, so foreign to so many people that they didn't understand why we would do that, how we could do that, how we could uproot our entire family and go explore the entire country.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: But sometimes you just have to go with your gut and go with where you believe the Lord's leading you, and I 100% believe that the Lord orchestrated all of that perfectly for us to be able to do that.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: And even just looking back, me and my husband were talking about this the other day.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: Our kids were at the perfect age to do that.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: They weren't enthralled.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: When high school sports our youngest was, she was potty trained and she could walk and hike on her own for the most part.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: And so just this super sweet spot of a lot of family time, a lot of exploration, and when you're in the middle of nowhere and no one knows where they're going, it just kind of forces this closeness that we may not know where we're going but we have each other right and that's really all, because that's what I have figured out.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: Home is where you're with the people that you love the most.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: It's not a place necessarily, it's the people around you.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: And so anytime I'm with my people, I'm home.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: So whether I'm remodeling a house or I'm in an RV or traveling in my car, I'm home.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: As long as I'm with my people, I'm home.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: So whether I'm remodeling a house or I'm in an RV or traveling in my car, I'm home.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: As long as I'm with the people that I love the most and as we continue to build relationship and trust and experience and memories together, I just I don't know of anything more beautiful than that.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I loved watching you guys take that trip, and every time that that dang engine on that RV would blow and it would be a Facebook live of you on the side of the street, I would think doggone it Like why, lord, why are you doing this to the Lovetts?
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: What are you trying to teach them?
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Because, man, I would hurt with you and my pocketbook would hurt with you every time you posted those updates.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: But you mentioned in that that it was for your marriage.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: It was one of the best things ever.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: What, what specifically, besides just you guys having to figure it out, what was it that you think really impacted your marriage?
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: And then also to that question what would be something that you would share with our listeners that, just at this stage of this training stage the five to 12, you with the three kids now moving into high school what are things that you guys are doing to really protect and nurture your relationship, while you're also so intentional about nurturing these three precious gifts that God has entrusted to you?
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: I think, if I go back to that time in the RV, I think that the best thing for us was we only had each other.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: So all of our comforts, all of our distractions, all of our everything was completely stripped away and we were in the middle of nowhere with each other.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: And of course the kids were there.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: But the kids aren't going to offer that same sort of feeling of stability just because they're children, right.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: But when you just have each other I mean and I'm sure some of our listeners maybe have felt this way, maybe if you've, like, moved across the country or uprooted your family and had to make a move for a job or something military or something like that when you go somewhere brand new with that person, you only have each other to rely on and you are each other's best friend.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: I think I grew a deeper appreciation for Jeff as my protector and my provider, as I watched him literally physically take care of our family and make sure that we were safe and make sure that you know we were taken care of.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: And I felt more in love with him as I watched his demeanor just stay so positive and just calm and I'm sure some of that.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: There was some inner frustration and anger, but he stayed cool on the outside and and I know that that was for us, for us to feel safe and for us to feel taken care of, and so so, yeah, it was.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: It was pretty amazing.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: You know, when you have three pair of yoga pants and two sweatshirts and some hiking boots and that's literally what you have in your laptop.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: It's amazing how distracted I was pre-trip.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: When you strip all of that stuff away, what it comes down to is what really matters, and you figure out really fast what really matters.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: And when you know what really matters you can be really intentional about that.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: So, as far as practically investing in our marriage, I think that one of the biggest things is just spending time together and making ourselves a priority, going on date nights, like we're going on a date tomorrow night.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: He texted me yesterday I think was like hey, you want to go to dinner tomorrow night or Friday night and so we're going to dinner and that courting is, I think, keeping that alive and just it's really easy for our kids schedules to completely bombard our lives.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: But we really make an investment in us and date nights regularly.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: We don't go every week, but regularly.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: I will say we do have a standing nightly tradition that we do every single night.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: It's really no big deal, but it is to us, and when I'm away it makes me sad because our tradition can't carry on.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: But we have a cup of tea together and we have a little treat Maybe that's a little bit of chocolate or a little something that I've made and we watch a show together which is so silly and not a big deal, but, like it's our tradition, we actually like the same sort of shows and so that works out and we pick one and we watch that together every night and that's just our way of just being together and spending time together and it's important to us.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: And so, in fact, when I was in DC, I was like babe, did you drink tea?
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: While I was gone, he was like no, that's our thing, and it was just super sweet because just to have that thing.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: And so that is obviously going to look so different for every single person.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: But and and you know, maybe that's you sit on the porch and read together.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: You're not maybe reading like the same thing, but you're at least together.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Maybe you're playing cards or maybe you're just doing something together.
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I think it's so easy and it's such a temptation to pick up your phone and mindlessly scroll and you be sitting in one area and someone else be sitting in another.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that never happens in this, in in my house, but but I feel like both of us are very intentional about.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: I don't want that to be the norm, I don't want that to be the thing that we default to, because that's kind of depressing, like we want to spend time together, right, and and putting our phones down in a way is something that I think helps tremendously with that.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: I plug my phone in at night at about well, when I, you know, before I put the kids to bed, and it stays plugged in to the wall until about 9 am the next day and I try to to just leave.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: It stays plugged in to the wall until about 9 am the next day and I try to just leave it there.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Now is there sometimes when that doesn't happen, sure, but for the most part that's what I do, because I know if that phone is in there with me, I'm going to be tempted, if I get a text or whatever, to default to that, and I have to work really hard to be intentional in that way.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: And to Jeff, what that says to him is you're actually more important to me than my phone and I want to spend some time with you, and so it's just those little things that I think we think are so little that they don't matter.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: But I will say what I have found is those little things actually matter the most and it's again just an area where I for sure can get better at.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: And those are just some personal parameters that I have put down that work for me because I am easily distracted and I am a busybody and I like to move around and I like to do things and so to sit and be still and be present, I have to put those in place.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: I guess I'll say this Know yourself well enough to know what you need to put in place to protect that time.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: For me that's what it was for me.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: For you that might not be a big deal.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: You may be like man I can't believe you only leave your phone plugged in for 12 hours.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I have to do that physically to, and then it becomes a habit.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Right, once you start doing that, then it's like, oh, I don't need that, I don't need to be scrolling at night Like, actually there's so for so many reasons I don't need to be doing that.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: But I think those two things in particular, other than our annual trip that we take every single year we actually just got back from and Jeff and I.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: It was just a weekend, but we get away and we go to the same place every year.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: It was our eighth year to go and it's just our favorite place and it's nothing special probably to anyone else, but it is very special to us.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: We go every single year.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: We eat good food, we listen to live music, we go on a lot of walks and we're just present with one another, and that is a fun tradition.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: I already can't wait till next year.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: It's my favorite.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: So find those things that are important to both of you and that draw you closer to one another, because what I don't want is for, when my kids to leave, to look across the table and ask like who are you?
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't even know you, and that's my.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: One of my biggest fears is is that and so I think it's also something that Jeff is really adamant about is that our kids know that I am the most important thing to him and he actually says that a lot Like your mom is the most important thing to me, other than his faith, because I think sometimes we put this unneeded pressure on our kids where they think that they're, they're our number one, and then it's scary and hard when they leave and then we're alone, or we feel alone because we don't know what to do and they don't know what to do, and just helping our kids see that marriage is sacred, it's important, you have to invest in it and it's fun.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: It's fun to invest in the person that you love, and this is what it looks like to treat a man with respect, and this is what it looks like to love a woman well, and we don't do it perfect, but we're doing our best and we're trying to be more and more intentional about that as we gain wisdom.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: What I hear, alyssa, is intentionality over and over and I think it is A lot of it has been put in place for you.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: But these small habits, almost like these grounding forces, where you have that, that grounding force of family dinner and you have that grounding force of tea and treat with your husband at night, and just some of these things that you have let become small things that probably, when you look back, those will be the things that have the fondest memories.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Those are the things that you'll miss is the dinner with your kids that you know, that time with Jeff that you'll just love forever as you guys get old.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And you already got the old person tea part down.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: So I mean right, all you're gonna have to do is switch your show to wheel of fortune and you guys are going to slip right into retirement with no problems.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: No, it'll be TV dinners instead of Alyssa's Home Cooked.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: No, you'll never do TV dinners.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I know you better than that, but just so much beauty and I can just see it.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I know our listeners don't get to see you face to face like I do, but just the kind of a glistening in your eyes several times when you talk about your people and how much you love them.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: They're special and you know, I think every mom wants that, and what I want you guys to know is that you can have that, and I find more and more, the more research I do, the more reading I do, the more prayer I'm in.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I do have a responsibility as a mom to set the tone in my home and I mess up all the time, but I also try really hard and I let my family know that I mess up all the time.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: But I care so much about you and I want home to be a place where you love to be.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: I want home to be a safe place and I want you to look back at this time and be so grateful and know that, wow, I've been equipped to go into the world and to have a family of my own and create traditions with my own family and for them to also be inspired by that.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: And so I know in motherhood comes so much guilt, overthinking comparison, and I, just from a mother to mother, want each one of you to know just how worthy you are to lead your family.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: You were given your kids specifically for a reason and you were given your husband specifically for a reason and you were intended to love them well in every season.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: And you won't do it perfect.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: But spoiler no one does.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: We all slip up and that doesn't make us bad mothers.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: But I think the best thing we can do is be inspired by one another, take nuggets from one another and lean into what we have established as important to our family, because every family is so different, and then just having the awareness of this is what I want my family unit to look like and what can I do to make that a reality.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: And I think if we can take small steps towards that, we can all look back and think, wow, I'm so glad I was intentional with that thing.
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: That mattered to me because of that, and then have gratitude for the things that that has encouraged our families, our kids, our spouses, that also how that's equipped them to go out beyond us, beyond our walls, into the world and love people well and be intentional with other people too, not just, not just as mothers or fathers or or siblings.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: I just I love you so much.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for this time to just chat with you.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I wish we were close, I wish we were sitting in the same room, but you're you're so intentional, not only with your family, but with how you love on other people.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I'm blessed to call you a friend and I love watching you do life.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I know that these three kiddos are going to grow up, just to be already.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: They are amazing humans, but just continue to be amazing humans under the care of you and Jeff and you guys, ultimately entrusting them to the Lord and to really doing your best to train them up in the way that they should go.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, Alyssa, just for all of the wisdom that you have shared, the little nuggets I know that everybody listening there are things that, no matter where you're at I'm almost on the end years of this and there's things that I know I can take from Alyssa and apply those immediately to my life and start doing better at.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: And so thank you for being honest, for being real, for being tender and just sharing so much of your time with us today.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: So listeners, if you have not already, make sure that you have followed on wherever you're listening to podcasts so that you get the automatic download every Thursday.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: This summer is just packed full.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: We are about halfway done and so many more amazing interviews still to come.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: So until next week, friends, take care.