Episode 33: Summer Lovin’ & Cruisin'

Episode 33 is a chaotic, funny, and surprisingly thoughtful catch-up on everything from surviving summer camp to getting ready for a much-needed cruise. Micah and Addie recap Addie’s intense season as a camp counselor and media team member, including long days, bunk-bed struggles, endless editing, camp drama, and the behind-the-scenes work that keeps camp running. They also talk about the faith-testing side of ministry, the meaningful moments that made the hard work worth it, and how camp pushed Petrea without changing the core of her belief.

The conversation then shifts into friend-group chaos, birthday plans, cruise prep, family travel, and the everyday madness of adulting. Micah shares his own summer updates, including his walking routine and the strange things he’s seen around campus, while Petrea talks about moving into her first apartment, packing books, and juggling a packed schedule of travel and celebration.

One of the biggest topics in this episode is dating and relationships in today’s world. Micah and Addie get into modern Christian dating, old-school courting, standards, communication, and why a lot of younger people are pushing for intentional, respectful relationships instead of wasting time. They talk about what it means to date with marriage in mind, how to spot red flags early, and why real connection matters more than apps, games, or surface-level attraction.

Also in this episode: a surprise friend drop-in, funny stories about camp crushes, family humor, and Addie’s big goal of handwriting the Bible and eventually comparing it with the Quran and Torah. It’s a lively, honest episode full of faith, friendship, dating, camp stories, and plenty of laughs.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Well how do you do folks? Do you know it's already July? Like the middle of July.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, it's been a minute. Some we're done this dang. Some we done this dang.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Are we gonna go back to normal once summer's done?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Yeah, probably. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Guess what? What? It was your birthday!

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Yep, it was my birthday.

SPEAKER_03 1:48

I don't even know how old you are. What, 19?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

1-9. The big one nine.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Big one nine. Everything changes.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, which actually means that I've completed 19 years on the planet. So this is technically my 20th year on the planet.

SPEAKER_03 2:08

I guess that is correct because I guess you do start as zero.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

You start at zero, and then once you've completed one year, you are one year old.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

And you're working about it like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

And you're in your second year of living while you're one.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

So should we change the whole dynamic of like uh you're really nineteen, you're really twenty years on the planet.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

No, no, no. Nineteen means you've completed nineteen years on the planet. But I'm in my twentieth year.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

Oh, you don't want to be like 20 OTP. Yeah. No?

SPEAKER_00 2:44

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Actually, I guess it's still the same because you've really just completed 19 years on the planet.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, so I'm in my 20th year of living, completed 19 years.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Gotcha. I mean, really, it's four days, so let's just be real.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

So you really haven't really done much more than 19.

unknown 3:05

No.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Um. What'd you do this summer?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Um, well, camp counselor. That ended yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

We talked about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, talked about that last episode. Finally done with that. 57 days of that.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

57 days.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

And were your accommodations four star?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Um it wasn't that bad. I mean, we we had pretty nice rooms and our own bathrooms and whatever, which was nice.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

I mean, that's a pretty good one.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Had to share a bunk bed for most of the summer though, which kind of sucked.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

Oh, like the same bed?

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Bunk bed, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Oh. I was about to that what kind of camp is this? That was weird.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Bunk beds. We had bunk beds.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Were you on the bottom or the top?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

I was on the bottom. But every time Nat moved, I could feel it, and I was like, girl, stop it.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Uh and she's a restless sleeper.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah. She tosses and turns all night.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Yeah. Yeah, I can handle that. Probably those beds are squeaky too. A hundred percent. And the mattresses are old and probably paper thin.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yeah, I mean I had a mattress topper which made it a lot more bearable. But still wasn't great. But it was okay. For camp life, it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Yeah, you don't really shouldn't expect much for camp life.

unknown 4:35

No.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

Hmm. Well. Have you had fun? I know you took like a thousand pictures.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

I did a lot of pictures. A lot of pictures.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

That was your that was your main job was doing pictures and then putting stuff together?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, so I took pictures and then I edited the pictures and then sent the pictures out to the like uh whatever it's called, that like all the pictures live on so that the students can go back and find pictures of themselves.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

That's fun. Yeah. Super fun. You had a different group each week, so that means you probably did seven different camps.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Well, every camp is four to five days. So we did five of our own we did two camps to start.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Three of our own camps back to back. And then two more other camps, and then one more other camp, and then two more camps back to back. So two, five, seven, eight, nine, ten. I was there for ten camps.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Ish. I think it was ten. Ten or eleven, something like that. And kids of all ages for the most part, so I mean mainly seven through twelfth or graduated. Seventh through graduated was mainly what we had, but we had one camp of third through sixth.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, but all the other ones, and that one was four days, but all the other ones were seventh through graduates.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

So was the three through six easier?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

No. They don't listen at all. No. And they get hurt a lot more.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yes. I mean, I could see that.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

And they miss their mommies and daddies a lot. So you get homesick really easily.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Now you didn't have to mess with them in their cabins, right? Because they just have their own counselors that sleep in the cabins.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Yeah, they have their own church leaders that sleep with them in the cabins, which is nice.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

And then did you have different bands every week, or is it like the whole the same worship band for like a month?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

No, so every every week was a different band, kind of. We had the same group that came a couple times. Um that was awesome. It was like the Tyler.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Tyler Murphy?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, the Tyler Murphy music.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

That band, they were there for three of our camps. For our own camps, they had three of them.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

He was actually there when they were young, young, when you were there. They were one of the bands that played.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Yeah, they were awesome. And they were really fun to like hang out with and talk to.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

I mean, so you did 50 some odd days. What has it changed your perspective? Are you like going in, maybe you weren't as this will sound weird. This is the wrong wordage. But going in, were you churchy church and now you're churchy churchy? Like, did being at this camp with all these kids and seeing life change and all this stuff that renew your Jesus in you?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Honestly, no. Like, as weird as it sounds, like I feel like I walked in pretty, pretty strong in my faith.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Um, and the camp really tests your faith, um, just because of simply how hard it is. Like, it's honestly impossible to explain how hard camp is. Like, it was 15-hour days, long days, you have fight with your coworkers, um, you have problems with your boss, um, there's drama because you literally are always together.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

So, I mean, as much as I want to say, like, oh, I'm walked on a new Christian and a new person. Um I really didn't. Like, I I loved it, and I loved the life change that I got to see and literally like be a part of and have my fingerprints all over these kids because like I literally brought a girl to faith, and it was one of the best things ever. Um, but honestly, I still feel very, very strong in my faith, like I did in the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

So you were you were you went in pretty red to go.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

I mean, I'm like still struggling, you know, with I I mean, me and Jesus are good. It's just the people that I run into that are part of the Jesus thing. That's I guess what I'm having a trouble is like going back and being able to trust anybody.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, I mean, there were definitely moments where like you know, you want to be there for the kid. Like, there were a lot of moments where I had to remember I'm here to serve the kids and bring the kids closer to Christ, and I can't let my relationships and the fights that I have with the other people I can't stop that. Um so that was definitely hard at times, but yeah, because I'm not gonna lie, like it was hard, like it's it's a rough thing to do. I mean, you have 15-hour days, you're eating the same meals every week, and they're real greasy, um, and you're literally with the same people all day, every day. You get one day off a week, and even then, like this last stretch, I worked 11 days in a row of 15-hour days. You know, you have turnover days where you clean the entire camp. Sometimes you have a camp leave in the morning, you clean for three or four hours, and you got to be ready to go for that camp coming in that afternoon. Because like, even though it's you know, that camp's last day and your 40th day, it's that camp's first day. Like you have to be ready to go. So it was just moments like that of like not really having a whole lot of rest. Um, definitely, definitely drains, like drains you.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Um so it's hard. And like kind of the same thing of like my me and Jesus, we were good. Me and the kids, like, there was there were two groups specifically. One of them was at the beginning of summer, and one of them was journey three, which like happened like last week, um, that really reminded me, like, this is why I'm here, like this is what I'm doing. One of them was a group of um ninth and tenth graders, and then this last one was a group of like juniors and graduates and seniors and um that you know aren't far from my age, so it's like it was just really cool to watch all these moments, and like that kind of restored my faith a little bit. Um, but there are definitely people still that I think at that camp that um could treat others better. I'm gonna say that. Um, to make it a little bit more manageable just because of the way that some people were treated and the way that I was treated in just certain situations.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Um I think people forget that or sorry, people think that because you most Christians are pretty nice and they they do good and they they just want the best for people and they're respectful and all that other stuff that everybody is like that. And it's not I mean we've talked about that on here before a little bit previously, is like um people are hard no matter where you're at, whether they're Christian or not Christian or whatever, and the one who could be the most Christian-ish sometimes make you feel the worst.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, and there's like like I I think I definitely some Christian, and like the hard part is like Christians get a really bad like rep sometimes because it's like somebody will run into Christians and they'll be like fair, like almost like Pharisees, and they'll be like, Oh, you're doing everything wrong, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, you're going to hell because of this and this and this, and it's like that's not what our faith calls us to do. Um, so it's just you know, ministry is hard, camp ministry is very hard because you're just you're literally go, go, go, like without a stop. Like my boss literally hasn't had a day off in at this point, probably like two, three weeks. Like, literally has not had a day off. Our head of our health center hasn't had a day off in since June 21st, and before that it was like a month and a half. Like it's yeah, it's so go, go, go that it, you know, you can get so lost in what you're doing and why you're doing it and going through the motions, and um, it kind of makes you want to not be nice to each other, I guess. Um, because you're so go go go and because you're all stressed and because you're all doing different things. And my team was really hard because our team was looked down on a lot, like the media team, um, because it's kind of the thing of like, oh, your job's not that hard. And it's like if you saw what we do on a daily, you would understand.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Like, right.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

To put in perspective to those who have never done media, never been a photographer, don't understand, or never been to a church camp. Um, church camp is as a camper is hard. Like you are go, go, go from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. You don't really get nap time, which kind of sucks. I wish we had nap time. Um, you're doing min, you know, you're doing worship, but you're also going on banana boats and going to Xbox and shooting BB guns, and then you know, you do all that, you go to the pool, you get super tired, you go to your three meals a day, and then you got to go back to worship, and then you have late night events and whatever it is. And so media for like for us, like rec, for example, has to run rec stuff, right, and serve in the dining hall, and then they have their nightly rotations, but they're working in the morning from like 10 30 a.m. to noon, or 10 to noon, let's say that in the morning, and then at in the evening they're working 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. So you got what five hours of really hard you're outside, you're interacting with campers, you're lifeguarding, you're doing whatever it is, you're harnessing people for the hexapod, you're working the zipline, but that's only five hours of that, and then you're helping in the dining hall, which is pretty chill. When it's not crazy, it's pretty chill.

unknown 14:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

The media team is shooting worship or like taking pictures of worship, taking pictures of wreck out in the sun with you, trying to interact with campers, getting campers to do fun stuff so your pictures aren't boring. Because you can't walk up to a group of campers that you've never talked to and go, hey, smile and pose. You have to like build relationships and build conversations. So you can go, hey, jump in the pool real quick with this GoPro and you know do something cool underwater.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

You can't just walk up to a random kid and just say that. Like, and you have to know who's gonna be good for that. You have to watch personalities.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

That's what I'm saying. You could go up to any random kid, but then you're gonna get crap and you can't.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, like you have to like know who these kids are, like you have to know who your vibrant kids are. That'll be fun on camera, basically. Um, so we're shooting wreck, we serve in the dining hall every meal as well. We get let out early for breakfast and dinner because of the fact that we have to go serve and worship, but we're serving meals where you clean the dining hall after lunch, and then right after that we go back to shooting tour. We're back out at wreck shooting wreck. And then we're serving dinner, and then we're getting ready for evening worship, and then we're in evening worship, either on production, doing slides or lights or sound or not sound as much, our sound guy does that, but you know, so pro presenter and sometimes lights, um, making sure everything's ready. If you're part of Color Wars, you know, you gotta put on your big getup of all blue of these campers' clothes and wigs and stinky stuff, and you know, trying to be hype and win for these competitions. So then you gotta go run and shoot worship and um then like for me, like I did all of that, and then all of my editing for the day happened during the sermon and then during church group time, so like a solid maybe hour and a half to do all of my editing for the day, and then I had to be back outside shooting late night event until like 10:30, 1045, and then using those 15, 30 minutes and sometimes even longer to edit to then be late to curfew every single day. Right, like it for us, and but it's all behind the scenes, like all of that is so behind the scenes, like you don't know how hard your photographers and your videographers work. Like Kirby, for example, is doing all of that and also creating a highlight video of that day. Like he has to take everything from the morning in the afternoon and in the evening, turn it into a video for evening worship of let's see what you did today, and it's about that day.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Um, so you know, it's just things like that that it's like it's so behind the scenes that nobody really thinks about it. But it's like, you know, we're shooting I don't know, 2,000 pictures a day, and you're getting 500 finals a day. You know, 300 to 500 finals, you're shooting 1500 to 2,000 pictures a day, and then all of those are getting edited that day. Like it's it's a lot, and it's hard because you're sitting in front of a computer for an hour and a half and you're like falling asleep. Like I lived on energy drinks, like literally lived on so much caffeine because of the fact that I by 4 p.m. I've been outside all day. I've been working in the dining hall, I've been go, go, go, haven't had a break. And I'm sitting in front of my computer for an hour, right? Editing pictures in a dark room listening to music. Like I'm falling asleep, like it's bad. Um, so you have to wake yourself up because you gotta be ready to go for the rest of the day. Like 5 p.m. Everybody's like, Oh, it's dinner, our day's almost done, and it's like we still got six hours left.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Like, I mean, we went to camp many, many times, and you'd see those people running around, and then some days you'd see them, and then some days you're not, because I'm guessing they had days off, probably, maybe, if you're luck if they're lucky, if you have a full staff, and then you're dealing with people who are like uh not even a full staff sometimes, like they need like four more people, and and usually there's two photographers, and then there's like three or four media team, and then you got greeters and you got a rec team. And if you got a giant camp of two, three hundred people, then like you need a lot of rec people to do two, three, four hundred people in some of these bigger, bigger camps.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Oh, we have eight hundred people to camp.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Yeah, well, I mean, even then, I mean that's a lot of rec because you can only have what fifty people in a group, maybe, if then some are twenty, some are thirty.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Yeah, like we have like we have color groups, and then like depending on your color group is depending on like where you're going that time.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

So it's like we have six anywhere between six fifty to like eight or six fifty to like seven eighty. So there's you know, only six color groups. So there's over a hundred people in all of these color groups, and then so you have over a hundred people, or and then two color groups are together. So you have over like two hundred and forty people, uh nope, all on wet activities, which means that they're all going to the pool or the pond or banana boats, and so and you know, you gotta have five lifeguards on stand at the pool and the pond, and then you gotta have boat drivers because we drive the boats. Summerstaff drives the boats, and then you gotta have lifeguards down at the boat dock to make sure that like lifeguards are good or life jackets are good and people are checked in and at the right time and whatever it is. Um, it's like our rec team had 30 people on it or something like that, and still wasn't even enough people to like make it work. Like we still were understaffed on rec, which is crazy because we had 30 people, but it's like when you really think about it, and it's like not only is it um wet activities, it's also things like BB guns, archery, axe throwing, and then the hexapod, which is like so dangerous, and you have to have people to harness and then be on the hexapod and run the zip line. And so like it truly takes such a team. Hexapod is like this giant freestanding thing that has like a ropes course in it, basically, but it's like this giant like six-story thing, and then there's a zip line at the top that you go to one side and then you come back. Oh, yeah, it's like newer, it's the last couple years. It wasn't there when we went there, so no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Yeah, we got it.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Um, I have some special guests for you that want to say hi. We're gonna take a quick intermission from camp.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Hello! Hey!

SPEAKER_03 21:18

What up, nerds?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

What's up, if it's you? I know he called me a nerd on Instagram. He sent me a DM and he was like, five days, you're still a nerd. Oh right. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

I mean, you said five days. I was just filling it in for you.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Bro, I can't.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Okay, we'll do a small, we'll do an intro for the pod for who they are. Um these are two of the other besties. Um you met Natalie episode five. Go check it out if you haven't already. Special guest number one. This is episode what? 30.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

33, maybe 33. I think it's 33. So we're having special guests early because I wanted to surprise you. Um, but yeah, so our friend group is a friend group of four. We're called the core four or the council or the realist bitches of Hayes County, whatever you, whichever one you want to use. That's just who we are. The House of Hormones, if we include Mike and House of Hormones, yeah, House of Hormones, HOH. Um, but so we'll do Val first. Val, I met at work at Cracker Barrel. Um two, yeah, two years ago. We became really close at work. Um, and then the whole friend group was made at Port Orange this spring break, senior year. Um, but yeah, we met at work, became really close friends really fast, and then just hung out all the time outside of work and became friends. Um, I don't know when you met Micah.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

I don't know when I met Micah. I think I came over one like for Port A. He was just there and everyone was calling him Papa.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

And I was like, okay, Papa! Yeah, no. So one thing about my friend group is everybody calls my dad different versions of the word dad. Like we have papa, we call him Avery calls him Michaela, yeah, um Mikael, which I have yelled before. Um me and Nat just say papa because it sounds funny and like English, and we're like not English at all. So it's just like funny things.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Girl, you're Like uh you are super English. Look how pasty you are.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Okay, right. So we didn't have to out me. I'm actually more Irish than you. I have a little bit of Irish in me because I'm a redhead.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

You're tan, you're tan-ish now.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

I'm tan right now. You are tan. I'm tan right now. I've never seen the light of day. Yeah, my thigh, my upper thighs never seen the light of day from my um modest shorts. My feet, so white. Um, but yeah, so that's that's about and then Avery I've known for a really long time. Like we met in high school randomly from powerlifting and some other things, and just like ran into each other because we ran around the same crowd, kind of. Um and then Miss Gomez. Miss Gomez's aquatic science class really got us together. Then she became my nail tech.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Yes, and then she put like Miss Gomez on my like uh what the heck is it called?

SPEAKER_00 24:01

The we did the we did the we did a slideshow night, um, which Micah was there for. We did a slideshow night and it was who the who the group chat would get with if there were no consequences, and I put Miss Gomez on there. Shout out, Miss Gomez. Hopefully you're out of jail. Um shout out the deadly weapon. The salt of the deadly weapon. We love you, Miss Gomez. Free Ms. Gomez. Hashtag free Ms. Gomez if she's not already out.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Oh my gosh, you guys are dumb.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, no, so senior, so okay, so senior year, we were in aquatic science together. Um she was my nail tech, and then randomly I was like, hey girl, I know you love the beach. Do you want to like maybe go to Port Oranges with me?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

We're so cryptic. She was like, hey mama. I was like, hello. She was like, I know.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

I was just like in a random group chat one day, and I was like, and it was just like a bunch of random numbers, like, hey, do you want to go to the beach first break?

SPEAKER_01 24:49

We went from like 11 people to like four.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Oh, yeah. So the original group, the original group of Port Oranges had like 13 people because we had a big house, like there's 13 people in the OG group that was going, including my mom and her friend.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Including V and uh Cecilia. Um, two of the girls were like, My parents say I can't go, and we were like, We're 18, get it together. Um, and then one girl dropped out super last minute, super like literally like two days before.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Yeah, I love you, but I do her nails, she's kind of not punctual.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

Um, one of the other girls, her ex-boyfriend said she couldn't go. Oh, my queen!

SPEAKER_01 25:26

I was there, we were so sad. Um anymore and she's thriving. She's slow.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

So imagine how the house that we went to was haunted. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

The house we were in was haunted, um, which was really fun. And we um we're gonna go, okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

We're gonna go. Uh some love ya, Micah. Do you want to get to the point?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Where? Oh, get me Red Bull? Yeah, Dr. Pepper and a Red Bull.

unknown 25:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Low key. That sounds fire. Okay, bye. Sorry, quick intermission.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

Podcast drop-in.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Podcast drop-in.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Um well no. So, well, let's let's just go ahead and transition because I mean camp has sucked, but you're back. I'm back. Camp season's over. All the things. But since those hooligans drove up, where where are you headed next with these hooligans?

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Yeah, okay, so kind of back to so we had the original group, bunch of people dropped out, couldn't go, whatever it was. So then it was six of us, or six girls, and then my mom and her friend Cecilia. So the six girls were the main four now, which is Avery, Natalie, me, and Val, and then our friend Sammy, who we still love. She just lives really far from us. She's from Houston, so we don't see her as much. And then our friend Lacey, who has a bunch of health problems, so we haven't seen her a lot recently either, just because of her health stuff. Well, so the main four really, really got close. We hang out all the time, we love each other, like whatever. And we literally were like, What was what? New Year's? We were like, we need to go on a trip this year. What's our trip gonna be? And then Aver goes, a cruise, and we were like, Yes, let's do it. So we literally found a cruise that morning. It's like 9 a.m. on New Year's Day. Micah's there. And we're like, yes, let's go on a cruise. So we literally find a six-day cruise in the middle of summer, worked for my birthday, um, worked for mom's birthday because she's going, my brother who's going, it's his birthday too. Like, it's super fun. We're going to Mexico, which we all love Mexico, and we're going to a place none of us have been Belize. Um, and so we were like, yeah, let's do it. Well, we actually got it planned, got it paid for, and now we are four days out from the cruise. Um, and all of us are so excited. Yeah, four days. Yeah, I'm so excited. We're like, everybody's clothes got here. We got matching tops today to walk on the boat with. What? Um, yeah, we got matching like bright pink beaded tops from Ross that we got mom one too, and we're all gonna wear one.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Did you get Austin one?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

No, I thought about it. I thought it would be funny.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

That probably would have been funny.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

As like a gag gift and be like, by the way, you're wearing this on the boat.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

And it's like l it's like a tank top, like it's like that game that when you go on the the first day of the trip, everybody buys somebody a t-shirt, and then Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

We did that in Port Oranzas.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

I think I think we should do that in a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah. In Port A, we um we did a we did t-shirt roulette, so everybody got a person, and then you had to buy a t-shirt for that person.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Um, so like mine for Avery, I got her, and it was like a baby blue shirt, and it was like a teddy bear on it, and it said my yeast infection hurts, or something like that. And it was like rainbows and whatever, and it was a little teddy bear. She was so mad at me.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Those are what whole games are.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

But it was really funny. And we wore them out to the beach and we got stared at because everybody had like really bad shirts on. Um, but it was fun. We're not doing that for this trip, sadly. I tried. I really wanted to I wanted to do funny bathing suit cover-ups, um, but we just ended up it just not having time to actually like plan it out. But next trip for sure gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Yeah, it'll work. And then I mean, essentially, you come back from the cruise, and then we have to go to our little family vacation. Yep. And then back to school.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Yeah, I get back from that. I get back from the cruise on the twenty-fifth, I'm seeing my sister on the twenty-sixth, and then flying to you the twenty-ninth, or flying to Tennessee the twenty-ninth. Yeah, and then we family vacay, and then I get back the third, and then I move out the fourteenth.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

I mean travel, travel, and then travel first apartment.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Yeah, and like the guest room right now looks insane because all my apartment stuff is in there, and my room is like slowly like not having stuff in it because I'm slowly just like picking what I'm taking and just like moving everything over there that's coming with us.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

So nice, and then what are you gonna do with the rest of it? Trash it?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Um, either put it in storage or trash it. I'm gonna put a lot of stuff in storage, I think. Um, like because there's a lot I'm a really nostalgic person, so like my high school moms are gonna go in storage because I'm gonna probably do something with them in my forever home.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Encase them or do something cool. Um or just like put them in a memories box and just have them for sure. Um because I'm just I'm just such a nostalgic person, like genuinely. Like, I love little sentimental things. Um, but the hardest part right now is I have so many books. Like, so many books. So trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with those has kind of been a an adventure.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

Well, why wouldn't you just pack them up like you normally would?

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Are you are you ever gonna I am, but I don't I'm gonna I think I'm gonna have to buy a bookshelf when I get to when I get to my apartment because I think I'm just gonna have too many.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

Oh. So you can put some in storage that you know you're never gonna reread again.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Absolutely not.

unknown 30:51

No.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

I need to have them all with me.

unknown 30:53

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Every s all like I literally have like 80 books. Like I own a lot of books.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

Well then maybe you have a small bookcase in your room and then a small bookcase in the living room.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah, or maybe in my closet or something. I'll hide some of them in my closet.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

Could bruise through your collection.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yeah, for sure. But um, I've already gone through like half my clothes. I need to go through my clothes again. Um my closet, things like that. So deconstruct my bed frame because it's going in storage.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Right. So you're just gonna get a cheapy one.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Yeah. I bought a little like $150 one off Amazon that has like storage under it and all the things, so yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So cruise will be so much fun. I'm real excited. Our adventure today of the friend group was we took all the dogs to the vet. Um, which somehow me and mom did it this morning with all three dogs. It was really rough. And then we got home from the vet, we had to take the cat and all three dogs, and all three dogs were freaking out because they had just all gotten shots, and so they were really not happy. Um, and so it was really rough, and Biscuit was yelling, like literally yelling. Um, bandit was hiding under a chair, Bucket was sitting in a corner facing the wall. It was it was a disaster. Trying to get midnight in the in the cat carrier that we got was really bad on the way there, but then when we put him there on the way back, he was fine, and so we were just like, okay. But he was he was like trying to eat it and like screaming, and we were just like, like I never heard midnight make those noises, and I was just like, what is going on? I was like, is he gonna give himself a heart attack?

SPEAKER_03 32:38

He's too old for all this. Okay, so wait, why'd you bring the dogs back?

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Well, okay, so we dropped them off this morning at like 7 or 8 a.m.

SPEAKER_04 32:47

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

And then to get their shots, and then we have midnight's appointment was at 1.40, dog pickup was at 2. It was between 2 and 3.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

So we took midnight to the vet with everybody, like with all the girls, or with the three with me, Avery Val, and mom, because then we had one animal a person, which felt a little bit more manageable than the two of us with all four animals. Because midnight was gonna be a whole thing by himself. Um, and then the dogs ended up being crazy, which worked out that we had all of us, but so we took midnight for his shots and his checkup. Right because he hasn't had a checkup in like years, and the man is 14 years old and needs a checkup.

SPEAKER_04 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Um, so took him, got he got a couple shots, and then all the dogs were ready, so we like and we had them instead of bringing them out to the main room, we had them bring to the little room so we could corral them and make sure leashes were on and everybody was gonna walk and be good. Bucket ended up not wanting to walk, so we had to carry him, and apparently Bucket's overweight, which makes sense. Um, bandit's not overweight somehow, but Bucket is.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

And so yeah. It was an adventure.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

That does sound like a pretty fun adventure.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Yeah, it was it was interesting, and tonight we're just hanging out at the house with Urbuddy, which will be fun.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yeah, a little rest day.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah, and then tomorrow we're doing like my actual birthday party thing. Yeah, which is what just Urbuddy's come like literally so many people are coming over to just hang out, and then we're going out dancing to Mavericks. Nice. Which will be really, really fun. Thursday, yeah, because it's Thursday, and we haven't been in literally like two months. So we have a big group going from the house that's all gonna leave together, and then we have a big group meeting us there, so that'll be really fun. I'm gonna wear a little birthday sash. Um, I have no idea what I'm wearing yet, have not decided, but I'll figure that out later.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

So that'll be fun. Friday's a rest day, and then Saturday's pack.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Well, Friday is nails or no, Friday is start packing, continue cleaning up the room, and then I have a Quintonietta I have to go to.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

And then in Lockhart, and then after that, I'm driving to Avery's house to stay the night because I have nails at 8 30 in the morning. Which I'm not excited about on Saturday. The only time she had on Saturday, so I can get my nails done. Um, and then yeah, mom's getting her nails done, and then we're all coming to the house to make sure everybody has their documents and everything ready to go Saturday night to leave at 8 a.m. Sunday morning to drive to Galveston.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Because you're boarding and then ship takes off probably like a three or four, I'm guessing.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, we're boarding at like one something, and then ship takes off at like three or four or something like that. And then we have a day at sea, and then it's Mexico, Belize, Mexico, day at sea home.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

So, yeah. Awesome. Well, that sounds like a fun sounds like a good week after a rough or tough camp life.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm also really happy. I chose okay, so I was only supposed to stay at camp till July 5th.

SPEAKER_04 36:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

I then decided I'm gonna stay till August 8th. And then that ended up not gonna like not gonna was not gonna work out just because of like I need a pack, and there's things I need to do here, I have vacations. So now I was like, okay. I was like, I'll stay two or like nine days extra, do what I can to help, and then I'll dip out. Um, and I'm so glad that I'm not having to go on this cruise and then go back to camp because I think that I would have been really upset at myself that I would have like had to go hard for six days on this cruise, like not sleeping much, hanging out, going to the beach, doing all the things. And if you know me, I don't really like the beach. Um, I'll tolerate it. I like it, it's pretty. I don't like sand, it freaks me out. Um, I don't like how it feels. But yeah. I think I would have been really upset if I had to like go to this cruise, go to camp, go on vacation, and then go back to camp.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Yeah, no, that would have not worked. So I'm glad you decided differently.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Yeah. I mean, I still stayed extra than my contract, made a little bit extra money. Um so yeah. And if I hadn't stayed, then I wouldn't have gotten to see have that experience with um one of those camps.

SPEAKER_04 37:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

With my literally my favorite camp, I wouldn't have had that. So I'm really glad that I stayed to do that camp. Perfect. So yeah. That's been my life. What have you been up to?

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Oh, working. I mean adulting. Boring. Um I did go and hang out with Bethany. And that was fun. I got to mess with her for like a full day. And then uh my brother Zach comes by probably every two or three days. And we usually go to dinner and go have a drink and watch the baseball or you know, just kinda hang out and chill.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Yeah, that sounds fun.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

The uh I'm up to five and a half miles in the morning. Oh I am and then depending on how I feel or the weather, then I usually jump on my bike and do like two or three miles at night. Just to kinda get a little bit of exercise in and and uh it's really weird though. So here's what I've seen so far on my morning walks. Um I didn't know that Champagne had a transgender running group, and I ran into them last week. Uh all boys that wanted to be girls, and dressing like like hoe runners. And I mean you can do what you want, I don't care. But when there's like 15 of them and they're wearing skirts and their little bulges are in the front, I don't really need to see that on my walk. It was I mean, I was I was feeling a little gun shy. Cause there's big dudes and little dudes and fat dudes, whatever, and most of them had their junk hanging out in whatever they were wearing in runner gear. That's funny. That's number one. Two, um, I saw some messed up black dudes that were kind of bum ish, but I'm not sure. Maybe they were just high, but they were popping and locking and breakdancing in the archway of this Methodist church 7 30 in the morning, blasting some 80s hip hop, and like getting after it, and like looking at each other like your turn, your turn. I just I just rocked that, it's your turn, but totally tweaking, which is so funny. So I had to I had to stop my walk and watch them uh for at least five minutes, and I was like, other people should be here. This is like a maybe they should be on AGT or something. Like I don't know. Anyway, so that's number two. I'll give you two more. Uh I had some Asian ladies yelling at each other in Chinese across. So, you know, caddy corner from each other in the corners, in downtown, on the college campus. I don't know what they were saying, but they were really mad at each other, and I sat and watched that for like 10 minutes, and there were fingers, and there was like I'm gonna punch you noises and like screaming real loud, and I'm guessing they were cussing each other. I don't know Chinese real well. Um so that was pretty fun. And then uh I don't know what's happening during the summer, but there's not a lot of students, but 7 30 seems to be the walk of shame time. That sounds about right. And uh I mean it is sometimes one shoe on, one shoe off, dragging the purse, obviously really hung over, and they're like popping out of some dorm. And I'm like, well, if that was their place, they wouldn't be leaving, they wouldn't leave like that, would they?

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, I've definitely I've definitely done a walk of shame for my best friend's house a couple times of like just it's like really early in the morning, you're just really tired, and you like hold your shoot, like it's bad sometimes. Like, because sometimes you gotta be somewhere early and you like stay the night somewhere at someone's house and you're like not awake yet.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

I get it. I just kept thinking of like did they just hook up with some guy and that's their just walking home?

SPEAKER_00 41:49

Most of the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Or or they're they're they had were a little saucy last night. There's really not much going on here. Other um, there's not a huge college like college I guess everybody leaves this place when college is done. There's no summer there's no big summer groups.

SPEAKER_02 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Oh, and I did hear uh I did hear some band kids talking about their counselor and how they wanted to get with her. That was pretty funny. They may have been like in 10th grade.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

That's funny. We had a lot of we had a lot of campers try to get with a lot of our staff, which is really funny, because some of our staff is like minors like under the age 18.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Um, and so some they're like some of them are and so a lot of our um, and there's a good chunk that just graduated. So a lot of our counselors are the same age as some of our older campers. So it's really funny to watch, or like our in like summer church interns or summer staff um for the churches that'll come in will be the same age as us. So it was kind of funny to like kind of watch these like these campers try to set up, like there was a group of girls that was trying to set up their counselor with one of our summer staffers, which is really funny to watch and go down. Um and they asked me my opinion on him, and I was like, look, I don't know him that well, but I was like, just so you know, everybody tries to set set someone up with him. Um because he was you know tall, brunette, good looking, fit, like yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Um and I love him, and he's super funny and super, super sweet, but he was like really oblivious to all of it, like literally all of it. He was so oblivious to it, um, which was kind of made it funnier.

SPEAKER_03 43:29

Well, that's a real thing, like the whole camp crush thing is real.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Oh, yeah, no, and it's it happens when you're a counselor too. Like, okay, I'm gonna throw Natalie under the bus here. Natalie on summer staff had a little camp crush on another summer staff. Oh and now they're talking and they're cute and he's super, super nice. But it was kind of funny the way, like the way that it all happened.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Um, but there's a couple relationships that have formed within the staff, which is really frowned upon. Like you're really told not to.

SPEAKER_04 43:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Um, but I mean you're together so much that like it's just a proximity, and then you like learn someone's story and their testimony while they're there and you get to know each other really well. Um, so it just creates these bonds. Not even just relationships, but like even like good friendships. Like there's a girl that I walked out of camp with named Morgan, um, that I'm super good friends with now, and like she's coming to my birthday thing tomorrow. I hung out with her a couple weeks ago when we were both off.

SPEAKER_03 44:23

Right. So Well, and that's what I'm so back in the day the thought was that you had to spend all this time years with somebody, dating somebody, and then you maybe they take the next step, and it could be another two years of you being engaged, and then you get married or whatever. Yeah. Finding and reading is that if you have an instant connection and you actually like communicate, it can be like you know everything about this person in like four days. Or I mean, not everything, but you you spend so much time together or you're communicating so much like and it's open.

unknown 45:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Find out a lot of but you can find a lot of almost everything about somebody in unless you I'll just say a month.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Yeah. I mean the joke is kind of that like Mormons get married within like two months of dating at like 19 years old. Um which which is true. Like it does happen in Latter-day Saints a lot, but it's also becoming more common in Christianity where because you know in the Bible sometimes you see like, oh, we knew each other for two weeks and we got married. Like that's kind of what the Bible says, kind of a lot. Of like, yeah, I met this girl, like, da da, and we got married. Well, it's becoming now kind of a bigger thing for younger Christians to date for like four months, six months, and get engaged and then get married like a year and a half year later. Like it's becoming a it's becoming a normalized thing now.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Um, which I don't think is a terrible thing, if I'm being honest. Like, but I've also I also know people like um one of our close family friends have been dating since seventh grade, you know, and they're married and have kids, and um so I think it I think it all depends on the couple in a lot of sense, but I definitely understand the I mean there's friends that I have that I've met, and I've been like, we are gonna be really good friends. Here's my life, by the way. What's yours? And you know, we're still besties. Like that's how me and Valerie met basically. Like we had an instant connection, hung out aside work, realized that this was a real friendship. Um, and I've definitely met guys like that that I'm like, oh, like you're awesome. Like, we have a really good connection. We agree on a lot of our beliefs, we have a lot of things in common. Um, let me know more about you.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Well, and I think I think I think my my main point is is we're almost going back to a I mean, we joke all the time about like boys that don't even know that girls are whatever because they're so into their screens all the time, and even girls are into their screens because of social media, whatever. It's almost like we're going one step backwards and like, oh, we actually have to have like real communication. Yeah. And once you do that, you can tell, like, oh yeah, this is not my person.

SPEAKER_02 47:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

Or, oh my gosh, we connect on so many things, I'm not really sure how to handle this.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

Yeah, our friend group started doing a thing where if we all go out somewhere, or if we all go do something, everybody puts their phone in the middle of the table and you put it face up so that if an emergency happens or if your mom texts you, whatever it is, if you know, in that situation, you can answer. Um, but we literally all put our phones up and we don't touch our phones. We just live in the moment. Sometimes we'll like take it to like take a video or picture or whatever of the moment. Um, but yeah, so this this old idea of courting and like taking like going out on dates before you start dating, and like you're like getting away from these talking stages and actually like taking people out on dates and like opening doors and buying flowers and doing all these things is making a comeback. And I've never been so here for something making a comeback. Like, it's really refreshing to see these guys, like guys my age that are like, no, like I want to take you on a date. I'm gonna pay for dinner, I'm gonna open your door. Um, and even when like guys pick you up, like I I did this multiple times with you when I was going on a date. The guy would come to the door, knock on the door, meet you, and then we would go. Even guys that I had been dating would still do that when they took me out on dates. They still would come up to the door every time and be like, yo, what's up, how you doing? You know, give them a little bro hug. Um, if I was dating them and you knew them well, and then we would go. Like, and it's that old style of like actually dating, and it's coming back now, and I'm so so so here for it.

SPEAKER_03 48:47

Yeah, I mean, I've I've seen more guys open car doors for their girl than ever. That was like a and it's not a big thing, but it's like those super little things that show that you at least respect for sure. You respect the well for a boy that you respect the girl that you're in not you're in charge of in a in a I own you way, but in a charge of like okay, I'm taking this person out. This is this is my responsibility. Yeah. On on on so many levels. Which I think.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

And I think it's no go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

I was just gonna say I think I just think it's it's it's it was lost for a long time, and now people have decided, or at least females have decided that I got certain standards, and if you don't meet them, I'm dropping you. I'm not wasting my time trying to think that I'm gonna be able to change you into who I want you to be.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

Yeah, I think that's a big I think there's two major parts of it that have like kind of brought it back. Um and I think one of it is your generation or millennials, um, like older millennials that are now having um like older millennials and even your generation that is having these having these kids, and they're like raising them, raising these boys to be like, no, like you treat girls with respect, and these men showing a good example of this is how you treat your wife, and even if you're dating, you still treat her like this. And it's also a mix of women in my generation going, no, I'm not gonna deal with that. Like, I can I can say that every guy that I've dated has turned out to be a better man when I was done dating them. Like, literally, almost every guy that I can tell you that I've dated, like, walked out of the relationship with me because I they weren't meeting my standards, knowing that they needed to step up and elevate because they realized like you can't just you know text a girl, yo, what's up? Like, let's meet up, let's da-da-da, let's do all these things. And that may work for some girls, like for girls who are just into the the one-night stands and the flings and whatever it is. But for like I know for me and my friend group who are looking for husbands, and I always say, I'm looking for a home, not a hotel. Yeah, um, like for for girls are and especially like at our age now, it's a thing where you have to act like that. Like this idea, like, and there's a lot of people who are like, I don't want to get married till I'm 30, and that's great on you. But like a lot of the people in my generation are now like, no, like I want to be married by the time I'm like 22. Like, I want to have a family by the time I'm 24. Like, that's become that's also becoming a bigger thing, versus um, like for y'all, like you had me, you had my brother when you were 27, 27, mom was 24, you had me when mom was about to turn 31. Like, to our generation, that's old for having kids. Like 24 in our generation is like, no, that's really old to have kids. Like, so it's like a it's the other thing of like 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds are finding their life partners and getting married more and lasting because of that communication and because of being like, hey, like we need to make this work, and like sitting down and talking about things. Um, and it's really, really interesting to see kind of like all of that unfolding. Um, and I think I think it helps that like for most of my friends, one of my friends is already married. We love her husband, he's great, he's a girl's girl. We love Zach. But for the other three of us, we're really Christian, so it's also us looking for these Christian men who have the same ideals as we do, and because of that, we kind of already have kind of squished the the dating pool into being typically men who were raised to be good people.

SPEAKER_04 52:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Not always, because not all Christian men are good men. I'm gonna say that right now. Um, but it kind of already kind of gets rid of some people because you're already looking within Christians, and then you're looking, okay, I need a good Christian, I need someone who goes to church, and those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_03 52:52

Well, I uh I will agree with you, but I also think that don't rush just to get to meet a number. I know that's what it is, but at the same time you want to uh hopefully you make the choice based on all of the things and not just kind of settle. Because I think some people have settled for to to meet a goal of like I want to be married by 22, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah or whatever it is. Yeah. And then uh they didn't actually go through their whole list of things that they want.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Yeah, I think it's one of those things of settle down, don't settle. Like that's that's kind of the thing that I've been, you know, that that's kind of thing that I've been wrestling with. It was like so like this after I just got out of my relationship, which was pretty serious um for not being super, super long, like, but it was really serious. Um and I'm walking out and I'm being like, okay, like and I wrote them down. I said, okay, these are the requirements. Yeah, I said, these are the needs, this is what I would like. Like, this would be awesome if they had this, but it's not a need, but it's like this is this would be nice. Um, and it's in a way that it's a check form. So if I start dating a guy, I can literally check off what they what they hit and what they don't, so that I can think in my brain and go, okay, they don't meet this. Is it worth it to continue this relationship because this isn't being met?

SPEAKER_03 54:20

They've had a month to to check some of these things off or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:27

Because I'm one of those people that also like, I'm not gonna get in a relationship with you if I don't see a marriage with you. But that's just like that's just who I am. Um, people do it a lot of different ways. Some people date and then decide in dating that they're not gonna get married and then they dip off.

SPEAKER_03 54:41

The newest thing I've seen all over Instagram is date to get married.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Date to marry. Yeah. That's how y'all's just a big thing now because it's like our it's because our generation as girls is realizing these boys are just playing around, and like that's not and I think a lot of these girls are realizing that's not what you need. You don't need someone who's gonna be good for two months, you need someone who's gonna be good for two, three decades, or you know, longer than that. But you know what I mean? Like you're you're not looking for somebody who's good right now, and I always tell my friends this too. I'm like, you're not looking for a good boyfriend, you're looking for a husband, you're looking for the father of your children. Like, this is what you're looking for. When you when you go on a date with a guy, first date with a guy, like you you have to think in the back of your brain, like if they say something or if they do something or treat somebody bad. Like, I was on a first date not too long ago, and the person treated the waiter really bad. And I was like, nope. I was like, nope, can't do it. Because like that to me is just something that as somebody who's worked in the service industry, if you're gonna treat somebody who is literally doing everything they can to serve you and to do what they need to do to do, and doing a good job, and you're gonna treat them like crap, that's something for me that I'm like, okay, no, because how are you gonna treat me when we get in a fight? You know, so it's it's things like that that I'm thinking of. Um so yeah, that's my that's my take.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

It's uh it's pretty funny how things just end up coming back around in 30 or years. But I I'm glad for it because I think, as you said, I think the pool you will end up getting will be way better because you're not just hooking up to hook up. You're not gonna date anybody that just asks. I'm sure to do some sort of Instagram Snapchat stalk.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

100%. I'm finding your mama's Facebook before I say yes to uh to a third date. I'm gonna go I'm gonna go all the way back to the birth of Instagram before the fourth date. I'm I'm gonna find your social security number. Like I'm literally going to do I'm going to be an FBI agent, and I'm going to find everything about you before you tell me, because then I'm going to see what you tell me and we're going to see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Right. See if you're a liar, known liar or not.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Yeah. So just, you know, things like that. But I love the way that part of this new generation is dating, and it's really exciting. Um, and it's really fun to see these guys like have to step it up and be gentlemen.

unknown 57:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

Like it's it's it's kind of funny because like these dating apps are fun, like, um, and like they're interesting to see, but it's also like in some ways not realistic, like at all.

SPEAKER_03 57:29

Like everybody's everybody's lying on it.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Because the odds of you meeting somebody who meets all of your criteria on a first date on a dating app is really low. Like, I'm not saying it's impossible, it's definitely possible. But I'm also one of those people people that thinks that like you have to meet somebody in person in order to have a real connection with them and see how they are in the wild. Because like on an app or on Snap or on Instagram or whatever it is, it's a lot different than these people out in the wild.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Um you think they're lying on those dating apps?

SPEAKER_00 58:01

Dude, I think half of them are lying about their height. Like if they say 6'1, I think they're 5'11. Like, if you say that you're 6'1 on a dating app, you're probably 5'10.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Um, which is which is also really funny.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

You get to add three inches.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

Yeah, because you can kind of say what because you can kind of say whatever you want. Like the guys who are honest on it, like, that's great. I'm really happy for you. Like, there's been guys, like, I'm on Tinder because I think it's funny, not because of anything else. Um, purely because I think it's funny. And like I'll see these guys that are like 5'6, and I'm like, I'm so proud of you for putting your height.

SPEAKER_04 58:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Like, thank you. Like, that's really funny. But also, and I said this the other day, I was literally scrolling on Tinder with a group of the girls, and there was a guy who's 5'5, and I was like, Men that are five five, I didn't think they made them like that anymore. Like, I literally made the joke because it's like normally like when you think of guys, you think like really like taller and whatever. Like, um, but anyway, I made a joke about it. But yeah, I think it's really I think it's really interesting to see how this kind of dating world is changing in a lot of ways, especially for our generation. What also makes me excited for like the generation of our kids, like if this is how the standard is now, like with our generation, you know our kids are gonna be taught the same way. So I think we're definitely stepping back in like the way that dating goes, um, and making it a little bit more formal and a little bit more respectful, and um, which I think is really awesome because it's like girl, like I think a lot of girls realize like I don't need to chase a man, no, you know, no, and um like and I I always bring up like in the Bible, like Adam and Eve, I'm being like, Eve didn't have to chase Adam, God didn't make five Eves for Adam, God made Adam, and then from Adam's rib made Eve for Adam.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

The ultimate helper.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Literally didn't have to didn't have to go and chase, didn't have to deal with disrespect, didn't have to do any of that. He made Eve for Adam.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:03

Like Well, and that's why I think it's pretty awesome that this whole I mean we'll see, but when you kind of know, you know. Like you run into that person, you're like, oh, well, it's supposed to feel like this. Yeah. We can talk this easy and and we have the same every almost everything, and and it's comfortable.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

What? Yeah. I'm always a big, I'm always a big like if you can't be my best friend and my boyfriend and my biggest hater and supporter all at the same time, this ain't gonna work. Like, because I'm somebody like if I'm dating somebody, like I will be your biggest supporter, but also I will diss on you. Like it will happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:43

That's part of the fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

But I like I also want to be able to come to you, like, this is the reason I love Zach. Like, Zach for Avery is perfect because all of the girls in our friend group can go to Zach and go, hey, the guy that I'm talking to did this. What do you think? And he will sit down with us like one of the girls for tea time and tell us what he thinks. And he'll be so real about it. And then he'll make jokes with us and Avery about stuff. And like I've seen Avery and Zach fight, like yell, like yell at each other, and then right after they're literally hugging and making up, and then like Avery's slapping his butt. Like, that's just and it's because they're best friends and they're married and all of these things, and it's such a good example to me of like such a healthy relationship.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

Well, and like the the wisdom people would say it's never really you're fighting your spouse or your girlfriend or whatever. You're kind of just fighting whatever the disagreement was about. Yeah. Like it was it could be just a communication error, it could be someone thinking of something you know different than what was implied. I mean, it's usually never like oh I now I hate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

Yeah, it's never me against you, it's us against the problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:53

Whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

So Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

I'm glad that's coming back around.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

For sure. I'm really happy to see what happens. Um and hopefully that men at Texas Tech get the get the memo.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:04

Oh, I'm sure there's some. I'm sure there'll some.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Yeah. Alright. I just gotta go. I gotta go wander go wander around the ag building.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

Maybe. I mean that could be. That could be a good spot.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

Be like, hey JB, can you give me a tour of the tour of the ag building for no other reason?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

Yeah, take me to the farmhouse party.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Take me yeah, take me to the farmhouse for a or the bucks for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:29

The bucks.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

Um Well We really went off the rails today.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Yeah, it's fine. That's the that's the fun part of this. We started we kind of talked about what we were we said we were gonna talk about. That is true.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

We had a quick intermission.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:45

Yeah. So I'm not really sure if we'll be back in a week or so, maybe a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:52

Yeah, probably maybe one post-cruise before family vacay. Maybe one on family vacay. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

And your computer, because I think what we should do is I'll bring my iPad and I'll bring my things. Maybe we get Grandpa Chip on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Well, maybe we just do a whole Petri family episode, and everybody gets ten minutes, and we just bring everybody on and just see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

Well, okay. Well, let's uh let's brainstorm that. That is a pretty funny idea. Um think about that. That I think that would be pretty funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Um the last thing I have to say is that I'm starting a new adventure of writing the Bible by hand.

unknown 1:03:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

And I've made it to Genesis chapter one, verse two. Um, but I've also done like a lot of other things. Like I wrote down the Genesis Family Tree, which I don't know if you've ever seen. Look it up after this podcast. It's really, really rough, and there's a lot of incest going on that I completely forgot about.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Um, but I wrote that out, and then I've done like a couple other like study pages about stuff, um, like the names of God and what they mean in Hebrew and all the things. Um, my goal is to write the whole Bible by hand with the Gnostic stories, so the story of Judas and Mary Magdalene and all of those. And then after I do that, I'm gonna write the entire Bible in Spanish because hopefully by the time that I finish with this Bible, I will be fluent. Then I'm gonna go back and write the whole Bible by hand in Spanish to hopefully improve my Spanish.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

And then, oh, we're gonna sit off there. Once I do those two things, I'm going to read the Quran and the Torah. Like the books and the Torah that aren't in the Old Testament that the Christians use. I'm gonna go read those books. Not in Hebrew. I do eventually want to learn Hebrew and Arabic because I want to read them in the original languages, but I want to go read the Quran because I want to go see what the Muslims are about, see how it differs from the Bible, and then I want to read the Hebrew Torah, the Jewish Torah verse, and compare it to the Christian Old Testament.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

Hopefully, I can do all of that in the next like three years. Uh um, I might wait on the Bible in Spanish purely because I know that that is gonna be a rough one, and I want to be fluent in Spanish when I do that. And I'm not anywhere near there yet. I'm like, I'd give myself a solid 60% of my Spanish.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:31

Right. Um Well, I think uh don't try to push yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

Those are my new goals.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:36

Well, those are good goals. I think you're gonna take a little bit longer than that. It may take you just that long just to do the Bible.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

ChatGPC says I can do it in a year, uh nine months to a year.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:47

Yeah. Well, ChatGPC can be a big liar sometimes. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Um alright, people. We'll um We'll see you at some point. We'll see you at some point, probably next week or the week after that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

And maybe one day we'll go to YouTube and video.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:06

Yeah, I just need to get our backdrops so we look good on YouTube. Yeah. Right now we'd kind of be kind of sketchy.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

Yeah, I mean I look good. Oh, right. Okay. You don't like my blues clues toys in the background?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:24

I do, I do. They're all lined up, ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

Okay, thank you so much for joining us. I don't think we ever said the title of this thing. On the dad, you should never say that podcast. Episode we think 33. Hopefully. Um, it was a little crazy. The points never matter. And um, I guess we'll see you guys next time on the thing that we do hopefully every week, but not really every week, and that makes our lives and hopefully your lives just a little bit funnier. Peace out. Bye.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:01

Your voice is killer.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:03

It's the camp voice.