Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 134. 7 things that finally made family vacation feel like actual rest

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134. 7 things that finally made family vacation feel like actual rest · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the all figured out episode.
• 0:02
  My name is Andrea Barr. Thank you for joining me.
• 0:05
  I was about to say welcome again.
• 0:07
  Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 0:09
  Thank you for joining me again this week.
• 0:16
  This is all figured out. I'm Andrea Barr.
• 0:18
  I'm a career coach for parents, a mom of two, and I absolutely
• 0:22
  believe that you can continue to grow personally and
• 0:25
  professionally while protecting family time.
• 0:30
  We're about to figure out this work, life and parenting stuff
• 0:33
  out together. It is so good to be in your ears
• 0:44
  recording another solo episode. It is.
• 0:47
  It's a It's a hard one for me. I love interviewing and I know
• 0:53
  that there's some of you who have shared that you'd be keen
• 0:57
  on some solo episodes. And what's so interesting is I
• 1:00
  love chatting with other people, like my friends, family,
• 1:02
  whomever, especially people who are like in this stage of life,
• 1:05
  parents and that sort of thing. And like, what are you
• 1:07
  interested in listening to right now?
• 1:09
  Or what are you doing to decompress?
• 1:11
  And it seems like there's two, this is like very behind, behind
• 1:14
  the curtain. There's like 2 use cases for
• 1:17
  podcasts or YouTube videos if you're watching this.
• 1:20
  And the one is like, I want to learn something.
• 1:22
  Like I feel so inspired to learn about a particular topic or like
• 1:26
  I see something come into my podcast feed and I'm like, oh, I
• 1:29
  love like I really want to learn about that topic or I want to
• 1:31
  hear more about this person's story.
• 1:33
  And that's probably that is what you've been getting mostly from
• 1:37
  this episode 130 some odd episodes in.
• 1:40
  And then there's the other side of the table, which I'm going to
• 1:44
  be honest, I have been on for the last few months.
• 1:49
  I have really wanted like true decompressing chat.
• 1:54
  And I would love to know, I'm going to put a poll on Instagram
• 1:57
  as well, but I would love to know where are you sitting right
• 1:59
  now? Like are you consuming and
• 2:02
  wanting to grow? Like, you know, what does that
• 2:04
  split for you? And are you in that camp like me
• 2:08
  where you're wanting to listen to the episodes or the podcasts
• 2:11
  that are a bit more relaxed, a bit more low fi like no
• 2:16
  pressure. So I'm testing this out.
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  Just me on the mic. I'm here at the podcast studio
• 2:22
  about to record with a couple of beautiful guests.
• 2:24
  And I am have just been putting some thoughts together around
• 2:28
  our recent trip and catching you up on all that.
• 2:31
  And so let me know if this style of podcast episode is fun.
• 2:35
  At the very end, I had a question from a listener who
• 2:39
  shared the question on Instagram with me and I think I shared the
• 2:43
  like, oh, I'm going to be recording an episode if anybody
• 2:45
  has any questions. And she got back and she had a
• 2:47
  really awesome question. So stay tuned for the end.
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  It's going to be a short episode, but she had a really
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  good question about differing vibes for vacation between
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  partners. So we'll get into that in a
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  little bit. So recently.
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  So that's kind of, you know where we're going with the
• 3:04
  podcast and let me know your thoughts.
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  I would love to hear from you. So we just got back from an
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  awesome couple of weeks vacation to Florida as a family of four.
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  Back story, I was actually born in Florida.
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  Nobody's born in Florida. Most people retire there, but my
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  dad who's passed and now was, it was American.
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  His family kind of grew up down there and I was born there to
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  live there till I was 4. So Long story short, my mom and
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  stepdad do have a place down there now.
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  And so we get to go down and visit.
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  I do have some family still there.
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  So it's always just like a really special fun time.
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  We had amazing weather. It was wonderful.
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  But I wanted to catch you up on just some of like the lessons
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  and learnings and like what went well, some funny stories about
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  like what happened while we were there and kind of coming back
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  and reintegrating into real life and what that's been like.
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  And I want to record this now while it's super fresh.
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  Like we only got back two nights ago, came back with an ice cold
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  from the plane, of course, but I want to do this now so that I
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  can like, you know, you can relisten to this if you're about
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  to go on vacation, say in the summer or if you are, this is
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  going to be coming out soon. If you're doing like a delayed
• 4:17
  spring break or something, who knows.
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  But these are these are my thoughts.
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  And I'm so keen to hear from any of you if this any of this
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  resonates, if you have experienced some of the, you
• 4:28
  know, the qualms or if you have any good hacks.
• 4:30
  So hit me up on Instagram at all Figured out, Andrea.
• 4:34
  And before I jump into this, I know we hear this all the time,
• 4:40
  but if you are not following or not subscribed, if you haven't
• 4:43
  hit five stars on Spotify or haven't hit like or I think it's
• 4:47
  the star system on Apple as well or left a review, I would be so,
• 4:52
  so grateful. We recently hit the top 3%
• 4:56
  globally for podcasts, which, Oh my gosh, it just feels
• 5:01
  incredible. It feels so incredible.
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  And it is a testament to those of you who are listening, who
• 5:06
  TuneIn to learn alongside with me.
• 5:09
  And it really has been, I think the jump of people who have been
• 5:14
  a listening, but also the hitting the five stars, the
• 5:17
  thumbs up, the giving reviews and stuff like that.
• 5:20
  We've had quite a surge because I've started asking people for
• 5:22
  that. So if you could just take a
• 5:24
  second pause, go do that for me, it would really, really, really
• 5:27
  mean the world and it really helps keep the show going, um,
• 5:31
  because it will allow for sponsors in the future, more
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  sponsors and things like that. So OK, that's enough vacation.
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  So here is what kind of happened in the pre preamble, pre lead up
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  to our vacation. I was thinking about what it was
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  like to go on vacation before kids.
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  And I was thinking about like, oh, silly Andrea.
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  Like how funny that you would think that it's stressful to be
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  preparing for vacation before having kids.
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  But then I started being nicer to younger Andrea and being
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  like, you know what she like hadn't had that experience
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  stretching, you know, I think. And there's like April podcast I
• 6:09
  listened to they talk about like, um, you know, experience
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  stretching and like things that are really hard, but then they
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  just become easier. Like recording a podcast was so
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  incredibly hard at the beginning.
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  Sure, I love to chat, but talking to a camera, speaking
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  and knowing that it's being recorded, that you have to
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  listen back to it like it's a whole other ball game.
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  But that was. But then there's like that like
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  stretching and experience and then just becomes normal.
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  And I feel like that was what it was like for, you know, before
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  kids. It just felt like it was, Oh, my
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  gosh, like I have to like wrap up work and have to pack and
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  then like get my nails on. And I was like, oh, so
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  stressful. And then you have kids and
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  you're like, Oh my gosh. Now I'm packing for multiple
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  people and like, you know, getting the house ready.
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  And it's just like, it's a whole thing.
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  So a few of the things that we did this time that worked well.
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  I will say that I'm going to share the things that did not
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  work well, but there was definitely a lot that went right
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  this time around where I felt like we were really prepared and
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  we were really on it. We were, yeah.
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  Like, we were still kind of limping and in certain ways.
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  But I feel like we got to the airport after preparing for this
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  trip and it felt like we hadn't turned on each other.
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  Where in the past, Scotty and my husband and I would be, like,
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  walking through the airport, like, probably like a little bit
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  annoyed with each other of, like, how we got there because
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  we were like, racing around and, like, didn't know who was doing
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  what. And I felt like we've gotten
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  pretty practice. We've traveled quite a bit with
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  our kids, and we kind of know the rhythms of the routines
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  leading up. So some of the things that
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  worked really well this time is. And this is actually something
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  we've done since like the beginning, before kids was
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  having a staging area, we call it, we used to live in a tiny
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  apartment. We used to have like a corner of
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  the apartment that would be our staging area.
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  So this is not like a thing that you need a lot of space for, but
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  we have a staging area. So right now it's our, it was
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  our garage before we left. So we had parked the car in the
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  driveway and then we used the garage as like our staging area
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  because there's something about the stuff with kids where it's
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  like so many little bits and bobs.
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  Like I, I don't, I don't know what it is like you could have a
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  packing list, but every so often there's still like little bits
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  and bobs that you need to pack. And it's so nice to have a got
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  to just huck it like a week out. And so that was really good.
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  That was really, really helpful. But to go with that is it's nice
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  to have a staging area, but then you do still need say like a bit
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  of a packing list or a planned weight going to pack.
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  And then you have to have a space.
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  I realized the hard way from one of our last travels were like
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  just, I forgot a bunch of stuff. Like there was stuff I meant to
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  pack for the kids. They didn't.
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  And it's because there was like those little things like say the
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  court, like if there's a cord that you need to pack that you
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  need to use right up into when you go, that's fine.
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  But if you don't write that cord, that particular chord down
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  on a list, it is so hard to remember.
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  O, you might be like, OK, all the electronics are packed.
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  I just have to pack that one cord that is charging the kids
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  iPads or something like that. And if you don't write that
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  down, then you don't remember and then you don't pack the
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  court. Like it's so crazy.
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  I, I don't know if anybody else does this, but like, I will have
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  my toothbrush the morning of leaving.
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  I will brush my teeth, put it down and then walk away and not
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  pack it like God, that's obvious.
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  I was just so annoying. And so like having that list
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  that's like remember the toothbrush that you used in the
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  morning and bring it. Now the piece with this that I
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  don't always remember is or like doing is like referencing it the
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  morning of. So you do need to do a quick
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  peruse to the list in the morning of, but it really does
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  save A lot of hassle, a lot of headache and that sort of thing.
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  So that was great. OK, The other thing that I don't
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  want to give you like tips about like packing, like the basic
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  stuff. These are like really weird
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  little things that have just realized that works really well
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  this time. One of them was that I did a
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  really solid meal plan leading up to our vacation this time
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  where I basically made it so that I only bought the groceries
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  and I only bought enough food for like getting us to when we
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  leave and so that there be nothing left over.
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  I don't know about you, but there's something about like the
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  night before having to clean out your fridge that drives me nuts.
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  Like I hate doing that. And so this time was so nice
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  because I didn't have all this like random produce that I was
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  worried about going bad. I knew that, for instance, like
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  this huge jug of milk we had would still be good for when we
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  got back or the eggs or whatever it was.
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  And so that was that was nice. That was a nice move.
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  Something else I did was let my kids sleep in their clothes the
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  night before. And this is only because it was
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  like a very nostalgic thing. Like, my kids are fine to get
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  dressed. We were waking up early, but I
• 10:54
  was telling my daughter Addie, I was like, oh, when I was little,
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  we used to go to sleep. If we had a morning flight, we
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  would sleep in our clothes the night before.
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  And she thought it was so cool. And so I was like, oh, yeah,
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  let's do that again. But you know what?
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  It actually was so nice because I truly picked up, picked them
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  up out of bed to wake them up. And then we went downstairs and
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  put them in the car. So nice.
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  And like they stayed awake. They didn't go back to sleep
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  cause they were too excited. But like, that was A, fun and B,
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  actually very practical. And then we, yeah, I think those
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  are like, those are like the key ones without getting like super
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  basic. And then like I said, we got to
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  like Scotty is on like garbage and he's the laundry guy.
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  And so he makes sure that we have like all the right clothes,
• 11:36
  like in the laundry and that everything is washed.
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  And he always tells us, OK, three days out, like laundry is
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  closed if there's anything that you want, tells the kids that
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  they have no idea what he means, but, you know, speak now or
• 11:46
  forever hold your peace. So that was awesome.
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  So he does a ton. I'm not like glossing over how
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  much work he does. And and then the nice thing was
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  also that like it didn't feel like this crazy rush to wrap up
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  a lot of stuff for work because I knew I'd have a plane ride and
• 12:00
  I knew we were going to be gone for 2 1/2 weeks and that there
• 12:03
  was going to be stuff that I had to do.
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  I work for myself. I have a few people that help me
• 12:08
  first, like certain things like my podcast manager, but yeah, I
• 12:12
  work, I work on my own. And so I just knew I didn't want
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  to have the pressure of being like, this has to be an
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  unplugged vacation because sometimes for me, a wasn't the
• 12:21
  time of year where I really felt like I needed it.
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  Like Christmas, I'm like unplugged this.
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  I was like, yeah, I've got some really fun stuff coming up.
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  So I'm, I'm OK to not, they're like this huge pressure to wrap
• 12:31
  everything up. And that actually felt really
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  good and I don't didn't have to hand anything over.
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  I don't work in corporate, and so that was really helpful.
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  So on vacation, I would say the two things that I want to share
• 12:44
  with this is #1 Instacart. Yes, it is a premium, it is
• 12:49
  expensive, but I'm not kidding when I say I went 10 days there
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  without going into a single store.
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  I think we had gone into the car like 3 times just to go out for
• 12:58
  dinner or go on like a fun adventure.
• 13:00
  And that was so nice. We were walking.
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  We could like walk to a coffee shop, take a boardwalk along the
• 13:07
  beach and like go get coffee and like we just felt so healthy.
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  Like we were in the sun. Oh, you're getting morning
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  light. And like, that was just, that
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  was everything like I just, yeah, I don't go away to go
• 13:20
  grocery shopping. And it was like the most minimal
• 13:22
  amount of chores possible was my MO.
• 13:24
  And that was amazing. So I did it in Jakarta for
• 13:27
  Costco. So I actually, it can put in
• 13:29
  your Costco number. I don't know if everybody knows
• 13:31
  this. I didn't really know this.
• 13:33
  And it was super helpful. And I got a Costco order at the
• 13:35
  very beginning. So you don't want Costco sized
• 13:38
  things like at the end of your trip.
• 13:40
  And that was amazing. So we got like chicken Nuggets
• 13:43
  and like frozen fruit and regular fruit, like amazing
• 13:47
  produce chicken, like just things that we were going to
• 13:49
  need. So that required a little bit of
• 13:51
  planning and then, um, yeah. And then did like a Publix order
• 13:55
  as well, like a grocery store order as well for a few other
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  things. And that was amazing.
• 14:00
  Had to do an Amazon order for something.
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  So that was, that was great too. Didn't have to like run around
• 14:05
  looking for, I forget. It was like a new water wing.
• 14:08
  What's it called? Puddle jumper thingy thing.
• 14:12
  Yeah. So that was really great.
• 14:14
  Now the other thing that we did that I shared a little bit on
• 14:18
  Instagram that if you're following me, you might have
• 14:20
  heard me say was my husband and I did alternating days to have
• 14:25
  our own little like self-care moment.
• 14:26
  So for us, working out is really important.
• 14:29
  We both have a trainer and he programs us for vacation
• 14:32
  workouts, which is amazing. And so whether you're doing like
• 14:36
  an app or like you just want to go for a run or whatever, this
• 14:38
  was such a game changer. We have finessed this a little
• 14:42
  bit over the years and this was the best way that we had ever
• 14:46
  done it by far. So what we did is we had
• 14:49
  alternating days and this was kind of inspired by Jennica
• 14:53
  Day's episode a few episodes back where we talked.
• 14:55
  She talked about doing vacations better, specifically vacationing
• 14:59
  better as families, as parents, and so many Nuggets of wisdom of
• 15:06
  that. If you haven't listened to that
• 15:07
  episode, even if you're not going on vacation anytime soon,
• 15:10
  have a listen. She's so smart.
• 15:12
  She takes like a science based approach vacations, so cool.
• 15:16
  And from that episode she talks about how there's adventures and
• 15:20
  there's vacations and how a vacation is something that is
• 15:24
  like probably not chasing your kids around.
• 15:27
  That's like the adventurous part of a trip.
• 15:30
  And So what Scotty and I were doing is we were basically
• 15:32
  alternating taking mini vacations.
• 15:34
  So we each had the morning to do whatever we wanted.
• 15:37
  So say like early morning till like 10 AM or whatever, 9:30.
• 15:40
  So it wasn't like we were wasting the day because I also
• 15:42
  hate that. And then in the afternoon when
• 15:45
  it's like quiet time, nap time, whatever, you also had that time
• 15:49
  off so you could go to do whatever you wanted.
• 15:51
  So Scotty likes working out in the afternoon.
• 15:52
  I like working out in the morning.
• 15:54
  Um, but we would kind of just, you would just basically get
• 15:57
  both of those time slots every other day.
• 16:00
  So I would have a day where I could do whatever I wanted in
• 16:02
  the morning and then I could do whatever I wanted kind of during
• 16:05
  that nap time period and then vice versa.
• 16:08
  So the next day that would be Scotty.
• 16:10
  And this was like, yeah, I get it.
• 16:12
  Sounds so simple, but it was so lovely.
• 16:16
  So over the course of like 2 1/2 weeks, you basically say like 14
• 16:19
  days, basically got 7 mornings and afternoons to do whatever we
• 16:26
  wanted, which was so nice. Like, I'd wake up.
• 16:30
  I would like put my hot girl walk outfit on and like go out
• 16:34
  onto the boardwalk and walk to go get a coffee, walk slowly,
• 16:39
  like voice note a couple of friends or whatever, get my
• 16:42
  coffee, meander back, go to the gym, do my workout.
• 16:46
  And that would take me like a couple of hours.
• 16:48
  And it was so relaxing and so fun.
• 16:50
  And there was no pressure because you're also on vacation.
• 16:53
  So I wasn't like, OK, now I have to get ready for the day.
• 16:55
  I have to do this. Like it was just no pressure, no
• 16:59
  pressure, which was so nice. And then Scotty got to do his
• 17:03
  version of whatever that looks like, which is amazing.
• 17:06
  Um, this is like, hands down the hottest tip that I could give is
• 17:11
  even if you don't want to be working on a vacation, just
• 17:13
  giving yourselves that time. I know people who do this like
• 17:17
  on the weekends, every single weekend.
• 17:19
  I know a family who does this, which is pretty cool.
• 17:21
  So one parent is basically on deck for the child on one day,
• 17:26
  the pair other parent is on deck for the child the next day.
• 17:29
  And and that seems to work for them and for us, like that's not
• 17:32
  really kind of what we want or need to do.
• 17:36
  But on vacation it was so, so nice.
• 17:39
  And it felt like it really gave us that it will recharge moment.
• 17:42
  And yeah, I felt like I came back and I looked very fondly on
• 17:46
  like all of our crazy fun time. But I don't feel like I need a
• 17:48
  vacation after the vacation. So that was the vacation itself.
• 17:53
  We had so much fun. It is like such night and day
• 17:56
  when your kids get older and older.
• 17:58
  Like I have a three and a five year old.
• 18:00
  And for them to be able to wear their life jackets or water
• 18:02
  wings or whatever in the shallow end and have us just like
• 18:05
  sitting beside the pool reading a book, watching them, like
• 18:08
  being there but like not being holding them in the water was
• 18:12
  phenomenal. It was so nice.
• 18:15
  Oh, I also wanted to add that kind of planning how many days
• 18:18
  you want to go out for dinner was really nice because we got
• 18:21
  to choose. You know, in my head I was like,
• 18:23
  OK, if we're there, like let's try not to go out like, you
• 18:25
  know, two nights in a row, but maybe like every other night or
• 18:28
  like every couple of nights go out for a nice dinner.
• 18:31
  That was really fun. And by nice dinner, I mean just
• 18:33
  like not cooking, which was great.
• 18:35
  OK, so the plane rides for us, the kids are like they plug into
• 18:40
  their TV's, they have snacks. I pack everybody, including
• 18:44
  myself and Scotty, like a snack pack of things they want to eat.
• 18:47
  There's just no stress around like eating meals, protein,
• 18:50
  vegetables, whatever. It's just anything goes get
• 18:53
  through the flight and then coming back, something that I
• 18:56
  did that felt like was really helpful as well was planning the
• 19:00
  I've started doing this more and more, but this time I like,
• 19:02
  really made it like a very, um, like planful thing, which was
• 19:07
  having a self-care day when I get back.
• 19:09
  So it's a lot like, you know, we got back on a Saturday.
• 19:13
  Sunday was kind of like a hungover a day felt like we were
• 19:15
  hungover from traveling and you just feel kind of like, yeah,
• 19:19
  like a bit gross putting the house back together.
• 19:22
  Maybe feel a bit sad that you're gone.
• 19:24
  And then Monday was like the start of my work week and I just
• 19:29
  made space to like do a little bit of work, but then also to
• 19:31
  really just like do some self-care stuff, some
• 19:33
  maintenance stuff. I have a really big like this
• 19:35
  week of recording three podcast episodes today.
• 19:38
  I'm hosting my very first Breakfast Club on Thursday,
• 19:41
  which you might have heard me talk about here in Vancouver.
• 19:44
  So sign up for the events list that I have on my Instagram.
• 19:48
  You could find the link in my bio to get on the list to find
• 19:51
  out for when the next Breakfast Club will be happening.
• 19:54
  Be launching that soon. And um, yeah, it was just so
• 19:58
  nice to have like a little self-care day so that I jump
• 20:00
  into my week today, Tuesday, and it really feels like I can just
• 20:04
  like go hard. I'm in this swing of things.
• 20:06
  I'm not thinking about like, oh, my nails look like a wreck or I
• 20:09
  really want to get a facial. Like just kind of like did the
• 20:11
  maintenance stuff. And that felt really good.
• 20:15
  And so here we are. We are back into the swing of
• 20:19
  things and I'm so pumped to be. I have some amazing, amazing
• 20:23
  podcast episodes coming out for you.
• 20:24
  So stay tuned for that again. Follow me at All Figured Out
• 20:28
  Andrea on Instagram. That's where I kind of update
• 20:30
  you on what guests are coming and what have you and I.
• 20:35
  I'm just more so excited for more episodes coming up like
• 20:38
  this. And I can't wait to begin your
• 20:40
  ears this week, next week, the week after.
• 20:43
  And yeah, I hope you have a great week.
• 20:46
  Bye.