This week we take a fun look at things to do in the fall and winter season. We'll look at outdoor activities we can do during the cold months as well as indoor activities that we can do. We'll also take a look at activities we can do in the fall and winter that help to teach our children important life skills. Then we'll talk about the fall and winter family traditions that we have, what holidays we celebrate and a little about how we celebrate those holidays.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
This week we take a fun look at things to do in the fall and winter season. We'll look at outdoor activities we can do during the cold months as well as indoor activities that we can do. We'll also take a look at activities we can do in the fall and winter that help to teach our children important life skills. Then we'll talk about the fall and winter family traditions that we have, what holidays we celebrate and a little about how we celebrate those holidays.
An original podcast by a husband and wife team of self professed pop-culture geeks. It is a discussion about all things entertainment from movies and music to television and pop culture. We examine some of the more obscure aspects of the entertainment industry.
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Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:welcome to insights into teens, a podcast series, exploring the issues and challenges of today's youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison, Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of the teenage years.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 4:welcome once again to insights into teens. This is episode 43, uh, fall and winter activities on I'm your host, Joseph Waylon and my brilliant and still beautiful cohost, Madison Wayland. How are you doing Maddie? Now that we're back up and running here? Same as I normally am. Uh, so I do have to apologize. We had some technical difficulties and some software issues and buttons not working and a lot of moving parts here to make the podcast go. So, uh, we usually I check everything before hand and everything was working until we went live and then everything wasn't working all of a sudden. So Murphy's law I guess. Yeah. So anyway, this episode we are going to be talking about a less serious, less hard hitting topic. Uh, have a little fun today. Um, we're going to be talking about what we do in the fall and the winter and the cold weather. Uh, we do live in New Jersey, so we do get some cold weather here and we tend to get some, uh, some snow from time to time, which is kind of fun. Uh, so we'll be talking about, uh, what we do in the cold weather outside. We'll talk about some fun indoor activities to do. Uh, we'll be talking about some activities that TIF, teach life lessons cause we're always trying to uh, advance ourselves somewhat. And then we'll sum up with a what to do over the winter and fall, winter, what we do over the winter and fall and how we celebrate the holidays and uh, yeah, stuff like that. Yeah. So let's have a little bit of fun. Let's cross our fingers and hope everything continues to work as it's supposed to. And uh, we'll get into and we'll know as soon as we push the transition button here cause that's where, uh, everything exploded last time. Here we go and wish us luck everyone. And there we go.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 4:So today we are looking at uh, some activities that we get from a website called very well family.com we've used in the past. And I just want to run down this list. Find out if you've done any of this and your thoughts on those that you have done and if you haven't done any of these or some of these, um, why and would you be interested in doing them? Okay. So the first one on the list is go a skating. Have you ever gone ice skating?
Speaker 6:Uh, no. I actually don't know how to do regular skating and I am. I've never really gone ice skating.
Speaker 4:Would you want to do ice skating?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I really don't know because I can't, it's hard for me. I think it would be hard for me to keep my balance and I'm pretty sure I just fall on my butt all the time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm the same way. I'm not very good at that. Yeah. Number two we have on the list is go sledding. Do you, have you ever gone sledding?
Speaker 6:Not that I know of. No,
Speaker 4:not that you know of. It's not really something you accidentally do, sweetie.
Speaker 6:I don't think I've ever done it. Is it something you'd want to do? Yeah, actually.
Speaker 4:So sledding used to be a huge, a winter thing for, for me and my friends used to love doing it and we'd walk all over the place and you know, we, we'd walk hours to go sledding on good Hills and stuff like that as kids. Um, so Sam sledding your brother. We used to take him sledding in, in Belmore over by the hockey rink. He used to have fun with that. Uh, so who knows? Maybe this year will be your big chance to go sledding this year. Um, so the next one has to do with a move of, we're going to go see this weekend. Have you ever build a snowman or do you want to build a snowman? I can't remember the line.
Speaker 6:Do you want to build a snowman? You wanna build a snowman. Ever done it? Well, yes. I've actually built a snowman before and we've actually built wanting to gather.
Speaker 4:Yes, we have. Where you had the one that really big one we built that lasted like a week out there and in the sun when it got warm. Yeah. Building stone always fun. The tough part is making sure you get packing snow cause if the snow is too uh, too cold and too dry, it doesn't bag very well. How bout building a snow Fort? Have you ever built a snow Fort?
Speaker 6:I've actually tried one time when I was like in the snow, I was, it was like perfect, moldable snow and I once decided, Hey, why not? I build like a P like in a glue or something. So I started like building up a brick and I didn't really finish it because I had to go back inside and it was kinda getting cold. So
Speaker 4:yeah, that takes a while. I will do, um, especially when you're building it from hand like that as a kid, we used to kind of cheat. We, um, we live right next to, um, a supermarket and, uh, when we used to get a lot of snow, they'd bring the front end loaders into plow the, uh, the parking lot and they'd push it all off on the site and had piled it up. So we would get to like eight, 10 feet high. And then what we would do was we'd climb up on top of it and we would dig our Fort out of the top Ridge of the snow mound. So yeah. So you, you're kind of taking it away. It was a lot easier to try and putting it together. So me making a forties here. How about a snowball fight? Have you ever had a snowball fight?
Speaker 6:I think a couple of times with you guys. I w well, while we were working I'd like throw snowballs at you guys and then you'd eventually join in.
Speaker 4:Yeah, while we were out shoveling snow, we would, uh, we'd play around like that. Yeah, it's tough because cause a lot of times it's really difficult to, to pack snow, uh, with gloves on. And, uh, I usually when I would have snowball fights, I wouldn't wear gloves because the heat on my hand, but actually melt the snow. So it was easier to form a, the problem is your hands get cold really fast that way. How about going on a winter hike? Have you ever done that in the snow? Just gone off and walk?
Speaker 6:Well, I've walked, but like I can remember I would walk in the backyard just because I love the fact that my, that the snow was so deep that it would sink my, that my feet would just sink into it. The very next day when it snowed again, I would just see like smell like footprints, not even half at the point. Like it was full over the head where if, if I was actually quite light and I was just walking on it,
Speaker 4:yeah. Um, we, I used to do that. I used to be the one when it, when it would snow, I would just go out and walk. And, uh, as a kid, I, I, you know, being a star Wars fan, I'd pretend like I was on Hawk, you know? And you're out walking into. So especially when it is snowing. Um, cause the thing that's neat about snow is the acoustics are different. So everything sounds differently because the snow absorbs the sound.
Speaker 6:I know like it sounds more muffled than it normally does. Yeah. And it's awesome. And it's always like nice. Like when you wake up and you're expecting irregular day of school, but you heard that it might snow, you look out and you just see a fresh flowers. Now knowing you don't have school as part of it. But just seeing the fresh blanket of snow is also,
Speaker 4:yeah. Well see him when, when I was a kid, like nowadays when it's going to snow, your school tends to cancel school the night before and you already know so you can sleep in or whatever. Yeah. As a kid they didn't do that for my school. So we would get up at like five o'clock in the morning and the news broadcast didn't have school closings. You'd have to listen to the news station on the radio and they called out numbers. So you'd listen for your school. You had a three digit number for your school and they would start with different States or different counties and they would go through the numbers there and you were sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for them to call your school to say that you are close to that you could go out and play in the snow. So there's this sense of anticipation that you guys don't actually, you know, wind up getting these days. So the next one is kind of like a sledding, but this is a little more formal snow tubing. Have you ever gone snow tubing?
Speaker 6:No, I don't think I have.
Speaker 4:So snow tubing, they do a lot at um, ski resorts. Uh, when we took the, um, trip up into the Poconos and we stayed at the, um, I think it was called the Chateau was the resort we stayed at. It's right at the back of Camelback mountain. So the[inaudible], the skiing is up on the Mount where it's real, real steep up there. And then the snow tubing is further down, so it's not as steep, but it's a lot more comfortable than trying to go sledding too. And it's usually a little more organized and, and not as crowded shoveling snow. Now. Now their instance here says shoveling snow for someone in need. Have you shoveled snow before? Let's start with that.
Speaker 6:Yes. And I can remember, I actually pulled a muscle once when I was just shoveling snow.
Speaker 4:It can, yeah, that can happen.
Speaker 6:And I can also remember one time when we were snow shoveling snow you picked when I was really young, you picked me up and threw me into the snow and I basically just had a little hut in there.
Speaker 4:That's the, yeah, that was neat. Cause it was so deep. It was like, I don't know, three feet deep at that point. And we tossed you in in your snow suit and like you just sunk right down. Now it's funny, uh, as a kid, um, that used to be a way for us to make money. Um, so whenever it would snow, we would go around and we would shovel people out or shovel people's walkways and uh, you know, it was hard work for buddy ended a day. We could make, you know, a couple of hundred dollars doing it. So it was, it was good work. The next thing on the list is go winter camping as a family to learn survival skills. Have you ever gone camping at all? No. No.
Speaker 6:I'm not an outdoor person.
Speaker 4:Yeah, me either. If you went camping, would you want to do it in the winter?
Speaker 6:Probably cause there's less bugs and
Speaker 4:that's a good thing
Speaker 6:and it's not as muggy out.
Speaker 4:That is a good point. Uh, I'm not much of a winter person. I certainly wouldn't want to go camping like in the snow or anything like that. That's probably a little extreme for me. Uh, as much as I like the cold, I prefer the, uh, the comfort of being indoors. Uh, what's next? So hold a bonfire and let your team invite friends over. So we've never done a bonfire at home. Um, but we have attended, do you remember last bonfire? We went to? No, what was that? Remember when we went to a shady Brook and we toasted marshmallows by the fire. We did it there. We did a, we remember we toasted marshmallows down at Smithville too. Yeah. So that's kind of, they're not big bonfires or like little campfires, but same sort of principle. Uh, how about stargazing? Have you ever gone stargazing? No, not really. Oh, winter is usually the best time to go. Stargazing and that's mainly because in the winter you don't have as much haze in the atmosphere. So if you go and look up, you'll see so many more stars. Like if you go outside right now and take a look, you'll see some many more stars in the sky and the normally do. So that's a FOMO. But we have done stargazing actually we did one of the really cool, please remember when we were at a Disney and we were sitting in the stands waiting for the show at animal kingdom. The water showed a star. We did star gazing there and we had our little app on our phone that showed us where the constantly, yeah. So, and the last one that we have here, and this is kind of a cool one, is host a snow sculpture competition. Oh, have you ever done snow sculpting? I know you've done a snow man. No, I've never actually sculpted something out of the snow except for balls and cubes and stuff. Well I guess, you know, shapes is important. You have to learn shapes. Um, I did, but it wasn't a competition. You know, when I was younger, uh, my friends and I, we, we were going to make a snowman. And to be honest with you, we didn't know how. So we started like we knew how to roll the ball around and stuff and we wrote a really big base of a ball, cause we, you know, we're like, Oh, we're gonna make a huge one. Well, when we went to make the second one, in order to make it in proportion to the first, it had to be pretty big. Well, they're so big, we couldn't lift it. So we rolled it next to it and then we were playing around and we said, well you know what, that kind of looks like Java, the hut where the two bowls next to each other. So we bought, brought a whole bunch more snow in and we actually spent about three or four hours crafting a life size version of Java, the hut out of snow. I remember you told me this story and it was in the middle of a field right next to the road and everybody who drove by were like amazed at the size of this thing and how well it was made and that one lasted. Aw man, that must have lasted like three weeks in that winter. Wow. So that was a lot of fun doing that. So that's some of the things that we do. What are, what are some of the things that you do that aren't on this list in the winter outside? Well occasionally I would flop into the
Speaker 6:snow.
Speaker 4:Snow flopping is one of the things. Snow angels.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I tried to do them, but every time I do they always fail because I tried to get up and I'm like, Oh darn, I'm stuck to the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Um, anything else I ever do on the smell? Um,
Speaker 4:not in the snow necessarily, but outside in the winter time. Do you play in the leaves when the leaves fall?
Speaker 6:Well, I, you, I definitely know I used to do that. Like I would rake the leaves just to jump into them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've done that. I remember doing that. We did that up at a Grammy's. The one day mommy was in the house cleaning stuff off and we were outside and we raked the leaves. And you were out there playing in the big pile there. What else have we done in the, in the fall, in winter, um, we've done our, um, pumpkin picking. We do that. Uh, we've done apples. What are the fruits? We,
Speaker 5:Mmm,
Speaker 4:I think it was, I think we've only done apples and pumpkin's. Um, we would go to up the shady Brook. So the festivals that they would do up there, they do the, the um, fall festival where they do the Halloween stuff, which is, which is really cool.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And they also have like the light set up for Christmas and that's where you can like go and um,
Speaker 4:yup. And we'll wind up doing that if not this weekend, probably next weekend. Yeah. So lots of cool stuff to do in the fall and winter. No reason to be cooped up in the house all the time. Yeah. So we, we do try to make the most of it. Fall is my favorite time of year. Is it your favorite time of year?
Speaker 6:Honestly, um, I've re I've definitely come a liking the fall before I didn't really like it because I would always get stuffy in the fall. Now I've noticed I really don't get that much, that stuffy. It's only really like a couple of times at night and it's not even like in a complete pattern. I've actually started to like fall because the weather there is perfect plus a test my birthday and two and two. Pretty cool holidays.
Speaker 4:That's good. And you know, having your, you know, the season of your birthday to season that you're like is always good. Yeah. I love the smell of fall. Yeah. You know, would that smell of the leaves and driving around and seeing the, the changing colors of the leaves, I guess. You know, you'll get that all over the country, all over the world. But up in the Northeast here, that's always a big thing going for a drive in the country and just seeing the beautiful colors and the smell and the Christmas in the air.
Speaker 6:Plus I really liked the combination of the colors.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So. All right, well let's, let's come back and we'll talk about, uh, some indoor activities that we do in the fall. So the first thing that we talk about here that they talk about in their is learn how to do a new craft every week. Now, I don't know if we do it every week, but we do tend to get a little bit more crafty in the fall and winter just because the weather's a little bit rougher on us. Um, have you done any crafts so far? The season? Do we have any plans to do crafts? Talk a little bit about that or even your artwork.
Speaker 6:Well, um, I can definitely say, um, it's always nice during the fall or winter or anytime. We only for me to just like take out a pen and a pencil and just start sketching something. Yeah. Um, I definitely know that I like making characters who were warm clothes, like sweaters and things and hoodies. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4:Well, and you did get a lot of, uh, art material for your birthday. Have you started with any of that stuff?
Speaker 6:Well, I definitely started using the 3d pen you guys gave me. I'm actually working on one of the canvases as a special surprise for you. You don't get to see it yet. Um, so yeah. Um, very cool. I'm also actually making a brand new character that's not like I had asked someone earlier today like what should I draw? And they told me like draws something of a skeleton and I decided to make up a person in a skeleton costume. And that's kind of my thing. Like, if you tell me to draw us to an animal or anything like that, I'll always make it into some type of human. Like I made the one per like when mommy suggested, well I think it was either, I think it was you who suggested me to do the Slav. Yeah. And like we had a whole discussion on how it would look and like I actually have most of it done. It's like, it's sort of like a college student. Um, she has a really baggy hoodie holding box. She like, her hair's a bit messy, but um, she's also wearing a hood with a little sloths.
Speaker 4:Alright, well you know we are planning on doing a podcast to highlight some of your artwork coming up. So let's hold onto it for that and we can pull it out for that. Cool. So the next thing they have here is cook a meal as a family with each member in charge of a different course. How well do you think that, cause I know you're cooking already, I don't know if the audience is aware of that, but you, you cook dinner one or two nights a week now, how do you think it would work out if a different family member was in charge of a different course?
Speaker 6:Um, I definitely, I think it would be kind of good because you can get like everyone has a different cooking style and um,
Speaker 4:but like, you know, someone like me has no style.
Speaker 6:Yeah. So getting different ditches made from different people can actually kind of like be a really cool experience.
Speaker 4:And that's something we'll actually talk about, uh, later on in the show when we talk about how we celebrate Thanksgiving. Okay. Uh, let's see. Read a book every week. Now, I don't know if you're going to get through a whole book in a week, but um, do you find that you read more in the winter, the fall and winter months than you do the rest of the year?
Speaker 6:Actually, no, because I have summer reading and that's like the main time.
Speaker 4:So you read less, you only read when it's compulsory reading, you have to do it.
Speaker 6:Uh, yeah. I mean, sometimes I do occasionally read, but I don't really do it too often.
Speaker 4:Well, and nobody's judging, so I don't, you know, you don't have to get,
Speaker 6:yeah, let's just say I'm not a bookworm. I really only read when I'm told to read
Speaker 4:and you know, and that's your preference. There's nothing wrong with that. Uh, I tend to read recreationally in any, even educationally I read to, to keep up on things. Um, but I think I find myself reading more in the winter, uh, than any other time of year unless I'm walking. That's the other thing. Like I walk more in the spring and summer and the colder months, I don't walk as much, especially like if I'm inside walking on the treadmill. So I don't read as much, obviously. And when I say read, I mean listen to audio books. So that kind of qualifies as reading. Um, so they talk about joining a book club. So obviously if you're not a big reader or joining a book, clubs, probably not for you. But joining a book club is kind of a cool thing. Um, mommy's in a book club, so her and her friends get together. I don't know, she abandons us, but she goes off, you know, a couple times a month and they, you know, go over the book and they turn it into a learning experience and it's an enrichment experience for her. So she finds it very rewarding and I think that's kind of cool. Uh, how about indoor water parks? That's another suggestion to doing the, in the winter you've done those having done a couple, yeah. Do you enjoy going to indoor water parks?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I actually do. Um, I haven't actually done them when I was younger. Uh, we've started doing them when I got, when I've gotten older, so,
Speaker 4:well, it's funny you mentioned that a friend from work, uh, he was just off a couple of days in his family, went to great Wolf lodge and the last time we went to great Wolf lodge you were probably maybe three.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I was like way too small to go in the one, one of those tubes like you can, can you remember the video where I was just like trying to get the animals
Speaker 4:that was, that was in the way full. You're, you're going to struggle in there.
Speaker 6:Yeah. That's why I was in the shallow on, which was good.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, they're, they're definitely fun to do. Um, balmy has a friend of hers who, uh, let's see, Christmas day or new year's day, one of the holidays, they tend to do a water park near us and they've invited us a few times in the past. Um, museums, do you visit museums often in the months? I'll take that as a, no. Okay.
Speaker 6:Wow. I mean, we do visit, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well it's been a while since we've been to a legitimate museum, but we do go to them. We're not, you know, cultural swines. I think the last museum we went through was the Franklin Institute, wasn't it? Yeah. And that was fun. That was, we did the a planetarium that time. Yeah. So it's always fun to do that. Um, fun to go to the art museum. Um, well certain sections that you aren't resemble. I'm not big on the modern art, but I love going to see the medieval armor and the medieval tapestries and the paintings and stuff. That's always very cool. How about card tricks or magic tricks? Learning how to do card tricks?
Speaker 6:Well, when I was younger I can definitely say I always wanted to sort of be into magic or
Speaker 4:you used to do, yeah. You used to be a big magician at the, at the diner where you used to make the crowns disappear. Remember that? Yeah. Yeah. You used to take the little advertise, the little triangular advertisements and you do your magic tricks with that. Yeah, I'm planning a family vacation there. We vacation in the winter ever.
Speaker 6:Well not until this year actually. We're planning on going on.
Speaker 4:Yes we are. We are. We will be away for the holidays, which is kinda cool.
Speaker 6:I mean like I think it's after the holidays we really, I only really remember going once in January, but that's not even really the holidays and,
Speaker 4:well my birthday's not a holiday.
Speaker 6:I mean,
Speaker 4:no. Does it follow fine?
Speaker 6:I didn't know he went for your birthday.
Speaker 4:That was the first time I was ever cold in Disney though, which was kind of cool. No pun intended. Yeah. So we had fun with them. Let's see what else. Uh, Oh, clean out old clothes and household goods that are no longer want it and donate them to a charity or sell them. So a little spring cleaning in the fall and winter. I think they're getting at here and donate stuff to a needy cause do we do that?
Speaker 6:I mean we do that like kind of often like maybe every couple of months.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Periodically throughout the year. Yeah. What are we doing to do, you know? No, I think we'd donate to the Vietnam veterans. Um, they're good guys. They come in, they pick it up so you don't even have to go and drop it off. So try to support those guys. Uh, swimming in an indoor pool. Have we ever done that besides the water park? Obviously I can't really remember. Yeah, I don't think we have, unless it's a hotel, you know, if we stay overnight at a hotel, I guess great lodge technically would qualify. But they opened just recently by money work. They opened up the indoor swimming pool that was a swim school for kids. Um, which was neat cause it was, it's like a retail center and they literally dug out a pool in the middle of the what was like a store. Wow. Like five years ago it was a, it was a toy store. Oh, let's see. Take an art class. How does that sound to you? Taking an art class
Speaker 6:actually kind of sounds kind of actually gone to some school.
Speaker 4:Yeah. You're, you're a bit of the artists there. Yeah. Does the, does your school do anything special? Any new clubs or anything like that in the winter and fall?
Speaker 6:Well there's like winter sports and I've noticed more clubs opened up during the winter and fall month.
Speaker 4:Anything that you're interested in?
Speaker 6:I mean there was art club and um, the stage crew for drama club, but I didn't sign up because
Speaker 4:you didn't want to, didn't want to sign up.
Speaker 6:I didn't, I don't know one. I didn't really know how Intuit didn't know how I'd feel about it.
Speaker 4:Okay. Well you're not going to know until you join, right? She joined. You can always walk away if you don't like it. How about join a gym? You do exercise more in the winter?
Speaker 7:No,
Speaker 4:we'll move right on from that one. A watch. A play. I think we've done that before. Yeah. Well your school used to do that. They would go your, your old school didn't they used to go to a play in Woodbury at the Broadway theater there?
Speaker 6:Well, yeah, when I was in like second grade, I think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, only that was when I locked the keys in the car. I remember that. Why didn't you do that? It wasn't on purpose, sweetheart. Uh, let's see. Oh, visit a museum made an it made the list twice here. I didn't realize that. Wow. Uh, how about hold board game or video game tournament? Have you ever thought of doing something like that? I would be kind of cool. We used to do board game night, but we were at the, in the apartment you would do to do that. I think Wednesdays we did that. Um, but that would be kind of neat. Inviting your friends over to do board games or
Speaker 6:especially now that aunt Chris called me the one game.
Speaker 4:Right. That would be cool. How about, and this is, this is later in the winter obviously, but how about plan and a host of Valentine's day party ever, ever done a Valentine's day party?
Speaker 6:No. The main thing that happened in Valentine's day was just giving cards and candy that at others at school.
Speaker 4:Do you think you'd want to do a Valentine's day party?
Speaker 7:[inaudible]
Speaker 6:I really don't know. I'm not the big person on love unless it's like friends and family. Okay, okay. I'm sorry, I'm just not that.
Speaker 4:But Valentine's day doesn't have to be about love. It can be about friendship too, you know? Okay, fair enough. So, uh, how about hosting a movie marathon? We've done that before. We have, have we invited people over for it though? Nope. That would be kind of cool that that's not where we would want to host it in the backyard though. It's a little cold out summertime. We can do that though. Yeah. With the projector and soundbar and everything. We all have like this screen now. No, but we can work on that. And the last one that we have here is hold a slumber party. Do you do slumber parties?
Speaker 6:I've done, I've done that before. Um, I actually had one for my last, for my birthday one.
Speaker 4:That's true. And your birthday was technically in the fall. Yeah. So you like having summer parties?
Speaker 6:Yeah. It's nice to like have your friends come over and then you're like, I mean I, I mean at first glance you don't really get the concept, but once you finally get into it you understand. Like it's kind of fun even though you know
Speaker 4:it's kind of noisy too. I know. I was about to say that for you. Yeah. You have a lot of noisy friends. A lot, lot more noisy.
Speaker 6:Trust me, I trust me. I know, I know daddy.
Speaker 4:So that was all we had for our fun indoors or any other indoor activities that you'd like to do for fun.
Speaker 8:Mmm.
Speaker 4:And watching YouTube videos does not quality.
Speaker 6:I know daddy, I wasn't even gonna say that.
Speaker 8:Mmm.
Speaker 4:Watching the Mandalorian qualifies movie marathon on host, I guess if you're watch all of them at once. Wow. So, no, I can't really think of anything off my head. All right, well we'll put it in the agenda, but if you could think of anything. So let's move on when we come back to activities that teach life skills and I think you'll find some of these interesting.
Speaker 5:Alrighty.
Speaker 4:So the first thing they have is start a small business. Now I mentioned this because we recently started talking about this as sort of a learning project. Yeah. Why don't you tell us sort of a little bit about what we were talking about with starting a business?
Speaker 6:Well, I'll quickly go over the reason on how we started doing this. So,
Speaker 8:Mmm.
Speaker 6:I started in ha, I'd like to have mayonnaise mixed in with my ketchup. Whenever I have certain meals, like French fries, a burger apparently, um, chicken wings, chicken nuggets, those kinds of things. And you had recommended one time that, um, if I were to actually manufacture the mixture then, um, I could become an entrepreneur and make money and um, start a business of that. And then you had recommended mixing other condiments. So I think about two weekends ago we had got, we had bought a bunch of condiments and we all, um, I think Saturday or Sunday morning, I think it was Saturday morning, it wasn't Saturday maybe. So Saturday morning we all went downstairs and we made different combinations with different bases and I wrote down the results of how we thought they were
Speaker 4:and where did we go from there with that?
Speaker 6:Um, so we would, we would have, we had three different bases, Mayo, ketchup and Caesar. Right. And yeah, I know. I'm actually learning about, I'm going to learn about him in history by the way. So, um, and then we mixed w it was six different condiments because I had six pallets. We had like one of my art pallets because I wasn't using them at the time. So we just mixed it with that. Um, and we all tried a small little bit and we all read it on a scale of one to 10
Speaker 4:so we have some potential candidates that we might go to production with.
Speaker 6:Yeah, of course we didn't do ketchup and mandates because we already knew we were probably going to do that anyway.
Speaker 4:Already knew that was a winner. Yeah. So yeah, you can start a small business with stuff like that. You can register it and so forth. So teaches you how to sort of get things going, get them off the ground. Yeah. The next life skill they talk about is babysitting. Do you babysit or have you babysit? No. No. Would you be interested in doing that at some point though?
Speaker 6:I mean if I can handle my friend, if I can handle like a bug, like a bunch of fourth, fifth and fourth graders who are just completely noisy and Alec control, then I think I can handle some kids. That's what they're qualified. No, I mean honestly I've, I can like, I definitely think I could be baby could babysit because I definitely think, um, um, Oh my God. Oh. Anyway. Okay. Switch to that camera. Oh God.
Speaker 4:So moving right along, back to our technical difficulties. So the next thing they talk about is, um, volunteering to read to younger children at the library. Have you ever done that?
Speaker 6:Um, no, but I definitely think I could do that.
Speaker 4:I think that'd be kinda cool cause I know they were doing that in your school last year too. Uh, the special needs kids, right?
Speaker 6:Yeah. Um, we actually did that, so that's kinda cool. And like I definitely know I can like go like this and show the picture while reading, which is kinda good. Right.
Speaker 4:Uh, how about building a website? I know you're starting to do that in school now. Is that something that interests you
Speaker 6:honestly would actually be a good way to show off my artwork to the world? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean like I actually just like, um, the website I was planning on making is con, I called it art and animation and that's an N a little bit about that for a minute. So, um, I don't really have too many full on details, but I definitely, um, I definitely have good concepts forward. So it's basically a way on how I can teach others who want to get into animation, like, um, how to make simple sketches and, um, how, and like maybe I can, I also wanted to include like,
Speaker 9:uh,[inaudible]
Speaker 6:information on famous artists to help them out and I couldn't even help them find their art style if they needed help. And even the fact of how to animate their sketches, like make a cool little mini movie on it, even though I'm still working on that myself. Um, and so I actually have a main character forward as well. Okay. Um, it's like, and this was completely off the top of my head, it's this one cat character who, um, wears like a purple and white striped shirt with little, with like a little, um, overall skirt. And she's basically like gonna be the main icon of it.
Speaker 4:Does she have a name?
Speaker 9:Um,[inaudible]
Speaker 6:uh, I don't have the name off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure if I like found, I would probably get a name by that. But for bed,
Speaker 4:uh, the other one is too. Next one is we have is to volunteer at your community food pantry, soup kitchen or church or church obviously isn't gonna fly. But, uh, this was something Sam used to do when he was in high school. He would volunteer for the food bank and uh, I don't know if it was a food bank where they distributed food or if it was more of a soup kitchen type thing. Um, but something like that where it gives you an appreciation for helping other people, um, and it kinda gets you get you closer to the, to people in need and allows you to solve some problems for folks.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And the thing is my school was actually doing something like that. Like they said, like as long for every can of food that you bring in, um, you'd get a ticket. Um, and you'd be entered in a raffle to win something. And every Friday they double the tickets depending on how many cans you brought in. Like if you brought in five cans, you get 10 tickets. Um, and I had actually
Speaker 4:brought in three cans, um, so on a Friday, so I would have gotten six tickets. Interesting. Oh, that's interesting. How to give her a reward for it. Yeah. How about practicing budgeting skills? Do you do that?
Speaker 8:Um,[inaudible]
Speaker 4:you're doing, you don't realize it because you get money and you do chores, you get money, so you have an income. And then, you know, we did it podcast on financial responsibility already. Well, we talked about responsibility and we talked about financial responsibility in the responsibilities podcast. Um, and then you spend your money, right? So you'd go out shopping and stuff like that. So you'd take a portion of your money that you get each time, every other week, and you put that in the bank that's practicing budget skills. So you're doing, you don't realize it. Yeah. Um, well the next couple of probably aren't going to apply. The next few probably aren't gonna apply. So there's to you, at least in my applause, may apply to our audience. Uh, there is taken online class, so obviously if you're a full time student already, we don't recommend that there is visit a college which you're not doing yet, but you will be doing in the next few years. Likely she'll be visiting colleges to see if they offer the kind of environment and the courses that you're like, uh, and there is a job shadow a professional. This is kind of a, a precursor to an apprenticeship where you go around like if you want to do, I don't know, accounting or it or you know, a skilled labor thing, like a carpentry or something, uh, you would go around with, uh, you know, a professional who does that kind of work and you'd get a feel for the, the work that they do. You wouldn't get paid for it, but you would learn a lot from, from someone like that. Uh, this one is funny and I left this one in here, especially for you plan a digital detox. Do you know what that is? Nope. A digital detox is when you take a period of time and you disconnect. No TV, no internet, no phone, no video games, nothing. And you step away from technology and maybe you go for a nature walk or maybe you do a weekend retreat where you go camping without technology or you go read a book or something like that. You meditate and you step away from technology for a little bit. And I think all of us can do that. Obviously I haven't sold you on that. Okay. Moving right along. Uh, let's see. Looks like, unless you let me do art right? And then, well that's another one. That's perfectly fine. As long as not digital art. Okay, cool. Cause I don't do digital art issue. Do you draw your iPad all the time? That's digital art. What is, gosh, a life that's not digital art. That's digital art. You're creating art digitally. By definition. That's digital art. Doesn't matter. This is digital Lark. Anyway, uh, this next one here is one that you probably won't do for a little while and that is the start filling out scholarship applications to get into college. That's a fun one. How about starting a family challenge? Like a weight loss challenge or something.
Speaker 6:Okay. Why like, why would the weight loss challenge
Speaker 4:just to motivate each other.
Speaker 6:Okay. What challenges would we do? I don't know. Maybe it could go longest without technology.
Speaker 4:That's one. Uh, it could be who could read the most books over a period of time. Um, it could be, I dunno, a scavenger hunt that we do. Oh, that sounds fun. It would be any number of things that you could do to have fun. And then the last one that they have in this category is participate in a fundraiser with friends. Have you ever done fundraisers for school or anything like that? I think I might have. I'm pretty sure you have. Cause I bought stuff. Whenever you do a fundraiser, it always costs me money. I remember those. Wow. So aside from that, are there any other, uh, activities that teach life skills that you're involved in besides podcasting? Well, it's true. Um,
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, there was actually the, um, the coat drive that Zack that's going on at my school, like where kids donate, like the codes that they aren't using. I haven't done it yet. I haven't really done it. And it's like there were posters all over and like you would donate coats for like families in need.
Speaker 4:That's another good one. Any kind of, um, like sometimes there's gift wrapping. You volunteer to work at the mall to gift wrap for people. You make money for charity that way around this time of year too. I had a friend that used to do that, so lots of different things you can do out there. So when we come back, I want to talk about more about what you do in the fall and the winter and we'll talk about how we celebrate the holidays too. So where do you go? What are some of the things that you do? Um, we talked about going up the shady Brook for the Halloween stuff and the Christmas lights. Let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 6:Alrighty. So she broke. Um, we actually, um, I remember going there, um, a few weeks ago, probably last, right. Um, and so we, so we have different things that we normally do there. One of my favorite things is one of the first things we normally do where it's like there's a little, um, inflatable pillow and you can jump and depending on new age, you can jump on it and you just have to make sure to stay clear of certain areas. It's honestly really fun to get to jump around and just have a bunch of fun. But it's definitely tiring for me. It's gun tying over the year
Speaker 4:and this isn't like a bounce house. This is out outside. It's not enclosed. And it's this big huge pillar that's built into the ground. Yeah. So how about their Christmas lights? What are their Christmas lights like?
Speaker 6:Oh, they're actually really cool. Like I remember a few years I would actually like just stick my head out of the car. Um, yeah, the sun roof. And I would just see, like, I remember one of the first things you'd see was the version of the 12 days of Christmas with all the different animals. First your seed, the partition and paired tree, then the two turtle doves. And then you just see more. You just see the repeated ones. There was all, it was also always fun to go over the fish jumping out.
Speaker 4:Right. So they'd have the arc lights. So it's a drive through light display, right? Yeah. And you drive through real slow. There's two lanes of traffic and takes about, I don't know what, 20 minutes, 2030 minutes to get through the whole thing. And uh, some of the ones you've got, uh, uh, arc lights that go over. They're animated. So you have fish jumping over you and you want, the other one was like a snowball, and then they had the big tunnel lights that you would go through. That was kind of cool.
Speaker 6:And there's all, and there's like the Jack and the Beanstalk one, which was one of the longest ones. And also one of the coolest tools.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And they had like the seven wonders a whirl. You could see the pyramid, you'd see the Coliseum. Um, just a very interesting collection of different lights that, uh, they're all custom made. They make them all, you know, themselves there. Uh, and, and when you get done, you can go and park and you can do, they have a farmer's market there. They have a Christmas village. You can go see Santa. Um, one of the things we like to do is get, um, hot chocolate and marshmallows and we roast them there, right? Yeah, we roast them. Uh, except for that one year when it rained. Yeah. Um, so what kind of home activities do we do?
Speaker 8:Mmm,
Speaker 4:what's the one time? What's the one thing that we make this time of year that we bake together? Right. Mom, mom's cheesecake, which we'll probably be doing that at some point this weekend. So we have them for Thanksgiving. So let's talk about Thanksgiving. So what do we do on,
Speaker 6:well, normally for Thanksgiving, um, we would drive three hours to go.
Speaker 4:It's not three hours. It may feel like it, but it's literally like 45 minutes, 45 minutes. And where do we go?
Speaker 6:Um, we go to GMOs house.
Speaker 4:Gee, MA's house.
Speaker 6:And um, depending on the TA, depending on the year we would have diff, we would have different relatives come and depending on the year or the amount of people I should say, we would see GMOs. Cat?
Speaker 4:Yes. Yes. And what's her cat's name? Big. Paul's big boy. And why is he called Dan? Cause he's a really big cause he's a big boy. Yeah. And it's neat cause she's got like the little shelves around and the cat runs on all the shelves up on the walls.
Speaker 6:Yeah. You can just see that. And one of my favorite things to do is like I remember last year I would just go when the area where you could get drinks and snacks and I would just sit in the one swing there and just have like big boy come in a couple of times. And he would sit with me and we would just rock.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Back on the patio there. Yeah. So do we take day trips? Where did we take day trips this time of year besides shady Brook? So we'll do Smithville is a good one. So tell us about Smithville.
Speaker 6:Okay. So Smithville is like this collection of stores that you can go to. Um, and there's like all sorts of different stores you can go to. There's that one bond, that small bond fire there that you can roast marshmallows and there's also another side, but there's like a toy store and like the Irish, um, one that you normally like to go to and there's acts. And um, if you stay there late enough, you'll be able to see a Christmas show where Christmas music plays and you just see different Christmas trees lit up at different times choreographing with the music. And that's really cool.
Speaker 4:Right? So it's a historical village just outside Atlantic city, New Jersey, and uh, it's two signs. One is, one is an older, old-style, uh, buildings that they have there. The others a little bit more modern and it's separated by a Lake in the middle that you get to walk across the bridge. And the trees that are the dancing light trees are actually floating out in the, in the Lake. Yeah. Which is kinda cool. And their time to music and they piped in music in every hour and you can see little led light shows and stuff like that. Uh, there's usually seen as there and they've got a big giant Christmas tree there. They've got the, the trains decorated up for Christmas, they've got a carousel there. It's really a great, great little place to take the kids and, and have a good time out there, get some hot chocolate and, and just really soak in the ambience. Uh, we do peddler's village up in Pennsylvania to tell us about peddler's village.
Speaker 6:Okay. So peddler's village is, um, a little bit different to, um, Smithville it's like just where it's like a small town where you just, it's kind of similar actually, so you could just walk around, you see different buildings and uh, there's actually like a main area where there's always that one waterfowl and we always go to see the fish. And one time we actually saw a turtle and we just took a picture of me with the turtle in my hand. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And they usually have the guys there with the hot cider where they're warming it up in the fire out there. So we like to do that. Uh, they like they do their own Christmas lights there, they do a beautiful light show there. Uh, they still have a place to go and pick up little odds and ends, little knickknacks stuff. A lot of, a lot of very good Eagle shops there. And they've got for the kids, they've got Google Berry fair, right?
Speaker 6:Yeah. And it's like I can remember I'm going there and there's like this really cute little area for like younger kids. Unfortunately I'm too old, but um, younger kids where it's like a little water thing where you can use like little rubber duckies and um, you can stop water flowing and it's like a really nice place for kids to be creative. There's also an arcade that we went to and I can remember I was just spamming like the one candy game, cause you're just got like Frank, like you, you win every time and you just get a bundle of candy. And I just kept spamming it because I just want the candy. And I used to like when the NFL and any of the other claw games, so,
Speaker 4:and they've got a big carousel there as well. And they have a ball bounce sort of thing there.
Speaker 6:And there's also an, um, an area where you can buy prizes at the arcade.
Speaker 4:Right. Gotcha. So let's talk holiday. So we already talked about what we do for Thanksgiving. What do we do? Do we do any other holidays this time of year?
Speaker 6:Yes. We do two different holidays around and sometimes that take place around the same time.
Speaker 4:So what's, what are those holidays?
Speaker 6:Well, one is a Christian holiday, one was a Jewish holiday.
Speaker 4:Could you name them Christmas? There we go. Yeah. So, and typically, you know, we do our, uh, candles for Hanukkah, right? Yup.
Speaker 6:And I've actually started lighting the candles now because I'm old enough.
Speaker 4:Yes you are. So we have three menorahs that we work with. So each one gets a different manure each night. We have, what do we have a candle one?
Speaker 6:Yeah, we have the regular candle one. We have a electric one where you turn, it's a pretty old one. So you would turn return the little things and eventually they'd lay it up. And then we have the newest model, which is a sort of Minecraft version of it where you just press the little buttons right there. Most of the modernized version. Right.
Speaker 4:And what are some of the things that we do for Hanukkah? Um,
Speaker 6:on the first night of Hanukkah we'd normally like make lockers and all the sorts of Jewish food and we'd also have a kid and we would have jelly donuts. Cause what's a lot guy? A LACA is basically a potato pancake. Um, I definitely know I don't like them. Like I've tried year and year again and I still don't like that.
Speaker 4:And I don't know why I love mommy's lock.
Speaker 6:I don't know, like the just potatoes that are fried, like[inaudible] there's different spices and stuff. I think the spices are the main problem. I've just never taken a fan of them.
Speaker 4:So we've sold you on the jelly donut style.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And we always, we also have sour cream and Apple juice. Apple sauce. Yeah. I actually mainly have the Apple sauce because that's the only thing I'll actually eat. I'm just kind of,
Speaker 4:so, and we do exchange gifts. One, one president. I usually, you know, something small, something fun we can play with. Uh, speaking. You're playing, what games do we do for
Speaker 6:well, okay, well there's the Draco game, which is always fun. Um, so there are different, um, I'll quickly explain how to play the tradeoffs. So the adrenal is like a spinning top and there are four different sides to it. And each sign and each side has a different sign and each side and each sign means a different thing. So there's, um, none, which means, okay. Oh, sorry. So you all just slow down. Take a breath. Okay. So the way you play the game is that everyone has one Tradle or Oh you share one and there are golden coins that have chocolate in them. Usually we just reuse the chocolate so we can't actually eat anything. I'm like yes. And um, we all start off with a, with an equal amount and have some in the middle. Right. So, um, each person would take a turn spinning probably starting from youngest to old then to oldest usually. Yeah. And the four different sides,
Speaker 4:prettiest at least pretty. And then I wound up spending[inaudible].
Speaker 6:Wow. Daddy. Okay. So there were four different symbols. The first one I'm going to go over with is the nun basically meaning noon, whatever, and it's whatever. And it basically means none. So the aim of the game is to basically get the most scaled. Right. So if you get none, you don't get to put anything in your thing. Okay. So,
Speaker 4:so you spend the Drayton, the Draco lands and whatever side is facing up is the symbol that you get.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And there's another one which is called shin. And isn't that like you take half Shane? I think is half. So you take half of what's in the pit, right with hat. Then the next one is heavy.
Speaker 4:Hey now, Hey his half shin has put isn't it?
Speaker 6:Oh we have to ask mommy
Speaker 4:shin isn't if we, do we need to phone a friend? Is that what you have to do it now shin is had shin is put. Hey is half. Yeah. And what do you get to take off? Gimbal? Gimme it all right. Yeah,
Speaker 6:chemo is like the thing you always want. And I can remember one time like I actually won, I actually ended up drawing the different signs of hop of the Dre dull like I drew. Two of them were girls and two of them are boards. I think Gimmel and shin were boys and hae and none were girls.
Speaker 4:So we'll probably do a podcast when we get, cause Hanukkah is late this year. We will probably do a podcast later on just on Hanukkah. In fact, I think we'll probably be on vacation when we do it or the week before. So we'll actually fact check all the speculation that we have on the game and come back with that and other important details. But we also celebrate Christmas and we're pretty straight forward when it comes to Christmas. Yeah. We don't really do anything special. We don't decorate. We get a Christmas tree, that's about it. We always have the fire, the fire fire, the UIL a Honda TV in the living room. So, but that's sort of what we do in the winter and fall for our activities. And like I said, we'll probably have a holiday special. In fact, we will, and I'll, I'll Paul plug it now. One of the things that we're working on, uh, that I don't think we've told you yet is we're going to be doing our own version of twas the night before Christmas for the podcast.
Speaker 6:Oh my God.
Speaker 4:So, and we'll be playing that, uh, probably Christmas day when we're not live, but we'll be, we'll be broadcasting. Man. Are, you know, it's going to be surprised. I can't let it all let that the candidate bag gap, but we have an idea of what we're going to do. That's a surprise for me. You both guys see so there you go. So, uh, we'll come back, we'll get your closing remarks cause I'm mad of stuff to talk about right now and uh, maybe some shout outs. Go for closing remarks.
Speaker 6:Alrighty. So I don't really know how to close, how to put closing remarks because there's no real deep message in this one. I guess just have fun this winter and fall season and try to spend it with your family.
Speaker 4:Fair enough. Any shout outs?
Speaker 6:I guess I'll give a shout out to my entire family.
Speaker 4:Okay. Well that's pretty broad. Sure. We'll go with that.
Speaker 6:I get to see, I get to see most of them during, um, uh, Thanksgiving and this year is kind of the season for giving. It's always important to talk about my family and friends. You know what, I'll even throw my friends up there. You throw your friends on a bus too. Why not?
Speaker 4:All right. Well I think that's all we have for today. Did you have anything else you wanted to add?
Speaker 6:Um, I guess just how you can find us is always[inaudible].
Speaker 4:That's a good idea. So to email us cause we want to have, we want to get your feedback, you can email us@commentsandinsightsintothings.com. You can get us on Twitch live Friday nights at eight at twitch.tv/insights into things you can get us at Facebook. You know what our Facebook is,
Speaker 6:facebook.com/insights the things podcast. Yeah, I don't really know too much on this. Okay. I'll just run down. These tend to make it easier.
Speaker 4:You can get us on uh, Twitter at insights underscore things. You can get the audio version of the podcast@podcastdotinsightsintoteens.com. You can get the video podcasts on youtube@youtubedotinsightsintothingsdotcomoryoucangetallofthisalongwithtranscriptsandshownotesandallofourepisodesonourwebsiteatwwwdotinsightsintothings.com
Speaker 6:and don't forget to check out our other two podcasts, which are insights into entertainment done with you and mommy and science in two tomorrow. Done with you and Sam, a monthly podcast, while the other two are weekly.
Speaker 4:Yes. I think that's all we had. And, uh, we'll see you all next week. Bye.