Train Trips, Cross-Atlantic Love Story, and Learning to Use Points and Miles with Dual-Country Parents Hannah & Emmett

EPISODE SUMMARY:

This week on Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go we meet Hannah & Emmett, Owners of Steveston Creative in British Columbia & parents to 3 fantastic boys! We cover everything from cross-Canada train trips, to childhood experiences in China, to moving to each others’ countries & now building a beautiful family together. We talk about how learning to use points & miles (they were my first clients!) has made staying connected with relatives on both side of the Atlantic super affordable for this family of 5. From home schooling to Irish language use in their daily lives, this bicultural family love exploring at home on Vancouver Island & around the globe.

Travelling through Life: A Podcast on the Go is a fun & quirky show from Travel with TMc that delves into all things travel & adventures from the road, in the air, & in between here and there. Make sure to subscribe for weekly updates!

JOIN THE TRAVEL with TMc COMMUNITY:

Instagram
Blog
Facebook Group
Help TwTMc Grow OR Get a Shout Out on the Pod!
YouTube
Listen to the TTLAPOG Spotify Playlist
Points & Miles Course

 CHECK OUT STEVESTON CREATIVE & WONDER AND WOOD:

Instagram - @StevestonCreative & @WonderandWood
Website - Steveston Creative
Youtube - Steveston Creative
TikTok - Steveston Creative

MORE RESOURCES & LINK FROM TODAY’S EPISODE:

Hannah & Emmett’s Song Choices - Me Gustas Tú & Rasputin

 CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction to Hannah & Emmett, Bi-Cultural Home School Parents & Owners of Steveston Creative
02:14 Cross-Canada Train Trip to US to Duinrell Holiday Park Before Moving to Ireland
08:31 First Trips & Childhood Experiences: Europe, China, & Domestic Trips
09:31 How They Met: Working Holiday Visa, Olympics, & Love at First Sight
16:43 How to Choose Where to Travel: Weddings, Happy Alignments, Swapping Countries
24:12 First Trips & Childhood Experiences: Visiting Family, Spain with Friends, Disneyland, & School Trips
28:58 Falling in Love While Abroad
35:57 Pandemic Effects on Travel: Racing Back to Canada with Twin Babies
41:06 Using Points & Miles for Travel: Tara's First Clients
44:56 The Impact of Technology on Travel: Inspiration Gathering
47:39 Future Family Travel Goals
51:12 Biggest Surprise while on the Road: Everything Works Out
56:48 What is Home & Raising Children in a Bi-Cultural Household
01:07:32 Language & Travel: Irish Phrases
01:11:07 Must-Have Travel Items for Parents
01:15:51 Travel Playlist: Hannah & Emmett’s Choice
01:16:18 The Power of Music in Travel
01:18:43 Speed Round: Overpackers, Social Travel, High

Transcript

Tara (Travel With TMc) (00:06)
Hello! Welcome to Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go. I'm your host Tara and the founder of the blog Travel with TMc which is where this adventure all began. Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go, is a fun and quirky show that delves into all things travel and adventures from the road, in the air, or in between here and there.

And if you're watching this podcast on YouTube, you'll see the beautiful setting behind me. I'm filming this intro from my Airbnb in Antigua, Guatemala. And even though you can't see it right now, there is a huge volcano right behind me. Absolutely wild. Anyhow, make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen so that you can get notifications for new episodes each week. And don't forget to leave a 5-star review.

and comment on who you'd like to hear in future episodes. This season we cover all sorts of travel topics. It's my hope that some of them will be relatable and that others will inspire you to see the world in new ways. This week on Travelling Through Life: A Podcast on the Go, we meet Hannah and Emmett, co-owners of Steveston Creative in British Columbia and parents to three fantastic boys.

We cover everything from cross-Canada train trips, to childhood experiences in China, to moving to each others' countries and now travelling together as a family of five. We talk about them learning how to use points and miles. Fun fact, they were actually my first clients and they're on their second trip to Ireland with points and miles right now. It's allowed them to stay connected with relatives on both sides of the Atlantic in a super affordable way.

From homeschooling and Irish language integration into their daily lives, this bicultural family are pros at exploring at home on Vancouver Island and around the globe. Thank you for listening and let's dive into this week's episode!

Steveston Creative (02:09)
Hi Tara! How you doing?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (02:12)
I'm good, how are you guys? Good, I'm so pumped to have you on the podcast and even more grateful that our paths crossed, dare I say, 12 years ago in Dublin. Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy. So for people who are just tuning in, Hannah and Emmett are good friends of mine. Emmett's from Ireland, Hannah's from Canada.

Steveston Creative (02:14)
We're doing well? Yeah. Doing well.

I think you're right. I think you're right. That sounds about right 12 years ago.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (02:38)
We'll get into that later, but Hannah was actually the very first friend that I met in Ireland two days after I landed. So we go way back. We don't get to see each other hang out as often as we would like, but when we get to chat, it's always easy to pick back up. So I'm very grateful to have you guys here today.

Steveston Creative (02:56)
Yeah, we're excited to be here and we love following along with all of the stuff that you'd be doing with Travel with TMc and everything. So yeah, we're excited to chat.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (03:04)
Thanks,

thanks. Yeah, so why don't you guys tell everybody about yourselves, who you are, what you do, what kind of travel you enjoy, and where you're calling in from today.

Steveston Creative (03:15)
Sure, you'll start. Okay, we are calling from Victoria, BC in Canada and we are a homeschooling family. So my role is mostly with the kids and we go up to work. And then on top of that, we do have a small business that we run. So it's a very

busy life. Most of our travel right now, I don't like saying busy, it's a full life. It's full. It's not crazy busy. We try to structure our lives that it's not that we're not using that word busy, but it's full. Most of our travel is going back and forth to Ireland right now in this stage of life. We'd love to do more but

That's just kind of how it's working out right now. We usually go for a little chunk of time. We try to go every two years or we used to go, there was a chunk of time before kids that we would go every year. And then it's just the way it's happened every two years. But pre -kids, we did lots of other kinds of travel. And

Tara (Travel With TMc) (04:16)
You guys did a big train trek across Canada, did you not at one point?

Steveston Creative (04:18)
We did. We travelled

across Canada by train for three weeks before we left and moved to Dublin. That was like our exit from the country. That was a good exit. It was amazing. Three weeks, like solid, I mean, often on the train, yeah. And you don't really get to do that very much in Canada because train is a lot more expensive here.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (04:28)
That's a brilliant exit, yeah.

Steveston Creative (04:44)
Yeah, it's one of those trips that we always look back on. Like it was such fondness that it's one of those things that we'll never likely get to do again until potentially we're much older and retired. And then we're going to be doing it like top of the line. Like I'm going to have the nicest cabin possible. That was like sleeping in the chairs. yeah, like, it was sleeping in the chairs. so Hannah had this whole system like every night where she like get herself all set up.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (04:55)
Aww.

no it

Steveston Creative (05:15)
Yeah, chairs did go back a little bit further. there was this thing that hooked from underneath to the front, like the back of the other chair. So you got a little bit of a lounger, but it was pretty specific. It's a young person's game. It's a young person's game.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (05:35)
We're

in our 30s and saying this.

Steveston Creative (05:37)
But

like it's a very like a younger person's game. I wouldn't I think I've ever seen one family on the train At one point but it was a shorter distance. Yeah, I don't think they were and they had like two kids and they were probably like 12 or 10 or something like that. I don't think they had little littles. Yeah, so we started off in Vancouver and We essentially had every major city along the way. The first leg was the longest one. Oh, no, it wasn't the first leg was only 24 hours. We stopped

Tara (Travel With TMc) (05:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Steveston Creative (06:05)
Just 24 hours on a train straight. 23 hours. From Vancouver to Edmonton. And then we had friends to visit Edmonton and then we went Edmonton to Toronto and that was three days on the train with like a couple like couple hour stops like they weren't long stops they were just like hop off grab a couple things from a convenience store hop back on and yeah and yeah we went to Montréal and Québec and Québec City.

We went all the way to Halifax for less than 24 hours just to say that we'd been there. The thing with the train trip is you had to do it within three weeks. So you could have seven one -way trips with each with a stopper, stopover. So you had 14 tickets, but they all had to be used within three weeks. And there's a lot of ground to cover in Canada. So like when you spend three days on a train, then there's

Tara (Travel With TMc) (06:58)
Yeah.

Steveston Creative (07:01)
chunk of your trip, right? you tell her how you planned the trip. yeah, I it. It was St. Patrick's Day. And Emmett had been off all day. And I had not, I had not. I came home. first St. Patrick's Day together? No, no, second. Second St. Patrick's Day together. Obviously, it's a big deal because Emmett's Irish. And I had worked all day. Emmett had taken it off.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (07:15)
That's a euphemism for something right there.

Steveston Creative (07:28)
came home, got ready to go out and waited and he came home and was like beyond capable. Like he couldn't like walk. He was like crawling through. Like I like cleaned up after him being sick multiple times, put him to bed a couple times and then I planned our, I planned the entire trip that night. So was like, well, what am I going to do now? So I like planned every stopover and

Tara (Travel With TMc) (07:47)
I was gonna say the fear.

Steveston Creative (07:59)
had it all down to like the date, the time the trains left and like where we had to be and how many days we could spend in this because the trains also only leave or at the time they only left you could only do like a 24 hour or a three day stop so like you had to choose how often so yeah some places it was yeah if they didn't leave every day

Tara (Travel With TMc) (07:59)
And Emmett, you just had to say, I'll be there.

Steveston Creative (08:29)
That was like... But anyway.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (08:30)
Watch it. And did you have to have a final

destination chosen for that trip or was it just whenever the time expired, the three weeks expired, your trip would be up sort of thing?

Steveston Creative (08:39)
I don't remember. I know we booked all the tickets in advance. Because we had plane tickets to fly to Ireland after that then. Because that was us like Did we go to Boston first though? No. yeah. Did we? we did. We flew from Toronto to Boston. Toronto to Boston. We visited as a brother and then Boston to... Ireland. No. First went to Newfoundland. What? Not Newfoundland. Where did we go camping with your family?

We went to Holland. There we went. We went to Holland.

That's right. With all of our stuff that we had just moved from Canada. Yeah, we had all these like backpacks and everything. stopped in Belfast or something. I don't know. No, straight to Holland. Went to Holland, went to like a family reunion at like this kid's park. was it called? Duinrell Duinrell. Yes. And it was very quaint. It was like a Disneyland, but like much smaller. European Disneyland. And it was like you could camp or stay in like trailers.

And so we stayed in trailers and they're called Duingalows. Yeah. And you could rent bikes at this amusement. So we like had bikes for the whole week and we'd like bike around. was very, I go back again, actually, now that I have kids, like because we stayed with like, there was like 30 or 40 of your cousins. We all went, most of them all had kids. So we were like, we were the young couple at the time. Yeah. So then we went from there to London, then London to

Tara (Travel With TMc) (10:00)
Amazing.

Aww.

Steveston Creative (10:10)
Ireland. Yes. Lived in Ireland for almost a year. Yes, that's why I to university. We went back to Dublin so I could go back to university and spend some time in Ireland. That's where we met.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (10:23)
Thank you.

Steveston Creative (10:24)
I didn't realize that you were your first friend. Yeah, and actually you were my first friend because we had only been in Dublin. I'd been in Ireland already for a month or so, but out at your family's. Yeah, because we'd also gone to a wedding. Yeah, so travel was definitely a big part of Yeah, we did Italy as well and we've done... Yes, we travelled around Italy with your parents. Austria. A little

I don't know, a couple other places, you know, here and there. I've been to separately Croatia on my own and spent the summer living in London on my own before. yeah, I've been to China, but that was work. You did Europe travel before we met. So travel has always been quite important to us. And we'll hope to get more of it in now post COVID

Tara (Travel With TMc) (10:51)
Yeah.

yeah.

Fantastic.

Steveston Creative (11:18)
getting our lives. We did a big move recently in the past two years, so that changed things up. But

Tara (Travel With TMc) (11:24)
Yeah, you

guys have gone farther away from me. What gives?

Steveston Creative (11:27)
Only by a little bit, but you're right. Vancouver to Victoria.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (11:34)
Okay, wait, hold on.

We need to touch on how you guys actually met because you talked about all the travelling that you did together, but maybe we should, how did the two of you meet?

Steveston Creative (11:43)
Do you want the

short form or the true story? That's okay, it's PG. It's PG. Yeah, so I had travelled... Oh, I hear one of our sons shouting at us. So I had travelled to Canada on one -year working visa. came with two friends from university. So it was 2009, April 2009 that I arrived in Vancouver. And we had come to Canada, to Vancouver specifically, because the Olympics were happening.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (11:46)
Your kids might listen to this podcast one day, so you go for whichever one you want to share.

Steveston Creative (12:12)
following year in 2020 -10 so we thought that would be a cool thing to do and my sister had lived here previously as well in Vancouver and her husband has family here so there's a bit of a connection there but yeah halfway through the year or actually not halfway, two thirds of the way through the year I had made some friends that had invited me and the other two guys John and Ian to a gig that her brother was playing at and as it turns out

thought was my high school best friend. So he had just randomly met them and she was trying to fill the bar for her brother. The gig was on boxing day. So like not the most popular day to go out on ground. Yeah, just like the day after Christmas, lots of people are relaxing, but she was trying to fill the bar essentially. And so she invited all of us like separately. So I went with another friend. She had a devil in tune. Yeah.

to try and fill her bar. And then she introduced everybody, just like, this is this person, this is this person as we're kind of all standing around having a drink. And we ended up chatting at some point. Yeah. And we didn't really stop chatting. really stop chatting. Yeah, we didn't really stop. And then I was really interested to see if he was like, is he just chatting with me? Because we're here. Is he interested? So I was like, I'm going to get another drink. I didn't want another drink. Like, I was fine. But I was like, if he comes and pays for the drink.

Then I know he's interested. He was like, OK, see you later. And I was like, then I had to go and get myself a drink. And I was like, OK, well, he's not interested. But then later he came back and asked for my number before he left. Surprised you gave me the number. didn't get you a drink. So he's been paying for my drinks ever since. But so when I when I left the bar, the other two guys like John and Ian.

John said to me as I was walking out, Jesus Christ, Gallagher you made a beeline for that one, didn't you? So he knew I was interested. Yeah, and then basically we went on a date a couple of days later, a few days later. December 30th, yeah. And then that was pretty much it. Yeah, so I was due to go back home. Like my one year visa was up at the end of April 2010. And so...

Tara (Travel With TMc) (14:12)
out.

Aww, so sweet.

Steveston Creative (14:34)
to kind of make a decision. We just said that we'd have fun and enjoy ourselves with the time we had and then coming towards the end of that time I said that I was going to apply for permanent residency. She was pretty happy about

Tara (Travel With TMc) (14:45)
Man,

I remember that process too. Weren't you guys still going through that in Ireland as well? I remember hearing about that process from the two of you Maybe you had already completed it and you were just telling me about

Steveston Creative (14:54)
You had to...

No, that was all after the fact. You got your permanent residency. But we were the plan for a defacto. But we didn't leave. I had to... Yeah, so when we were in Ireland... So after he got his PR... So we stayed in Canada then for a couple years while we worked through that. Like he couldn't go home until he got his PR. That's right. Well, he did. He went home because his visa was up.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (15:11)
Right. Yeah, it feels kind of inhumane, this process.

Steveston Creative (15:21)
2010. In 2010. Like at the end of his thing, he went home. He was away that summer while he waited for like a bridging visa or something like that. And then that came. Yes. And he came back. We actually like signed for a place before he left. So was like, you're coming back because you're coming home with me. So we met, we met December 30th, no, December 26th, had our first date, December 30th. And then we signed for a home, like not buying, but renting.

place like no I wasn't even there I didn't get to see it you did all that by yourself I didn't get to see the place really I picked a nice place yeah she did yeah you did it all I didn't see it memory Gerardo had to help you move in and I knew that no we signed for it before you left and but you weren't there to move us in your friends had to move us in anyway

There's many stories in there but basically we then were in Canada for a couple years as we went through the process of that. Then we went to Dublin. There while you did your visa or your more schooling. We were gonna stay and we applied for my like right to work in Ireland because I was on a one -year working visa.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (16:20)
Bye!

Cool.

Steveston Creative (16:41)
And then we were like, okay, we're going to stay. So we applied for what is called a de facto. I don't know that's what it's called now in Ireland, but basically it's your right to live and work in the country as long as you're still with your Irish citizen. like, it's not a PR, but it's as good as like I could live and work there for as long as I wanted. But then we, I had the bright idea to go and do my masters.

We went to see a show. I don't have many regrets in life. We went to see a theatre show. But I wouldn't do that again. It's not a regret. It's just I would have done things differently if I had been able to foresee things. But it's all good. Yeah, we went to see a show in Dublin and she kind of like... And it was beautifully done and... And like, maybe I should get back into design. I should have just... I would have... If I could go... People say sometimes like, what would you go back and do in life again? I think I would.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (17:07)
At an Edmonton.

Yeah.

Steveston Creative (17:37)
work harder to get into the theatre scene in Ireland and just like explored it there instead of going to do my masters. But you live and learn.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (17:42)
No way.

Ah, just wait until the kids

are 10 and bring them back.

Steveston Creative (17:48)
Yeah, you never know. I think my love of theatre has changed. You like to watch it? I like to watch it now. And like, discuss it and things like that. it's a lot of work to be paid for nothing. mean, you get paid, but you know, it's just like not the lifestyle I'm interested in. But I like to appreciate it as I educated audience member now.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (17:57)
Yeah,

Yes.

Yeah, I love that. Definitely. You could come work at Stratford. That will be like, you know, a drive away from each other. Brilliant.

Steveston Creative (18:17)
Yeah.

We've been to Stratford a couple times. I went in high school once on like a field trip from Vancouver. That was a big field trip. That was awesome. And then we went, what do we think, twice? was 2013. We only went together once. My friend, our friend, Robert Marcus is, his wife actually now, but they live there and work in Stratford. So it's nice to see them when we're out that end of the country.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (18:25)
I remember you telling me this.

So you guys have travelled alone together or you've travelled alone, you've travelled together, you've travelled with your kids. How do you choose? I guess now.

how you choose to travel is mostly based on family, right? Like staying connected with those in Ireland. But beforehand, how did you choose like the countries in Europe or the train trip or all these other things? What was the deciding factor?

Steveston Creative (19:10)
That's a good question. Some of it is experiential, like us wanting to do different things and experience different things and then other things it's circumstantial. like when we were living in Ireland that time we went to Italy because a friend of mine was getting married and so we were invited to that wedding together and your parents planned a trip to come over as a result of that. Yeah so my parents had

decided that they were gonna come and visit us since we were living away for a year. They were like, well, we should go over and experience Ameth culture and all that, like before you guys leave. So they were like already planning a Europe trip and then their top destination is, tends to be Italy. They're both like really into our history and the food and all that over there. So, and then at the same time, your friend who is Italian, like is getting married in Italy. So we're like, well, we'll come.

and meet you in Italy as well. So we went to the wedding and then we met up with my parents and did, I don't know, a week and a half in Italy with them. Yeah, we went to Florence. Mostly Florence that we spent time with. Yeah, we were in Rosetto on the other side of Italy for the wedding. So that was kind of nice to experience that side of Yeah, so that one was kind of circumstantial with like the train trip across.

Canada was purely... That was you, you drove that. As in that that was your idea. And I think I made it happen. Because, well, literally because I planned it at night. But you had said when you had, I was like, I think I had asked you, like, is there anything you wanted to see or do in Canada? Because you came to Canada to see it. And that's right. You said you had already always thought about like travelling across it, like seeing more of

And then I don't know where I got the idea. Maybe my parents mentioned it. Maybe we just looked it up. Just took it so literally. Like, you want to travel across Canada? Let's do And I like the thing is I don't like car travel. I am not a car travel person. So I get really nauseous even when I'm driving. It's not the best situation. Like I don't enjoy car travel, which sucks because so many people on road trips and it looks so amazing, but it's not my cup of tea. So I was

Okay, well, if we're gonna see it, we should go by train instead of just hopping over it by plane. And then at the time, there was this insane, amazing deal where it was $1 ,000. You had to be under 30, 30 or under 35. But Via Rail had this special pass for $1 ,000 for three weeks of train travel unlimited, well, the seven one -way tickets.

with a stopover in each one, which is 14 one -way tickets. So I was like, all right, there we go. It was a cheap way to see Canada. And we did that. So that was really cool. That was how we chose that trip. And we didn't need to come back, right? Like we only needed to get to one end of the country because we were flying out and leaving Canada anyway. So we decided at the end of our time in Canada, we would do that and then move

Tara (Travel With TMc) (22:28)
That's such an

epic way to like close out that chapter. Honestly, yeah. man.

Steveston Creative (22:31)
It was really cool. Yeah.

So we hit Stratford on that trip. We did, that's right. Right? That's why I we've been twice. we have been twice. We have been twice together.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (22:41)
You know what the weird thing about all of this is?

We, I don't know if you guys ever think about this, you know where you see those movies and it like shows people passing each other on the street at one point and then like five years later it shows when they meet? I'd been out to Vancouver in like 20, I forget if it was 2010 or 2012 or whenever it was, like around that time and in some of the areas that you've talked about, Granville and whatnot, and I would have been in KW.

Steveston Creative (22:54)
Yes. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (23:09)
around the time that you guys were passing through Stratford and everything so I just, I don't know, sometimes my mind is like, oh did we at some point? Yeah, right? I don't know. Yes, 100%, 100%, yeah.

Steveston Creative (23:13)
that'd be so funny. Yeah. Some serendipitous event. Yeah. It was cool. We even

did like the Parliament buildings and like just things as like a Canadian, you're like, I shouldn't really see these things of my country.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (23:29)
Check it out.

Steveston Creative (23:30)
But yeah, so most of it has been like kind of a happy accident between things we want to do and aligning with other things. like

Like one or two things that we wouldn't have gone out of our way to do. Yeah, I'd say that we're not like spontaneous travellers, you know, go down to Colombia for the weekend like someone we know. Yeah. Well, I mean, like I'm.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (23:53)
Okay now, okay. Says the couple

that like decided to get a place together after only a few months of knowing each other. I would say there's a lot of spontaneity in there. Yeah.

Steveston Creative (24:03)
That's true, different kind of spontaneity. But from a

traveller perspective, it's often been a very planned thing. Most of our travel is quite It's quite planned. And we try to leave space for like, not planned for some spontaneity within it. Actually the trip to Italy was so nice because

Tara (Travel With TMc) (24:18)
That's good, that's helpful, it's organized.

Steveston Creative (24:30)
we because we went with my parents or we met my parents there. My dad is like an incredible planner and he plans things down to like the T and so like 15 minute blocks. So he was like and he knew what place what things were in what areas of the city. So like he planned day one around this area of the city like

this museum and this gallery is only open on a Monday and Tuesday. So we're going to make sure that we centre around that area. So I think he planned a morning activity and an afternoon activity and we could choose to show up or not. It was amazing. It was like, we stayed in different places because they had booked things and we booked our, like we were staying with, we stayed in the bride and groom's home in Florence because they were away. So we stayed at their home.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (25:18)
wow!

Steveston Creative (25:22)
So yeah, we met up and we would do things. We didn't have to do all the things together, but that was brilliant because I love going to museums and galleries and I didn't have to plan anything. And I knew that like we'd get to do enough. And so we chose usually a morning or an afternoon thing to do with them, I think. Like we would go to the Duomo together, but then they would do some sort of foodie tour and we would just chill out.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (25:43)
Nice.

Steveston Creative (25:50)
chill out for the afternoon. Or if my mom and I were too tired, then my dad and Emmett would go off and do like wine tasting somewhere and my mom and I would relax. I don't know, it a really once in a lifetime kind of trip.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (26:01)
Yeah, that's

the nice thing about being in small groups too is you can kind of like break off into different pairings or do something as a full group or do something on your own and like you've got that variety in there. That's super cool. Speaking of family though, I'm curious to know what travel was like for you guys growing up and if that sparked

Steveston Creative (26:15)
Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (26:23)
the adventure and choices to like live in different countries later on for you and the other travel that you did. Do you have like a favourite childhood memory or something that...

Steveston Creative (26:32)
our family didn't travel very much as kids at all. I think my first trip was to London when I was like 11 or 12, so it was my first time on an airplane. Yeah, we just didn't travel very much. We didn't have a whole lot of money to travel, which was a

Tara (Travel With TMc) (26:49)
Yeah, yeah. Or even like

local travel, you know, like car rides, things like that.

Steveston Creative (26:54)
Yeah, we did lots of, a lot of my childhood would have been, my grandparents lived like a four hour drive away, so a lot of it would have been on weekends going to them. And I guess I would have gone places with my friends, who, like one of my friends, David, we would have met him at our wedding. He was my best man, so he, his family has a place in Spain, so I would have gone there at times. They also have like a home they would book in August.

called aft beach which is like a beach close to us so yeah much more local getting away for a week or two. So yeah that was kind of what inspired me. Yeah my family didn't have a whole lot of money to travel I remember saving

Tara (Travel With TMc) (27:33)
That's awesome.

Steveston Creative (27:40)
for our Disneyland trip, like that was like the first trip. first time I was on a plane, I think it was in grade eight. So what's that like 13 or something like that. And that was the only family trip we ever did that required a plane. Everything else was we would drive out to, had family in Saskatoon. So we would drive from Vancouver. Oh no, we didn't live in Vancouver that time. We would drive from Nelson to Saskatoon. Only did that a few times, I think.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (27:50)
13, 14, yeah, yeah.

Steveston Creative (28:10)
Um, but we would drive like out to Victoria because we lived in Nelson and, um, so that's a, um, 12 hour drive from Nelson to Vancouver. Um, I think you can, I think, yes, it was painful. I think you could do it much shorter. I people do it in like eight hours, but seeing as we had to stop a lot for me, but my dad was one of those people that like powers through. So it was like, it wouldn't be an hourly stop. It would be

Tara (Travel With TMc) (28:22)
a decent track when you don't do well in car rides.

Steveston Creative (28:40)
every two to three hours, but then it would be like a two hour stop or whatever. But yes, I've always been a nervous car passenger, because I get like, because I get car sick. And it doesn't matter if I sit in the front seat, it makes it better sitting in the front seat, but I still get like dizzy and headaches. So

Tara (Travel With TMc) (28:50)
Passenger?

Yeah, I can relate. I got car sick a lot growing up. That's how I learned to sleep anywhere, because that was the only thing that would help me not feel sick. Yeah, but it paid off because now I can literally sleep anywhere and I'm good to go.

Steveston Creative (29:06)
you're lucky. I cannot sleep in a car.

That's really helpful. can hardly

sleep It's a good skill to learn. Can't sleep in a car. But yeah, so we did car trips. I think we drove out to like Alberta and you know, we've done, we did like Drum Hallowen as a kid and that kind of thing. All because like it was always circumstantial to like we needed to visit this relative or there was a family reunion or something. I didn't get over to Europe until

Tara (Travel With TMc) (29:18)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steveston Creative (29:37)
second year university when I used some of my student loans to travel.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (29:44)
Best

use of a student loan for sure. I love it. What's been the biggest? Yeah, yeah, no, go, go, go.

Steveston Creative (29:51)
But yeah, going back to your question, oh sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, go back to your

question. I had remembered that what had inspired me a little bit was so I have two older, well I have three older siblings but two of them are quite a bit older. there's one that's two years older and then there's a 10 year gap and then I've got an older brother and sister. So this is like 12 and 14 years older than me. And they would have done quite a bit more travelling ahead of me so my brother would have...

disappeared and went to Australia for a year and Seattle for a year. My sister went to Vancouver and travelled to other places. So seeing my older siblings travelling definitely inspired me to be like, okay, I should do

Tara (Travel With TMc) (30:28)
Yeah, very cool. That's awesome.

Steveston Creative (30:30)
Yeah,

I just wanted to get out and I was a theatre nerd, so going to London to see the West End. I always liked...

I don't know, learning about England. So I think that was probably the initial, like, I want to go and see these places that I read about and Jane Austen. I was interested in art history and interested in architecture. I need to go and see these places.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (30:53)
them for

Steveston Creative (30:54)
I was like, man, that's so cool. Just like our family and now our kids have to travel to go and see

Tara (Travel With TMc) (30:56)
Yeah.

So true.

One of my questions that I actually haven't asked any guests but it would most apply to you guys I know for sure was have you ever fallen in love on a trip for while living abroad? We've already covered that though. Yeah.

Steveston Creative (31:13)
Guilty. Guilty. we have. Didn't somebody say

like to Oh yeah. Yeah, there's like, so the little village that I grew up in Ireland, there was this guy that he would, he's an older guy, probably like 70 by the time I left. And he said just the day before I left to come to Vancouver, he was like, ah brother, you'll take off and you'll meet some Canadian woman and you'll never come back. Okay, I'll come and help

Tara (Travel With TMc) (31:39)
Yeah, no problem. That's too funny that he said that.

Steveston Creative (31:44)
he called us, he called us.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (31:46)
Did you ever get to go back and talk to him about that?

Steveston Creative (31:48)
I did yeah, when I got Hali back.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (31:52)
Okay, we're gonna have to cover this when she comes back to the couch.

I love it.

Okay, so I want to circle back to this. An older gentleman at home for you said you're gonna find a woman fall in love and never come back.

Steveston Creative (32:06)
I know Eoin Yeah. He was like, I told you. He I told you brother. Because that's the thing, he's like a religious guy. So he's like, I told you brother, you'd go over there and you'd find yourself a woman and you'd never come back. Sure enough. So I brought this, brought this woman home to Donegal to show her off. And when he went back in that end of April.

because his visa was up, I had booked like maybe a week or two prior. I was like, okay, you're gonna be away for the summer. And I've got the chance to come because my work was gonna be doing renovations. So it's gonna be closed for a week or two or something like that. So I was like, I'm going to Ireland. So like he had only gotten home like three days or four days and then I was there. This woman came following after me? So then I met.

Like I was there for a couple of weeks. Yeah, I think I had a two week trip and then the Icelandic volcano went and all flights and everything was cancelled. So then I couldn't go back to work. I, anyway, that trip I had booked with a travel agent. So they took care of everything and they like rebooked me, but I couldn't get a flight until the following week. So I had a whole extra week in Ireland, but he had accepted a job and like to work for the summer. So then I had to go and

Tara (Travel With TMc) (33:09)
Great.

Steveston Creative (33:29)
Yeah, meet up with you at your job. Because I had gone anyway. There's lots of details,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (33:34)
Okay.

Okay, wait,

hold up. When you bought the tickets to go see Emmett as he left, did you stay with Emmett's family on that trip? Like, did you meet everybody at that point?

Steveston Creative (33:45)
Yeah.

I met everybody on that trip. yeah, you met everyone. I met everybody. Like his sister and him. Like so I flew into Belfast, which is where his sister lives, and they came to pick me up. Yep. I was with you. Belfast? It was Belfast, yeah. And he was, they had to pull out, he had caught the stomach bug between landing in Ireland and me arriving three days later. So they had to

Tara (Travel With TMc) (33:49)
You guys are brave souls.

Steveston Creative (34:14)
pull over as we were driving back from the airport. I just picked her up from the airport. And he was like, like had to throw up on the side of the like highway and And Natasha was like, aw, her nerves just got amped. So I think he was sick in bed for a couple of days. Yeah. Until, and yeah. So you really had to get to the airport because I was just upstairs. But yeah, we stayed.

at his sister's house together and then we went down to the home house in Donegal or up to the home house I should say and met his parents and I guess we moved fast alright if you look back at it I think you're like forced to meet somebody like to meet people when it's so far away it's so far away yeah yeah so we just were like

Tara (Travel With TMc) (34:53)
Hey, when you know, you know.

Steveston Creative (35:03)
Yeah. Yeah. And then like when we came back to move from Canada to Ireland in 2012, so this is like two years later, I also accepted a job in London for that. That's right. For that whole summer. But we were like, we were like, we don't have a lot of money and you are, I don't have a job yet. was crashing on someone's couch in London. So in London, we decided we made the decision that he would go and work in London for like six weeks. Yeah. And I would live at the home house.

like in Donegal with his mother and father and his grandmother.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (35:36)
You guys need your own podcast.

Steveston Creative (35:40)
So there's all sorts of side stories of like, just, yeah, I just made myself at home. I did everything. Like I'd go grocery shopping with his mom. I made his grandmother tea twice a day and I sat with sit, I don't know, his parents would go out and do their chores and I sit at the kitchen table and random neighbours would come waltzing in the door as you do in Ireland with like no announcement. just be like, where's Mary? And I...

She's out, but I can make a cup of tea and I just sit and chat with neighbours and look at the donkeys and keep myself busy. And yeah, it was really fun. And then we had a friend's wedding to go to down in Mayo. Brandon Christian. All right, so then he came home. He came back to Ireland from London and I travelled down from Donegal. We met there, went to our friend's wedding.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (36:12)
Thank much.

There you go.

Steveston Creative (36:32)
And then he went back to London and I went back to the home house for another couple weeks. And then eventually he came back and we moved to Dublin. Together. yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (36:44)
Damn, I will read the book when it comes out, even though I've just heard the story. Put me in

line for the pre -order.

Steveston Creative (36:52)
It's like the follow up to PS I love you. Except it doesn't have a dodgy Irish accent in it. It's a real one.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (36:55)
Yeah!

That movie was such a thing the year that we moved there too. I remember all the girls at the time. my god, every North American girl that I met was like, I'm gonna have my PSI love you moment. And at the time I was not fresh from a breakup, but like a few months out, know, first love, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And I was like, I want nothing to do with men. The movie was great. That's rubbish. Keep them all away from me. But everybody talked about that movie that year.

Steveston Creative (37:04)
Was it actually?

Hahaha.

I didn't realize it was such a big thing. Yeah,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (37:28)
Wild. man. Okay. There's so many tangents I want to go down with you, but we're going to go onto some other things. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Subscribe for the extra content. Yeah. okay.

Steveston Creative (37:34)
We'll have to do that for a one -off light.

There you go. Get the juicy details.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (37:50)
I don't remember if we talked about this at all, did the pandemic impact your travel plans and goals at all, or was that not really a thing for you guys?

Steveston Creative (37:59)
Well, it affected our travel plans in that we were in Ireland when it was announced, so we flew to Ireland. We had gone to Ireland March 4th. March 5th, March 4th, March 5th. Yes. Oh, that's right. Was it points trip? Yeah, it was. was the first. No, no, no, no, no, no. We started the points after that. The points trip was the first trip after the pandemic. Yeah. So we started earning points after all your guidance in like 2021. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (38:05)
night.

This is the points trip, right? Tell everybody this disaster. Yeah.

Yeah, these guys were

my first clients, everybody. They are living proof. Yeah, you were. were my guinea pigs. So thank you.

Steveston Creative (38:30)
Where are we actually?

Well,

it worked. It worked. It worked. We got. Yeah. We'll talk about that trip in a second. we went to Ireland and my dad, my mom was going to be in Thailand or something. And so my dad is going to do a Europe trip because she was going to be away. So like, it really messed up our plans. But we went because we checked in at the airport and there she was like, has anybody been sick recently? And we were

No, why? She's like, some people are getting sick and some people are choosing not to go on their trips. And we're like, no, we're good. So we just like went and as soon as we landed, it was almost like everything's like started to unfold. And everything in Ireland was ahead of everything in Canada because like everything was going down in Italy. was like, Italy, we were being hit really hard. like everything was locking down all the playgrounds

Yeah, we'd only just got there and then everything started to like just lock down. People were worried about toilet paper and it was like, I was like, this is ridiculous. The Irish are taking this too far. Well, had two little kids and like nothing had been set at home like in Canada. Like, do you know, nothing was that big of a deal. And then to like come and it was like, there would like not being able to like go anywhere with like two young kids

Tara (Travel With TMc) (40:01)
Yeah.

Steveston Creative (40:01)
Yeah,

you just didn't know it was a brutal trip. But so basically we were supposed to go. We were supposed to go to Scotland and like because we'd been to Scotland for our honeymoon, we were supposed to go there and meet my dad there. No, my dad was supposed to come to Ireland and then meet my dad in Scotland. We were going to go visit like where he like he spent some time living in Scotland as a child. So we were going to go to the army base there like look for their home

Then we were going to go to London. Like it was like such a, and everything started to like break down. Like those flights, I think the airline went under that we booked with or something right before COVID. Like it was such a bizarre, so we didn't even have flights to get to Scotland anymore. So we canceled that trip even before we left. Right? Yeah. But it was like the day we left or something. And then when we got there and we got to, we had to start.

re -changing our flights to get home because everything was starting to lock down and oh my god, we spent like hours and hours and hours, like 12 hours on the phone.

And it was not, it was not a good trip.

When they rebooked our flights and we got to Heathrow, we couldn't get it. They tried to the boys in. They tried to put our like two year old children in another like area of the, they had, no, they had waitlisted.

our kids, the twins, but we were on the fight and we were like at heat. It was such a mess. there was like, they had had to downgrade the planes where there are hundreds of people that didn't have flights. And they were like, just wait, just wait. We'll sort it out. And Emmett and I were like, no way. Like we just like marched onto the plane. Essentially like we went through the whole line to check in. They're like, your kids are waitlisted. I'm like, we're getting on this plane.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (41:21)
Did we lose to the twins?

Steveston Creative (41:51)
They like, okay, we'll find a spot for They were telling everyone to wait, so they saw our flight but we just couldn't. We just were like, no, because that doesn't work. If you're in a situation and you need to get on a flight and it was, yeah, no, we were just like, we are not. can see all these cards falling like, yeah, if we wait here, we're gonna be stuck. So then they wanted my kids to be separate on the plane. was like, because that's a good idea. to like, what is the, anyway, eventually we all got in a row.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (42:10)
man.

Steveston Creative (42:20)
Because then they wanted Emmett and one child on one side of the plane and me on one child. And I was like, my kids are still breastfed. Like you really want Emmett and them to be, the children to be like screaming for mom. anyway, so it was a whole So it affected our travel plans. Yes, COVID affected our travel plans because we were home. We were only awake like a week and a bit on like a three and a half week trip.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (42:39)
Just a little, just a little.

Steveston Creative (42:46)
and all that time that we were away, we were rebooking flights just to try and like get home. And we didn't travel for a couple of years. Yeah. So then we went over in June, June, June, July, 2022. And that was our first time using points to book anything. So that was cool. Yeah. We got, we got three flights.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (42:50)
right. Yeah. my gosh.

Steveston Creative (43:08)
Two flights or three flights? I can't remember if it was two or three flights. Like two seats. Two round trip flights.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (43:12)
I think you had two for seven,

yeah, uh you take it away. I remember what it is, because I tell people all the time, but you tell it. I think it was, I thought it was two direct flights, Vancouver to Dublin, for $70 return.

Steveston Creative (43:20)
What was it? Yeah, I actually can't remember.

Yep. Yes.

okay, so we had a newborn. That's what it was. We had... So then they were three. The boys were three, but then we had a third. Yes. So then Oisín didn't need a seat, but we paid for a seat. That's what it was. Because I didn't want him on my lap the whole time.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (43:43)
Right.

Steveston Creative (43:46)
But yeah, remember like, because we had reached out to you in like some point in 2021. year before that or something. was like June, yeah was like one year beforehand. And I was like, yeah that's when we first started to like figure out all these points and credit cards that you can use. And just we were completely oblivious to it. And as business owners because we, yeah so.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (44:04)
Yeah, and as business owners, you guys, yeah, you had the one business at the

time, now you have two businesses.

Steveston Creative (44:12)
Yeah, so we have one primary business and then we also have a second business. up. Yeah, so we purchase lots of things for the business. You would like to use that to get points. Get this credit card, this credit card, this credit card. And yeah, it's been amazing. Like we've got like hundreds of thousands of points now that we can use our next trip. Yeah, I don't we'll get all five flights. Well, I know. We've got like 420 ,000 points.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (44:24)
Heck yes!

I'm so excited for you guys!

Brilliant. my gosh.

Steveston Creative (44:42)
But the timer rules are on, don't

know how many that'll get us. We're hoping, well, we're planning for next summer trip now,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (44:46)
Yeah.

yeah, this is total side note, but I've been meaning to reach out to you guys to do like a follow -up to see how everything's going with points and miles. So we'll have to... we'll have to schedule that at another point. Yeah!

Steveston Creative (44:57)
Yeah, we'll have to that. We definitely, I think,

could maximize more. Yeah, not doing the... saw you had the partnership with the company... Chexy. We haven't been doing that. Which we probably should, but we'll have to look more into that. We're leaving points on the table. You'd be disappointed. No, we're just like, we're aware it's a thing and that we should be doing And we do our best to

Tara (Travel With TMc) (45:08)
Yeah, with Chexy, yeah!

Yeah.

No, not at all. goodness.

Steveston Creative (45:25)
do the small things. like if we're like in addition to the points gathering on the credit cards and you know, using your credit cards wisely, but just like if there's a large Amazon purchase to like then go through the e -store and you know, those kinds of extra things are like if you're buying, if you're buying like electronics or something like that, or anytime we need something from the Apple store, which isn't very often, but you know, like if you need new cords or headphones or anything like just like those little choices.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (45:40)
A plus students.

Yeah, adds up.

Steveston Creative (45:55)
extra choices. And your little prompts on Instagram, so it's like, today's a good day to do this. I usually hop on, listen to it.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (45:56)
Penning buddies.

Yeah, yeah, and if anybody listening to this is curious, I do have an online course. It's called Pay Yourself to Travel, and I'll leave the link for that in the notes. So it's for Canadian, I would say beginner travel hackers or people wanting to start using points and miles in the Canadian landscape. Or even if, so it can be for people who have no idea what they're doing and they don't even know what points are, or it could be maybe you have a bunch of points and you use them, but you don't really know if you're doing it properly. So we'll leave that link

in the show notes. But yeah. Thanks, guys. Okay, tech wise, I'm curious to know how tech has changed the way that you travel. are you big into, I know that you're planners, so like, how do you prepare? it blogs, podcasts, YouTube, social media, guidebooks, recommendations from people you know? What's the go to?

Steveston Creative (46:32)
Yes, highly recommend, it's been a game changer for us.

I know I said it's an interesting question because in the last you know couple of years pretty much all of our travel has been for family reasons so it's not like we're doing a whole lot of research on what we're gonna do while we're there because so much of it is involved around family and that kind of thing like our last vacation style trip was... like holiday? Yeah like a holiday not just going to see family

in Edinburgh. Yeah. Yeah. So like 2016 was the last time we went anywhere just for just for ourselves. Just even that we went to Ireland first. Sure. And then we went to Edinburgh. But that's fine. I mean, sometimes.

I'm still, whenever I see things on social media or like, you know, Pinterest or somebody's talking about like, I don't know, a recent trip, I might save things to like a travel like, saved board just for like future endeavours. Yeah, a lot of our stuff right now is talking about what we're going to do, like when we have a time where... I have lots of plans for once the kids move out.

Not even when the kids move out, like when we get to a point where the kids can actually carry their own stuff. That's true. When we've been talking about more recent trips, when, you know, maybe next summer tacking on like London trips or whatever, do know where they can carry their own suitcase or like backpacks or that kind of thing? not like hiking backpacks, but you know, when they're carrying their own.

Carriers themselves and themselves and we're not putting them in carriers and that kind of thing I mean I think that there's so much opportunity for families to get out and travel with young kids it just has to you have to make it a priority and you have to Decide that like you're gonna go for it. And if we didn't have Like Drive to be like, okay, we need to see our family. We want to see our family. That's our priority right now

Tara (Travel With TMc) (48:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steveston Creative (49:15)
then yeah, we probably would have like done like maybe a Europe trip or something like that with kids in like, backpacks, you know, like and spent our points and our money in that way. Like you, I don't think having kids limits you from going on exciting adventures. It just means it's just whether or not that's your, how you choose to spend your points and that kind of thing. Like I definitely think you could travel with young kids. they're more, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (49:41)
Yeah. What are some trips that you guys want to do with the boys?

Steveston Creative (49:47)
Definitely like as Hannah said, skipping off from Ireland, so because we're going to be going to Ireland anyway and then Europe is your doorstep and so we'd obviously love them to take to Italy because we've been there a number of times. We've got a bunch of family in London. We'd like to go to Edinburgh because that's where we... take them to Scotland and go like further up through the Highlands and things like that. We have a friend that lives in Hawaii. Yeah, we'd love to go visit.

She's got a a resort, like a retreat, not a resort, a retreat. Yeah. So, Rekindle Farm, think is the name of their place. And like, they've got beautiful like yoga retreats and yeah, you can learn about their land. Yeah. Anyway, so we'd love to take the kids there also to experience like that kind of thing. Neither of us have been to Hawaii of us have been to Hawaii.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (50:15)
Gorgeous Airbnb.

Yeah, I'll link that below too. I've looked at the photos. It looks amazing.

Steveston Creative (50:43)
Yeah, those are kind of the I I'd love to go like, think at some point going a little bit further, like when all of our kids are like really capable, because they're also quite, change is hard for some of our kids. So, maybe when they're like teenagers, I'd love, we have a friend that lives in India, in the Himalayas and we'd love to visit her and like, just let the kids like explore. she says it's like

Tara (Travel With TMc) (51:08)
my gosh. I'll come

and carry your bags.

Steveston Creative (51:11)
Yeah, so we'll definitely like I think that's on a bucket list. I'd also like to go to Australia. Like we have friends that live in live here right now. The guy's Australian and the girl's Canadian. But if they ever go back to travel. Yeah, I know. It's funny because Australia's never been like super high on my list because of just like our history and I'm one my top destinations is Greece. So I want to like travel and do a lot of Greece

I also think that might be when I want to do sans kids. I don't know. Maybe when they're older, but like, just want it to be like a romantic trip instead of a. And I've always talked about wanting to go to Tanzania, like to just, you know, see all these wild animals like in their natural habitat. I never thought of Australia. It's like, like I have to go to Australia because it's in my mind. It's like, it's like a hotter Canada.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (51:50)
Fair enough.

Steveston Creative (52:11)
kind of thing, I know there's way more to Australia than that. And I'm not a big fan of snakes and spiders, but my kids are, they love them. And now that we have friends who I'd love, I like to go places where I can feel like a local. Like even though I'm a tourist, like I like to sit in the culture and like be, you know, pretend that like, okay, this is what life could be like here. Obviously it's a snippet, you're on a vacation or a holiday or a working holiday,

to have someone to go to yeah I like to have someone to go to and be like this is the best like it's somebody so passionate about their like home

So yeah, there's lots of like ideas out there and that we want to travel with them. Yeah, lots we want to do.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (52:56)
Yeah, like travel has clearly impacted both of your lives and when I say travel I also mean living abroad because you guys have each done that in different places and that's as we know a completely different experience than travelling through somewhere. Yeah for sure. What do you think is like the biggest surprise either about yourself or about the places that you've been so far and the impact that that's had?

Steveston Creative (53:04)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

The first thing that comes to mind is when I travelled before I met Emmett, my first Europe trip, I went over to be in Au Pair and it didn't end up working out. In Ireland, In Ireland. Yeah. Actually, that's so funny. But I think the thing, the biggest thing that surprised me was that when you

this might be too woo woo for some people, but when you like put it out there into the universe that you're, in a sense you're trusting that the things will work out, that you're the right people or the right places present themselves. And so you, I think I gained a lot of trust in myself that like, I can do this. I can like travel alone as a female and

and I can find work and I can, you know, one work doesn't work out and you just like have met the right people to get the right job so that you can stay a bit longer so that you can make this trip happen. Yeah, I think I learned a lot about trusting myself and taking chances that I wouldn't have usually.

But yeah, I think that was the most surprising thing that like you will be taken care of.

the universe, I know this sounds quite weird, but the universe wants you to succeed. Like you're not, if you're putting yourself out there to go travelling, you're not, you're putting out that energy to like, to have.

incredible positive experiences to meet the right people I had been in a car accident before I went and so I couldn't carry a backpack so I had to have like a rolling luggage with not what you want when you're like backpacking through Europe and

I booked a sailing trip, something I would have never done, but that way I could see a bunch of places. In Croatia, I went all up and down the coast, met a bunch of people, didn't have to carry a backpack because my luggage was on the boat, but I saw all these different places and I'd never stayed overnight on a ship. I thought I could get seasick, but it was fine.

you know, the person that I was roommates with wasn't even supposed to be on that ship. She had like won that package at like a... roommates with her after the fight? No, I was roommates with her on the boat. I her on the boat. And then we ended up like when my thing in Ireland didn't end up working out, I phoned her and she got me a place to stay in London. And then I through her, I got a job and like...

or met some people that then I got a job with, know, it was all connected. So that was a really big realization that, I don't know, it's a little bit. think it turns you into a positive mindset of the world, of being like, okay, good things are going to happen to me, even when you have no plans.

or plans change and you're forced to adjust your expectations.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (56:44)
Yeah, I'm with you. I always say timing is everything and everything happens for a reason. And I honestly think there's no better example than when you're on the road or living somewhere new, because that happens all the time. When I moved to Ireland, I met a guy at a party.

I don't remember whose party it was, but was like one of the, it might have been the first weekend in Ireland. Anyhow, he ended up being a med student from Canada and he was moving out of his apartment and I was looking for a place for me and my friend who was still back in Canada.

And he's like, I'm moving out of my place two weeks early. You can stay in my place for free for the two weeks. And I was like, wait, what? Like I just met, I have no idea who you are. It was just this, again, like serendipitous crossing of paths. And that has happened so many more times. And I think, Hannah, like you said, once you're open to it, it happens more often. Like these things just become a part of your life. These beautiful.

happenstance moments. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Emmett? What's your what's the biggest surprise for you?

Steveston Creative (57:42)
Encounters yeah.

Yeah, I mean, think as the old adage goes, like travel is the best education. I really think that rings true. Like when you remove yourself from your safe space, you have to get out there and figure out how to do everything, how to cook for yourself. I mean, I went to university, so I had to figure out all that prior to that anyway. But yeah, just getting out there and really helping you find who you are or who you want to be.

Yeah, I think that's probably the biggest realization that I had.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (58:23)
Super cool. Also, random side note, when you mentioned cooking there, do you guys remember when I was at your place in Dublin? And Hannah, you, I forget what you made us, but I do remember that you made salad dressing for the salad. And I had never seen somebody make their own salad dressing, or maybe my mom had, and I just didn't pay attention. And ever since then, I like to make my own salad dressings. And I follow more or less what you did that night.

Steveston Creative (58:36)
yeah, that's so funny.

That's so funny.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (58:50)
Yes, super random. Yeah. Okay, but I'm curious to know, given that you both lived outside of your own cultures and that you're raising kids with that cross cultural perspective, what is home? Like, you know, what is that concept for you? Or how do you create it in the different places that you've been? Or that you are now?

Steveston Creative (59:20)
Thinking about like creating home, like when we weren't there with kids, but when we lived in Dublin away from home, for me, it was like bringing some of my traditions like to holidays. Getting a real tree was like a really important thing. So like we made that.

we got a real tree and we like bought new ornaments together and we took our tree on the city bus because we had no way else of getting it home and like... What were other things? For here

St. Patrick's Day, we always hold it as like an important celebration. like as far as homeschoolers, like do units around Ireland and we have Irish books and like, small things like we have Twister, but we play it in Irish. So like, we'll call out the colours in Irish instead of calling them out like in English.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:00:22)
I

love this!

Steveston Creative (1:00:24)
And making sure that St. Patrick's Day, you know, some of it is like silly stuff that they wouldn't even do in Ireland, but like infusing that pride that they are Irish, that they have like this as part of their lives. I mean, we chose to name all of our children Irish names, partly because we think we love them.  Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:00:41)
Good luck to them all. Spoken from one who has the same. We talk about this often, yeah. They're beautiful

names though, yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:00:52)
And part of it was like a commitment to the fact that that is a very important part of their history that we want them to feel at home when they are in Ireland. We want them to feel like part of the culture. mean, they are raised Canadian, but we both want them to feel like...

I could live here. could have been born here with these names and knowing them. We were just talking about it yesterday, how lucky they are that we're going to be going through and getting their Irish passports this year. Just so they'll be able to like... Well, she said that, she's like, that was always the dream as a kid, like to have a European passport and you can just go and live and work anywhere and then you can come to Canada and work anywhere here too. It's like, it's a big deal there. Yeah, but I don't know about for you.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:01:21)
Adopt me already, will you?

It's honestly such a gift. Yeah, it's a massive deal.

Steveston Creative (1:01:38)
Like what helps things feel like home for you, I don't know.

Yeah, that's tricky. I I think one of the things that I struggled with when moving to Canada, and even still a little bit, is that things are a lot more happenstance in Ireland. Like each Hannah talks about, you know, people just like coming through the door and no plans made. It's just like, sure, whatever, we'll see how it works out. Whereas something I struggle with here is like everything has to be planned and organized. Okay, you want to have a phone call? Okay, call me.

tomorrow at this time rather than just being like, Calling up someone and cheating and shit, whatever it is. So that's certainly something that I miss about Ireland and Canada. What makes me feel it? really? Is it much more like that?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:02:25)
Yeah, you need to move to Northern Ontario, Emmett. My parents grew up

there. my gosh, my parents grew up there and it's like revolving doors at people's houses, at least in our family, that's the way it is. And yeah, you don't call, you just show up. And if it works, it works. And if it doesn't, that's okay, I'll see you the next time I pop over or yeah. And our family was a little bit like that growing up here,

Steveston Creative (1:02:47)
Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:02:51)
my friends' families were not that way at all so it's definitely not a southern Ontario thing. I'm guessing it's not a Vancouver thing. Go to northern Ontario. Yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:02:59)
No, everything's very planned in Vancouver.

But as far as like making things feel whole, like Hannah touched on it, that, yeah, just celebrating things that help remind me and help remind our sons and Hannah of what is important. Yeah, we always take like St. Patrick's Day. I know it's only like one day or we kind of spread it over a weekend or a week or, but we always go

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:03:18)
Yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:03:27)
like to a pub, we take the kids into a pub, like ensure that they know that this is their like normal in Ireland. You know, it's a family meal and obviously, and we go, my parents now join us on this, like every year they'll come with us now. I mean, we live together, but kind of, for those listening, we do the multi -generational thing. They live upstairs and we have a separate suite on the ground floor, but, and we love it. It works really well for our family, but.

It's funny though, like when the boys were going to school, like they would, they would run into a nature school, like they'd run nature school and they'd say, St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow. We're so excited. And they were so excited about St. Patrick's Day. Not only other kids that really don't keep it St. Patrick's Day. just kind of like didn't even realize St. Patrick's Day was happening, but like we have so many things around it. But like, mean, silly things that also like definitely Emmett didn't grow up with the leprechauns visiting him or things like that. But

they set traps and we read all sorts of stories. They all know the stories around their names. yeah, just like we really try to that as, know, like remind them like, where does Granny Mary live? And like, where is she from? We have all sorts of storybooks, bedtime stories. I if you lived in Ireland

one of them is When I Grow Up, I'm Going to Play for Donegal. And then When I Grow Up, I'm Going to Play for Mayo. So it's like these different competing counties. And it's all, you know, a child and he wants to play for a football team and all this kind of thing. So but, know, having books and things around the house that would seem like you could pick them off somebody's shelf or off a bookstore shelf in Ireland.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:05:04)
Yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:05:17)
And it's funny teaching them to like read in right now because they're like in grade one and they've, you know, learning the sounds and all the different rules around English and this kind of thing. their names are like, don't take those rules and take them like they're like, they're like, hold on a second because they've known how to spell their names for a long time, but they'll be

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:05:33)
Yeah, chuck him right out the window.

Steveston Creative (1:05:40)
make the sounds that it's supposed to make. And I'm like, I know you're just gonna have to ignore all of the rules. Your names are in Irish. And they have known that, but it's just kind of funny now that I'm coming at it from like a phonetic point of view. this might be confusing. like, anyway, so it's been a funny.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:05:59)
I love that. Will you,

like you already kind of are teaching them Irish simultaneously, will you incorporate any of the structure, the grammar, the writing, stuff like that into their lessons or will you stick with it?

Steveston Creative (1:06:11)
I

would like to get an Irish tutor in years to come. I don't think they're quite ready for it yet, but once they're quite strong in their reading and writing, I'd like to use some of our homeschool funding to hire, or have a class that we go to, find the Irish community here and see if there's somebody who will leave lessons a fun.

as if you were learning French, but like have them Irish,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:06:43)
I love that you said fun and then you said as if you're learning French and this is coming from someone who loved French class.

Steveston Creative (1:06:47)
I don't know, just

like make it a part of their like, I definitely want them to have an understanding. I don't think that they will ever be like, I mean, maybe they take it and run with it. But like, I'd like them to have like a basic understanding so that they could read an Irish sign or do you know, understand like, those letters together sound like this,

yeah, so at some point in there, I mean, they're only six, so it'll come, I think. But yeah, once they're a little bit stronger and know they're slow readers right now, but once we get a bit stronger, then we definitely have Irish units throughout the school year right now. So hopefully, maybe in their grade three, they'll be a little bit more ready. Then we'll send them off to the Gaeltacht some summer. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:07:16)
Get him started young. Get him started young. So cool.

So cool.

I love this. Can you guys?

I was gonna ask if you were gonna do that. There's actually we have, so I know Newfoundland, apparently it used to be that Newfoundland had the only Gaeltacht outside of Ireland. However, there's one outside of Ottawa that I've been looking into for a couple years. Yeah, I'll send you guys the information. I don't know if they do families. I know definitely adults are welcome to go for it. You can do it virtually or you can do it in person.

Steveston Creative (1:07:45)
Pro.

That's right,

really? What?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:08:09)
But yeah, you might as well do the proper Gaeltacht in Ireland as well. But what is that for anybody who's not familiar with

Steveston Creative (1:08:17)
Well, the Gaeltacht is like a so it's a because Irish isn't spoken widely across Ireland. There's only like pockets of people that actually speak it fluently called the Gaeltacht. And it's quite a popular thing for like young teenagers, like 13 to 16, 17 year olds to go off to these places for their summers, learn Irish. But it's also where you have some of those like life changing coming of age experiences.

So yeah, I think it'd be cool for them to do it in Ireland and North Sea would ever want to do that. They might once they get a little bit older. They're quite their home bodies are like close to they like being close to their family and stuff right now. we hope that like my hope is that like as they get older as well, we'll be able to go a little bit more frequently. so that like when we go over every summer, then like eventually

you know, maybe they'll stay with their aunts and uncles for a week and mom and dad can go away for a week somewhere to Greece or just. And then, and then eventually, yeah, maybe they'll want to do like a Gaeltacht experience and that kind of thing. So it's all, it's all ahead of us. So, but yeah, I think

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:09:17)
to Greece!

Yeah, well, I'm speaking

of language, I love talking about this stuff because you guys know my background is in languages and linguistics. Can either of you share maybe a couple of phrases in Irish or a couple of words that would be helpful or or any of your favourite words or phrases that you think would be cool to share?

Steveston Creative (1:09:51)
Well, like a pretty basic one is to say, how are you? "Conas atá tú?" like, how are you? "Conas atá tú?" is how are you? it's like, Ireland's interesting is that there's a lot of different dialects from county to county. so the way I say something from Donegal, like even our son's name, Fionn lots of people would pronounce that Fionn. Cahill's name, some people would pronounce it Cahill.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:09:57)
Super basic. Woo! Say it one more time.

Great.

Steveston Creative (1:10:21)
Oisín's name, some people have said Oisín. really just depends on where you are. So what other things?

we read these on their books. That's right. We read these books. And so we have these Irish books and they're written by some girl that lives in Ireland. She in Vancouver. Yeah, she's an Irish girl in Vancouver. Yeah. And so she started this thing to teach Canadians about Irish. And one of the books is you have to, it's a colour book, isn't it? I don't know, but in every book, I think there's this little teddy that you, it's like an additional thing that you kind of like look for throughout the book.

even like if it's not talking about the teddy but it's just a little extra activity that you have to like find it and then when you find the teddy you're supposed to shout you're supposed to shout "feicim thú" which means "I see you" and so the boys are going through this book reading "feicim thú" "feicim thú" like pointing out this thing which sounds terrible to anyone else and so I was at the Shoppers Drug Mart like a drug store about a month ago a little bit more and I was talking to Oisín my youngest just kind of talking to him on the way to the car

and he's three and some woman stopped me, think she was like Austrian or German or something and she said, where's your accent from? And I said, she said, but I was speaking in English, that was the thing. she heard my accent, but she thought, she said, what language is that? I said, I was speaking in English, but I've got an Irish accent. And as soon as Oisin heard the word Irish, he just shouted, "feicim thú"!

I was like, that means I see you. as soon as they heard the word Irish, just like shouted it out.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:12:01)
Amazing!

you

Steveston Creative (1:12:12)
Any other

little phrases or anything? don't know. Not really. I'm not very good at When we like, when we, it was more when we used to grocery shop together, like when we didn't have kids and you'd go and you'd pick out things and stuff, you'd often like say like, or maybe when we're making a cup of tea, you'll say the like little words, like the milk, like "bainne" like saying it in Irish instead of in English and it's

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:12:36)
Yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:12:40)
kind of a second nature thing. It's not like you speak fluent Irish at all, but like every once in a while he'll ask for something in Irish instead of in English. That must be second nature because I didn't know. And so that's kind of fun too. At some point I thought I'd like, you know, get a label maker and just print labels for everything in the kitchen, you know, like doors and cupboard in Irish, but I never.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:12:51)
That's precious.

Great.

Steveston Creative (1:13:06)
I like that. I never got around to that. When the boys get into it. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:13:09)
It's a great idea. It's an awesome idea. I love that. As parents now, what are one or two things?

that I guess on the trip that you've already taken with the boys, but maybe going forward as well that you think you'll always take with you when you travel or that you've really liked having in the past. Like must have travel items for parents.

Steveston Creative (1:13:30)
for kids. an activity pack. Yeah. What do you call it? I know. I make these different like bags. there's like, know, you can get like those like toiletry bags that like you that like fold up and they've got all these different compartments. So like if you and they have like a little hook on them. So it's good for like in the car or it's good for like on the back of the seat in front of you and you can like fill them.

like all those little plastic compartments with different things for the kids like and markers and little things of Play -Doh and some of their favourite snacks and things like that. then as they've gotten older, I also make them little backpacks that like they're like a little cloth backpack that can then be like put on the top of their carry on on the inside or they can wear it. And in that is like some, you know,

erase like whiteboard erasable like activity books and some sensory things like things to squish or squeeze and pull or one thing that we use that I will bring every single time is kind of a random thing is and it's helped us at like like 3am wake ups when you know it's jet lag and you're like in a hotel room or you're in in a room in somebody's house you can't just like go walking around there are these little

wax like strings. They're like a string, but it's like made of wax and you like a wick. It's like a wick and they come in multiple colours and they come off so you can like shape them because they stick together, right? Cause they're wax. Some people use them as like you stick them onto designs on a book. Like if you have like one of those whiteboard books, like erasable books, some people use them to like create 3D animals

something and my kids use them to like decorate. So they like take them, like wind them around the like handles and they make bridges with them that go across from like one piece of furniture to the other and they stick them to the walls and they all just peel right off. I will use, I will, and they come, I mean they're teeny so they all come in like a chunk and you just like peel them off. My sister's finding them two and a half years later in her bedroom still so.

But they don't damage anything, that's the thing. They don't damage anything, the colour doesn't come off. It's like a, yeah, it's a really cool little thing and you put them in a Ziploc bag.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:15:57)
Sweet, do you know the name of it?

Steveston Creative (1:16:03)
But I just bought like a like a I don't know a 60 pack and then I divided them all up and put them in Ziploc bags and then put them in each of the kids like they each get a certain number of each colour and they just go to town they're reusable then you unwind them and you stick them all back together and away you go. Waxy iron sticks wax craft sticks. Yeah I think about like a pack of 300 wax craft sticks. We can't really see them

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:16:28)
Okay, cool.

Steveston Creative (1:16:28)
But it's like that,

they split up into tiny little threads. So each of those colours, there's like a hundred little pieces of So that is like so much. Has kept them occupied forever. And I sometimes bring these little backpacks if we're going, like on St. Patrick's Day, I'll bring these because evidently we want to sit for longer. And the kids obviously want to get up and walk around that kind of thing. can't stop the kids from doing that. But yeah, I'll bring these little activity packs with us. Fun for adults too.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:16:38)
Amas.

I missed those crayon sheets at the restaurant. I love

Steveston Creative (1:17:02)
Yeah, and snacks

snacks snacks snacks and just to let go when you have kids like you can't You know like do whatever is easiest like don't have like Screen time rules on a nine -hour flight like just get through the bloody flight like just But put headphones in your child because that's not fair to every other person on those headphones that like are soft

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:17:27)
Right, yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:17:32)
They're like, it almost looks like the kids are wearing like an ear, like an ear muff thing. You know, like it goes, it's a headband, but it's got the like, like the earbuds inside the headband and they're soft. So you could like sleep on it. It's also good for adults, but, and they can come in like cool designs. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:17:34)
Like a headband?

Yeah.

Awesome. We'll have to get that linked as well.

Nice. Well, speaking of headphones, as a bonus for the listeners and with all of my guests' help, I'm curating a travel playlist to share with them. And so my question to you is, and you can answer this separately or together, what's one song that either sums up your travel style or that reminds you of a specific trip? Because I know

Well, for me at least, I feel like some trips or experiences have themes, like a song keeps on coming up and you're like, my God, that song takes me right back there. So yeah, what is it for you guys?

Steveston Creative (1:18:21)
Hmm... No.

that's hurt.

the top of my head my gosh

I don't know why, but... So there's this artist called Manu Chao. Oh, that's it. Oh, no, I was gonna say it. What, you were gonna say that too? Yeah. No way, that's weird. Okay. Mine was completely separate to yours. Manu Chow. M -A -N -U -C -H -A -O. But I remember just like being... This is when I was in 2009, so when I first moved to Vancouver, I'd be like on the bus.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:18:43)
What?

What is it again?

Steveston Creative (1:19:04)
going to work or whatever and it's a lovely hot summer's day. Me gusta la mañana, me gustas tú me gusta that cafe. That's funny. Yeah, that song, the bar that I worked in in London in Jordan. No, East London.

Anyway, if comes to me by then. But Manu Chao was played all the time and it was like summer and it was like this like dirty like little bar and you'd be like wading in alcohol at the end of the night like I worked in this bar and you like had to walk on the tables to serve because it was like there was so many people in there. It was wild. It was just another world. Do you know like when you stumble upon these places that it was the blue something.

can't remember. It's such a like a... Cafe Bleu Cafe Bleu Like literally I think that was the blue cafe. it but anyway it was at end of Brick Lane. that's what it And that song was that summer. That would have been summer like 2008 was when you were there wasn't it? Or 2007? I can't remember. One of those years. that song was... I mean yes it was obviously still going in 2009.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:20:00)
Very good!

Steveston Creative (1:20:24)
because that's weird that it's the same song like so funny.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:20:27)
So funny if if it

is the same one that I'm thinking of I actually didn't hear it until a couple years ago and somebody brought it up in like a language setting

Steveston Creative (1:20:37)
really? What's the Rasputin song as well? was also played a lot. was it? Selection. It was a... yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:20:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's

a good one. Nice. Awesome. All right, well, we'll finish with a speed round. So in one word or one sentence, you can answer together separately. We'll go through these like this. Whatever you want. Yeah, you guys can rock, paper, scissors that one as you like. So where was your last trip?

Steveston Creative (1:20:54)
Okay.

Okay. You're going to do her first and then me? guess we'll let her work. Go ahead.

Ireland? Ireland, yeah. Ireland. Ireland.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:21:15)
Where's your next trip?

bougie or budget? Would you prefer to have one week off? Okay. All right.

Steveston Creative (1:21:25)
gee!

We don't have that kind of money, but

yes. Maybe that's why we say bougie. That's what we usually travel on. Yeah, we usually travel on a budget and I prefer to travel.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:21:40)
Fuji, awesome,

Favourite mode of transportation.

Steveston Creative (1:21:45)
That's right.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:21:47)
Nice. You've kind of already, well you have already answered this, but planned your spontaneous trips?

Guided tours or choose your own adventure.

Steveston Creative (1:22:06)
Choose your own adventure.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:22:09)
Underpacker or Overpacker?

Steveston Creative (1:22:12)
Overpacker. am an overpacker. have to be. I will endeavor to be an underpacker sometime, but when we do it kind of bizarrely and we even take our kids, like when they're in diapers, they're in cloth nappies, and we travel with cloth, even to Ireland. And it makes for a lot of... I mean, we take some disposals for the plane. That's about

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:22:14)
Yeah!

Yeah.

Sweet, at least you didn't try to bring...

Steveston Creative (1:22:41)
But, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:22:42)
that's a good call.

That's a very good call. I was going to say at least you didn't try to bring pots and pans back with you. And that's an if you know, you know story for the three of us when it comes to overpacking. But anyhow, that's for another time.

Steveston Creative (1:22:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

I like to be prepared in my clothes as well.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:23:00)
Nice. Yeah. Most overrated destination.

Steveston Creative (1:23:07)
overrated. Temple Bar?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:23:12)
Although one or two nights there when you first go is a freaking hoot. Yeah. huh. But then get

Steveston Creative (1:23:14)
Yeah, that's fun.

So thank

you. Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say that because I don't really.

I can't really think of somewhere that I've been that I've been like, this wasn't worth

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:23:32)
That's good. Cool. What about most underrated destination?

Steveston Creative (1:23:33)
But

One of my favourite places I've been to is Verona in Italy. I was gonna say Croatia.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:23:43)
Nice. Domestic or international travel?

Steveston Creative (1:23:47)
international.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:23:49)
What home comfort do you miss the most when you're away?

Steveston Creative (1:23:55)
Dill pickles. This is very specific. I was gonna say bed, but alright.

just lived in Ireland for like a year and they don't do dill pickles. I had to go to Subway to have any kind of semblance of a dill pickle. I guess on the topic of... I was gonna say, I on the topic of food, mine would be like an Irish fry or something.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:24:13)
What about there was that? I was gonna say.

Nice, nice.

There was that one store in Dublin though, I'm gonna blank on it, but it was blue and white and it's kind of an importish store. I'm gonna blank on the name of the street, but I don't know, Hannah, if you ever found it, but they had stuff for Caesars there, like they had Clamato juice and everything else. I feel like they would have had dill pickles. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, it, I'm gonna have to find the name and send it to you, but I remember, I only remember this store because my friend Chloe, who I met two days after I met you,

Steveston Creative (1:24:37)
Was it like Aldi or Little or something? one of those?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:24:51)
she loves caesars and I don't like them at all but I was at this one grocery store randomly and I was like my god Chloe they have Clamato juice here you can make a real caesar and she was like thrilled at that point but I wonder if they have dill pickles

Steveston Creative (1:24:56)
Good.

You were also looking for eggnog.

yeah, at Christmas time there's no such thing as eggnog in Ireland. Even the, like if you go to Starbucks, it's not real eggnog. It's like a, it's weird. It's like a powdered thing that they put in your drink. It's like, yeah. Yeah. So that was not good. That was terrible. Anyway, I think I took that question the wrong way. Dill pickles. Why bad?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:25:18)
Ooh, ooh, yuck. I don't like eggnog, but that does not sound good. Yeah, best, best piece of travel. No, you're fine.

I love that answer. What's the best piece of travel advice you guys have received?

Steveston Creative (1:25:39)
This is...

best piece of trouble that I've received.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:25:48)
Go find the Canadian girl of course.

Steveston Creative (1:25:49)
Do it!

on travelling. I think the best piece is pretty basic, I guess it's not really one word. But it's like, make sure you eat. Eat! Like, don't get hungry. When I went to inter -rally, one of my fans' moms said, if you guys are getting annoyed with each other, just go and get some food and it'll make it all better. That's nice. Yeah, it's a really good piece of advice. Like, just go and get some food. Have some food either together or separately.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:26:12)
That's a good piece of advice.

Steveston Creative (1:26:19)
that will help things. I think that's just a model for life as well.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:26:21)
Great advice.

Yeah, nobody can handle it when you're hangry. That's solid advice. Hannah, anything for you?

Steveston Creative (1:26:27)
that.

This piece of travel, you won't regret it. you just like that you there's travel's not wasted time and not wasted money. Like you're not going to look back even like going during the pandemic. Like that was like, or at the beginning of the pandemic, like we like lost a bunch of money. But you know, there's people that like we wouldn't have seen for years

You know, like there's always like something that comes out of your trip that you're like, well, thank goodness we were there for that. Or like whether it's visiting family, like, or taking your family on an experience. Like it's, it's a lot of work, but it won't, you won't regret the, it's not wasted. No travels wasted. I think I could tell you who would have said that, but I'm sure somebody said it to me.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:27:21)
Yep, I love

Yeah. On the other end, what's the worst piece of travel advice you've received?

Steveston Creative (1:27:37)
I take it back. My other piece of travel advice would be that it takes about an hour, a day per hour of jet lag to acclimatize kids. So if it's like a six hour, like just so that, yeah, you know, so that you know, you don't have any misconceptions, just accept that it's going, your sleep will be messed up. Your children's sleep will be messed up for like, yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:27:48)
Yes, I've heard that before.

Steveston Creative (1:28:04)
it's eight hours difference for the first eight days like so like adjusting your expectations but worst piece of travel advice trying to like well for my family going on in like I'm gonna book an overnight flight because then the kids will sleep and then we'll wake up like no just don't expect your children to sleep at all on a plane so may as well take the daytime flight

so that you can arrive and it'd be kind of nighttime. Because like, yeah, taking the advice of a night flight, my kids didn't sleep. So then they're even more screwed. I'm going to pass on this one. I can't think of any poor travel advice I've got, which I guess is good.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:28:49)
Okay.

Yeah, window seat or aisle seat.

Steveston Creative (1:28:56)
Aisle! I like window. Which it works out, but there's always a person in between us. So then you're forced to then choose a middle seat because I win up. But now that we have kids, we like book out entire rows so it doesn't matter.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:29:09)
Yeah, that's so true. If you could go somewhere in the next hour, time, money, kids, nothing matters. Where would you

Steveston Creative (1:29:18)
Yeah, we'll go to Greece. I would. Yeah, pack the kids. Yeah, I'd take my romantic trip right now with the kids. We can always go back again. Do a big, well, Europe trip, I suppose. Yeah. But Greece, because it's summer there too. yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:29:26)
Nice.

Okay, this next one, you have a choice. You can either describe yourself as a traveller in three words or your partner as a traveller in three words. May the odds be ever in your favour here.

Steveston Creative (1:29:49)
I don't volunteer your trivia.

I would say...

I'm organized.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:30:07)
Hannah is giving Emmett eyes right now for anybody who's listening.

Steveston Creative (1:30:15)
I don't know. Yeah, I was gonna say. You like to learn on your travels. You like to be inspired, On your travels.

I've got like

I don't know, is it practical? Since having kids. You also like to chill, like you're not the person. Yes, I would like, I like, I like to be a relaxed traveller. And so you like to organize up until you get there and then you want to chill. Yeah, I don't want to be hopping around till that's, guess why I also like to go to a place for like a chunk of time, because I don't want to fit everything in. Like I want to do a couple things and then I want to chill like and.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:30:55)
Yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:31:03)
Yeah, like I am happy to stay at the home house and drink tea and relax and everybody can come to me and visit. I don't mind visiting. I like them to come to us. I like to be relaxed. Yeah. I'm like, if I had it, I'm like spa person. I'm like, that's why if we had the money it'd be bougie travel because

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:31:10)
Relax. Yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:31:32)
I'm okay with saying I like to go to resorts and things like that. We don't go to them very often. But yeah, I like to be relaxed and practical at the same time. Yeah, I'm, I would say, pretty laid back on holidays. I like to take it pretty easy as well. I also like to explore, not necessarily the nightlife, but like the evening.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:31:56)
Craic

Has it worked?

Steveston Creative (1:31:57)
yeah, craic

Yeah, I like seeing how people enjoy themselves after our cycle into bars and nightclubs and stuff. Not that we ever really get to do that very often, but that is enjoyable. What are you going to use for me as a traveller? A traveller

Yeah, I guess you're pretty easy going. To a fault? Maybe. You're social. You're a social traveller, so you enjoy going out to bars and nightclubs and that kind of thing. And I might do one of those on a trip, you know, like, but I'm happy to let him go out. Like, when we go

He's got so many cousins and things like that and there'll be nights out and stuff and I'm like I'll go to one maybe and happy to let him go on his own. So you are social. You really like to be a social traveller. you're like I...

can go out for till 4 a .m. and I'm like, drop me off at home at midnight kind of thing. So yeah, social, relaxed and... It's been a thread through our relationship. Social, easygoing

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:33:22)
Good balance, good balance.

Steveston Creative (1:33:31)
not a That's an easygoing category. That's okay. Okay.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:33:33)
Go with the flow. with the flow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, last two questions. Best gift for a traveller perhaps of the parent sort then now that you guys are in that stage?

Steveston Creative (1:33:39)
Okay.

Like, for To give to a parent?

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:33:49)
Yeah, or something that could help them get through the travel process if maybe it's their first time travelling with kids or something for the parent themselves because I feel like the parents get left out sometimes once you have kids we talk about the kids all the time but we don't talk about the parents.

Steveston Creative (1:33:58)
physical gift.

physical gift.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:34:11)
It doesn't have to be physical.

Steveston Creative (1:34:14)
Well, I liked... when you... Wait, when you come, you're like, you're giving a gift to somebody because you went away and you're giving a souvenir. No, they're going travelling and you're giving them a gift to ease their travels. That's how I understood it, at least.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:34:29)
Honestly, this question has been answered in so many different ways that I almost don't want to say too much because I'm curious as to how people...

Steveston Creative (1:34:35)
Somebody

gave like, and this isn't for parents, but I think you could like tweak it for parents. But I remember when we went on our honeymoon, a friend, some friends gave us as a wedding gift, like high tea, like gift, like gifted us high tea to like a super nice, like, like fancy place and in Edinburgh, I think it's called the Balmoral And, and we wouldn't have

booked that for ourselves, but it was like, we loved it. And you were forced to experience something that you like, I mean, I love high tea, but we never would have, I don't think like actually booked it for ourselves. Like we were being like, we'll go out for nice food, like restaurants and that kind of thing. But it's like when you're forced to experience something new because you've been gifted, like, so if it was for parents,

I don't know, maybe it would be a restaurant gift card that like you really like in the destination they're going, or maybe it's a, maybe it's a night in a really cool hotel for the family with a really cool pool or, or maybe it's a night, I don't know, but contributing to, to yeah, somebody's trip,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:35:35)
Yeah.

cool experience.

Yeah, I love that, an experience. That's a great idea.

Steveston Creative (1:35:49)
I don't know. Yeah, like contributing

to people's like future travel

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:35:54)
Very cool. Alrighty, last one. Best travel app or piece of technology,

Steveston Creative (1:36:00)
So best travel app for a parent Playground Buddy Now you can use that anywhere in the world and you can put in where you are and it'll show you the playgrounds where you are and it'll, it'll show you and you can like update it as a user.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:36:13)
That's really cool.

Steveston Creative (1:36:17)
and people will upload photos so I'd be like you know there's swings there's a slide there's a splash pad there's whatever I want to say Google Translate.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:36:25)
Yeah, that's a really

cool... Yeah, got your time. Nice. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. Very cool. Well, thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast. Honestly, we were long overdue for a catch-up anyhow, so this was a real treat in many ways. But I can't wait to see how the rest of your summer is. I love watching what you guys are up to on the island and...

Steveston Creative (1:36:31)
Keep us up,

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:36:52)
I can't wait to hear about your future trips to Ireland and elsewhere!

Steveston Creative (1:36:56)
Thanks Tara and yeah hopefully we'll see you out here very soon on some of your travels. We'll see, we'll see.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:37:02)
Fingers crossed,

yeah. Is there anything else that you'd like to leave the listeners with? Whether you want them to check out your social media, your website, we can talk about Steveston's Creative if you want in there

Steveston Creative (1:37:14)
We can give a quick plug. So yeah, we're business owners for Steveston Creative. So we make custom LED on signage and artwork for weddings, events, businesses, home decor, all sorts of things. So if you want to check that out, we're at Steveston Creative on Instagram and you'll find all of our other links if you go there. Cheers.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:37:35)
Sounds good. And do

we want to plug the educational business?

Steveston Creative (1:37:38)
We

have a small kind of startup. It's mostly following our homeschooling journey. So if you're a homeschooling family or curious about it, we make our own wooden educational resources as well. So it's at Wonder and Wood. And we don't have a website or anything yet. Just starting to upload things. Although I've taken a bit of a social media hiatus in the past month or so, but I'm going to... Enjoying your summer. Yeah.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:38:06)
Yes, yeah, and all of their stuff is gorgeous. I've been watching them along both of these journeys and I know the quality of work and the creativity is top -notch. So go check out what they've got to offer. Buy some signs! All right, we'll catch you guys later. Cheers! Yeah, no. yeah.

Steveston Creative (1:38:19)
Thanks Tara. Thanks Tara. I'll have to get one for the background of the podcast. care. Cheers.

Tara (Travel With TMc) (1:38:27)
Bye.

Steveston Creative (1:38:28)
Bye.