Cakes On A Plane - E34

Clancy Denton  0:00  
Welcome to the loud quiet. Ooh, empty nester. Okay. What does that mean?

Rick Denton  0:06  
I think that actually probably is the theme of the empty nest. What are we doing? Let's do this. Let's do this thing. Is this Recording. yes, Okay,

Clancy Denton  0:15  
great. Sans, children just us we need a tissue box up here to follow along on our journey and maybe you know we can learn from others.

Rick Denton  0:23  
I don't have a clue how to be empty nesters.

Clancy Denton  0:25  
This is the loud quiet, living the empty nest.

Rick Denton  0:31  
Welcome back to another episode of the loud quiet it is episode 34 recording on a actually kind of a little taste of a cool but a nice Sunday morning the day before the Eclipse. Yeah,

Clancy Denton  0:44  
yeah. Nice and sunny today. Tomorrow.

Rick Denton  0:48  
Everybody, myself included that got excited about the Eclipse because this episode will come out after it. So we'll know whether we will know whether the world ended and we'll know whether people can actually see it or not. Yeah, I

Clancy Denton  0:58  
saw some sign that said it's an eclipse not the apocalypse.

Rick Denton  1:03  
But similar endings. The Eclipse apocalypse. Yeah. So we'll see it will it may be a traffic apocalypse, that'll be kind of interesting to see what's going on. They're staying home. Yeah, you have to go in?

Clancy Denton  1:17  
Well, I'm going in. But I may leave before the chaos because where I work is a huge location for they're having an event. And so I may try to hightail it out of there. Otherwise, I'm just afraid I'm really stuck. That's what I don't want to happen is that I get stuck. Plus, it's supposed to be raining. And yeah, cloudy. Well, so it's just gonna get really dark.

Rick Denton  1:45  
Okay, I'm excited about it's going to be cool. Even if I can't,

Clancy Denton  1:48  
I really think I may just go to the grocery store during that time, because maybe no one will be

Rick Denton  1:55  
interesting.

Clancy Denton  1:57  
I can see it for the two minutes as I walk in into the store.

Rick Denton  2:02  
I don't know. That'd be an interesting approach. Okay, we'll see how this goes tomorrow. Sara. This

Clancy Denton  2:07  
episode is not about the Eclipse. I'm wondering though, how many times are we gonna hear the Total Eclipse of the Heart every time?

Rick Denton  2:16  
I've got a post cued up tomorrow for LinkedIn that is Eclipse related, and I had to back away from doing totally. Alright, I got to do something different than that. Yeah, the temptation was great.

Clancy Denton  2:29  
So yeah, so as we did last week's episode, we were in Arizona for Easter. Came home Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, got up at the crack of dawn Thursday morning and flew back out to Arizona. It

Rick Denton  2:47  
sounds so weird. It makes sense. I mean, it

Clancy Denton  2:51  
makes sense to us. I mean, well, yeah. I wanted to come back home because one I wanted to work and to you know, we're gonna be out there in the first week of May for seven days. So I you know, we're long trip planned. Yeah. So I wanted to come back home and regroup. And I mean, there were things that I needed to do that we will get into for this. This trip out there. And, you know, the whole purpose of this trip was to Egan's birthday, which is on Thursday, was Thursday. And, you know, Tanner has a summer birthday. So it doesn't matter if he's in school or what? Yeah, we've always been together. This, I realized when I said, Oh my gosh, she's going to be I'm not going to be with her on her birthday. And I was like, I'm not doing that

Rick Denton  3:47  
was the thought that. So I'm glad you're bringing that up. Because that was what I sort of we and I, we had that sort of epiphany of, oh, wait, we haven't had to deal with this before. And that's very normal for parents whose children have left the home either for college or careers or whatever they've left for, that they don't celebrate their birthdays with them. We've never had that experience because Tanner has always been home for summers. And Tegan has not left the home yet. Until now. It was it was a weird thought to realize, oh, wait, we have to do something. If we do so yeah.

Clancy Denton  4:20  
I feel like maybe one summer he wasn't here physically on his birthday because I felt like he was on a trip somewhere even though feels a little different. It is because we still got to celebrate Yeah. And

Rick Denton  4:31  
not like you're away. Yeah, something different phase of life and we don't get to interact with and

Clancy Denton  4:37  
I see on all the Facebook pages, you know, hey, it's my kid's birthday. What's a good idea that I can send them something you know, and yes. If we were not fortunate enough to be able to go back out there then yeah, I would have had to have just sent her something. But, you know, Keegan's birthday is a little bit different. And that I have been making the same cake for her. The first picture I found was on my phone was when she turned six. And she told me this week when we were there, she said, yeah, she said, I think it was finally when I could tell you, hey, I want this cake. And this is what I want for every year. My birthday. You know, I said, I felt like we did on before, but maybe not. I don't know. But But yeah, so this was that made it even more special that?

Rick Denton  5:35  
Well, there's a very specific way you make a mistake. It's not even just a type of cake. You make this cake in a very specific way.

Clancy Denton  5:41  
And yeah, because I could get a Strawberry Strawberry cake, strawberry frosting, that's her cake. You could I could buy that. I could, however, have it delivered out there. But I may get in the shape of the year that she's turning. Right. So and I didn't, we'll get to the pictures but so yes, so then I had to process okay, how am I going to get this cake on a plane to the airport through TSA. Yet first,

Rick Denton  6:14  
you haven't even checked to see if that was enough. I did

Clancy Denton  6:16  
and I knew you can bring food. But if the cakes not frosted and you bring the frosting separate, it can't be bigger than the three point whatever ounces it is because that's considered a spreadable. So spreadable and liquids are considered the same thing through TSA. Sorry. Wow.

Rick Denton  6:34  
I just learned a new word. I

Clancy Denton  6:37  
know. Yeah. So a lot of people just I guess you can't bring mayonnaise, or you can't bring anything I packed for. I mean, who knows. But, you know, so yeah, I was going down to the tube of man. Sorry, going through the list. And it said, Okay, if you need to bring frosting packet and something smaller than you know, so, but I went but if it's already frosted, then they don't care. So yeah, so I had the cake carrier will have some if you're watching, there'll be some footage of me carrying it there. They're bored. But here it was secured under its little seat in the airplane. So this

Rick Denton  7:17  
is I think this is the first flight. So this is on our way to Denver will after this kind of as we keep talking I'll kick in some video here of what we had to not only do we have to get on a plane, we had to change planes. We made some logistics for this cake about as challenging as possible. No one cared about this cake on the first part of the flakes. It was like six o'clock in the morning. But when we got to Denver, my gosh, it was like you were a rock star walking around with this cake in your hand. People thought you were the best mom ever. Well, I

Clancy Denton  7:47  
am. But there was a little girl she was probably three that was behind us getting on to the flight from Dallas and I could hear her daddy said Oh, are you staring?

Rick Denton  8:04  
Sorry, you can't. We might have been for you about not this time now because this had to make it from Dallas to Denver to Tucson as an intact cake. And I mean, for those that are listening it is in the shape of a 19 it is in a cake carrier. Yeah, this picture here is it's sitting under your well it is stored under the seat in front of you like a backpack. You couldn't even bring a suitcase this time because this had to be one of your carry on luggage.

Clancy Denton  8:29  
And Tegan didn't know she she didn't know that I was bringing her case she knew we were coming and we are taking her and her friends out to dinner. But she didn't know that I was bringing her cage. So I think the next picture Oh, then so we got

Rick Denton  8:44  
to your cake did make it what the case made it good.

Clancy Denton  8:47  
I know we're going a little out of order the cake made it. But you know, we got to sign it. 9am

Rick Denton  8:56  
Well, yeah, sorry about that. It was a connecting flight. We still landed in the morning. It was early. What's great about that, and Tegan was in class. And we knew that we did this not because we're truly crazy about travel, we wanted to make sure that we had an a massive because there was only one reason for us to go on this trip initially. And that was to be there for her birthday. So that was this was intentional to have a buffer. Well, of course and yay. Everything worked out logistically. So what are we going to do in Tucson on a gorgeous, beautiful Yeah, beautiful. The wind was the right level, probably the 70s crystal blue sky. Let's go for a hike and swirl National Park just like we've talked about that one before. Yeah. And it's a great if you are ever out there. It's a great hike and that sort of thing. But we got to do something was a little different this time. Our feet got wet. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  9:46  
Yeah, there was no water the last time we were there doing this. I

Rick Denton  9:48  
don't recall ever. These they call them washers where there are creeks where there is water. We thought that was just hypothetical. No, this is for those that are looking online. This is an act waterfall, small but waterfall and creek that's running through this. In fact it stopped our hike because we didn't want to cross this creek because it's a little deep and we didn't want to get wet and all that. But it was absolutely spectacular out there. And that's one of the great things about doing that when you fly that direction is you've got a whole day ahead of you just go enjoy life.

Clancy Denton  10:19  
Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I'm just staring at that picture. Because it looks like you said, it kind of looks like you're at a Disney World theme like and they've put all of the cactus around and I

Rick Denton  10:31  
call it so it's the runaway Mine Train is what it reminds you of is when you're waiting in the queue to get there. That's the scene there. Yeah, without any annoying music or while other people because there were very few people there were some people there this time. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  10:45  
But now it was beautiful. And you know, we did a good, you know, for some 10 mile hike. It was it was a good one. And

Rick Denton  10:54  
I think I've even said at the beginning. Okay, so this is great, because we actually Unlike last time, we won't have any time pressure at the end. And yet then we found ourselves enjoying and adding to this that Yep, we found ourselves wanting to make sure that we got several things done before celebrating her birthday. So yeah,

Clancy Denton  11:12  
and one thing was if you're from Arizona, or no are specifically Tucson area, the Sonoran Hot Dog is supposed to be a thing. So yeah, I have. I've wanted one every time we've gone out there and we just haven't been able to make it work. Well, the problem is that, you know, there are only mostly food trucks. Right. So great. Found one pulled up. We'll take you know, first of all, do you take credit cards? Yes. And then you know, ohada Oh, we're out of hot dogs. Okay,

Rick Denton  11:44  
keep in mind the name of this place is called hot dogs. You taught it the day

Clancy Denton  11:47  
before was the hot dog was the specials. I guarantee they just ran out. So then, you know, moved on to the next one. Well, it wasn't even there. It wasn't open. It already closed for the day. So yeah, so we do threat. So it's added sometimes I still haven't had my snore and hot dog. I will at some point in the next three years. I've got three of my Sonoran Hot Dog

Rick Denton  12:09  
for those that are familiar with the McDonald's softserve joke. That's exactly what this is like, is that going to eat McDonald's and finding out that the saucer machine was broken? Because you're in Sonora? You're in the epicenter of the Sonoran Hot Dog and now we're out.

Clancy Denton  12:22  
We're ours. Tegan has run into at two different places. She loves grilled cheese and ordering grilled cheese. And they're like, Oh, we don't have our girdles not working. So yeah, so yes, we were then under a time crunch of because we were picking Tegan and one of her friends up to go to the mall for a little, you know, we had taken her birthday gifts like I had my mom had gotten or some, you know, and so I, we'd packed the birthday gifts and, but then I told her I said, Okay, well, let's just go shopping. If you you know, she's not a big shopper. But she and Alex wanted to go to the mall. So. So yeah, so we, when

Rick Denton  13:00  
we were supposed to do like, a certain business thing, because one of the other things this is this is a little practical tip for empty nesters, if you have kids at college, if you need self storage, get it early. And so trigons semester doesn't end like many until May. It's early April. And we went ahead and got the Self Storage unit because the dorm sized ones start to disappear or increase in price. And so that was another thing that we added in that we were supposed to take Tegan to her self storage unit. And instead I dropped all off at the mall and did all that kind of stuff, which is not exciting, necessarily, but it isn't important to get yourself storage early. If you've got a kid in college. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  13:39  
Yeah. So then we, you know, walked around the mall, bought a couple things, and then we headed to dinner, we

Rick Denton  13:49  
decided not to take the cake. And think we did. Oh, yeah, we melted. So I had to get back to the hotel to get this secret surprise. Well, I had a buckled in the front seat when I was pulling up to pick y'all up. And that was the moment that I realized what you had done. And she

Clancy Denton  14:08  
thought and she was like, Oh my I'm shot. I think she was about to start crying. But she didn't she held it. Probably because Alex was there. But yeah, she was. She was surprised and it warmed my heart. So there is

Rick Denton  14:24  
no way that she could have even there's just not even a chance that she had the thought that what if my mom brought the cake, she probably just imagined that a cake is not going to happen this year. For you to be able to one just come up with the idea. Hey, I'm going to do it. Then to figure out how to get it made. Find the carrier get it transported to the end. Yes. She was crying on the inside. Absolutely. It was she it meant so much to her for that to show up. Yeah, you nailed that one. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  14:53  
But yeah, so that's what you know. Here. I put in this was the set six year old one, the lighting is kind of bad. But you can see it's in the shape of a six. And she must have just come back from gymnastics class or something. But yeah. So Oh, and apparently she got sorry. Oh, that's sorry. Sorry slider. So I think this

Rick Denton  15:17  
is only meaningful to the kids and me and you, but I can get a one. Yeah, that's this

Clancy Denton  15:22  
game. Sorry. Sliders. So yeah, so there I threw in the one that I had on my phone, or I had several, but this is one of her blowing out. We did not have a candle this year. But so yeah, so here, whenever the pasty dinner did posting, that's what she wanted for dinner. So here's the 19 cake. And I didn't put the one with all of her friends, because we always forget to ask their permission, if we can put them on the podcast. But same group,

Rick Denton  15:50  
a great group of friends that we've been talking to well, there is a candle there. She just didn't blow it out. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  15:54  
And then just there we are all, all three of us getting to celebrate her birthday. And yeah, at posting, you know, which we love. And we're frequently there. We'll

Rick Denton  16:08  
talk about, you know, the thing. We talked about this last time how I feel so lucky that we have kids that are waiting, yet we still get to spend that time with them. This one hits me in that same sort of way. And we'll talk about here in a bit. Same kind of thing of I'm glad that I'm glad that I'm married to someone who is willing to do this and chooses to those are the choices that we make with our resources. And that is to travel to experience these moments. And there are sacrifices that are made as a result of these choices. But this is what we get the benefit of those sacrifices. And

Clancy Denton  16:47  
it was fun. You know, we're it was it was a fun night. We laughed a lot with her friends are just all really funny. And it was funny when we were leaving, though being like, oh my gosh, we may not see you guys again, because we'll be there to move her out. Yeah, her friends will be there to move her out. And one of them She's living with and the other three, they're all living in the same complex next year. They're all older, but and so they're like, you know, I said, we're moving her out on the you know, whatever date and I'm, you know, they said, Oh, no, well, I'm sure we'll try to see y'all. So

Rick Denton  17:26  
you buy college kids do. Yeah, it was it was kind of a weird thought of Oh, my gosh, we won't see y'all till fall. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  17:34  
say so. That was That was fun.

Rick Denton  17:37  
And that would have been the trip. Like that's it. That was the reason why we took this trip.

Clancy Denton  17:42  
We did. But we had always planned on we were flying, we flew into Tucson, and we're gonna fly out to Phoenix because we're like, well, we're there. We'll just take dinner chainer to an early happy hour or something. Because we'll see him after he gets out of class.

Rick Denton  17:56  
And part of that was benefited from benefited. I don't know if that's the right word. Because the flights were so bloomin expensive at other times of the day, because of all the people coming here for the Eclipse. We chose that evening flight time that we wouldn't normally like because of the eclipse traffic coming inbound. Yeah. And Tanner, it was like, well, we might as well just go to dinner with Tanner. So that's why we had the whole day we might not have had that whole day if it weren't for the Eclipse. So

Clancy Denton  18:23  
yeah. So you know, we got a text from him probably three weeks ago that said, because he's a part of an Honors College at ASU. The seniors have to do a thesis project, and they have to defend their thesis. And so he sent us a text and he said, Hey, I planned it for April 5, the morning of April 5, because I knew that I thought y'all were going to be here for Tetons birthday. So we're like, oh my gosh, now we can come see it instead of watching it

Rick Denton  18:57  
with our kids. Kid defend his nowhere when we were visiting Barrett as a pre freshman family, and they talked about an honors thesis and defending it had you said to me, oh, we'll be there to watch it. I would have thought you were just

Clancy Denton  19:14  
crazy. Yeah. Well, yeah. Because you don't you know, do Yeah. So it was nice, though, that we got to do it. And you know, I thought it would be him presenting. I had no idea that it was really going to be as it was as intense as it was. He wanted

Rick Denton  19:36  
us to leave. It was a little more chill than it ended up being. Yeah. Well, he spoke for do you have? Yes.

Clancy Denton  19:42  
And here's the Yeah. So what's your best? So here here? For those that are

Rick Denton  19:47  
listening? Let me read the title of his thesis. And that'll give you an analysis of Japan's high conviction rate. And the whole topic was about how culture or in society and other elements that I'm not defending the thesis

Clancy Denton  20:03  
I collectivism culture, which now I know what that is inquisitorial

Rick Denton  20:07  
approach to trial as opposed to an adversarial one that we have in the US I forget or competitive either way, all about why Japan's conviction rate for criminal convictions is 99.8%. Something I didn't know before. Now I know now I

Clancy Denton  20:23  
know I learned a lot about the Japanese law system.

Rick Denton  20:26  
And we're not going to go into because we want to make sure our listeners continue to listen. But if

Clancy Denton  20:31  
you would like the Zoom link, we can probably get that for you. And you can watch it I promise

Rick Denton  20:35  
you had actually an interesting intellectual level, I just know that most of you don't come to a podcast like this for the well.

Clancy Denton  20:41  
And so, you know, to set this up, yes, Tanner has been working on this thesis for probably almost a year, because he had to have meetings with his he had two directors. One was a professor that he's had before. The other is a new person on the staff who is Japanese, or while she's Brazilian, but she's from Japan. Well, that's

Rick Denton  21:06  
because Brazil has the number two highest concentration of ethnic Japanese in the world.

Clancy Denton  21:11  
So and she is now over all the Japanese Studies at ASU are for Barrett, which is his honors college. So you know, he had the room all set up, everything was ready. It was really neat. Because his roommates came, one of his other good friends came. You know, they're all just such a really supportive group. Because I'll tell you this, if I was a college kid, or whatever, I wouldn't want to sit through that. And I was shocked at how many of his friends back here, tuned in via zoom. And they, you

Rick Denton  21:47  
and your parents were on my parents. My mom's husband was on. So there were a lot of folks that were supporting Tanner's. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  21:55  
And Tanner was showing us afterwards the group chat of his group of friends that were all on, like they can because they didn't know my parents and and Jerry. And so they were like, are you Philip Esch, who's Philip LA, they were trying to, like, they were trying to think that they had all put in different names or something, because there's, so the boys were having a good time with, but I thought that was really touching that they all again, are supportive from afar and, and, you know, these, these group of boys all have an intellectual side to them. So for some of them, they're like, that was really interesting, you know, so I,

Rick Denton  22:41  
I, of course, this is not the same as watching something on Netflix. But I came away intrigued and interested after I mean, he spoke for

Clancy Denton  22:52  
50 minutes. Yeah.

Rick Denton  22:55  
You've got another picture. I think there's another Yeah. So the history of criminal justice in Japan, right. So folks, if you want to talk about the Edo period, we now know a little bit more about the Edo period, and, and other elements there. And but that was only round one that ended it. And we thought, okay, cool. That's it. It was 30 minutes easily. And I may be under estimating that questions, and then Tanner having to answer these unscripted, unplanned questions from the two professors that were in the room requiring him to defend his thesis

Clancy Denton  23:25  
and one was more challenging, like, like, not a challenging question, but she was challenging his thesis, you know,

Rick Denton  23:34  
X, what about why consider the ramifications of yada yada yada, yada? Yeah,

Clancy Denton  23:40  
it was, you know, and I can, I could hear the boys behind me, because they haven't done their job yet. And they're like, oh, and so and one of the comments was that, you know, she really appreciated that Tanner drew on his personal experience, and I could hear them I'm going, put that down personal experience, we need personal experience, because

Rick Denton  24:01  
Tanner had lived a semester in Japan and was able to see and experience some of these LM and

Clancy Denton  24:06  
he had also done an internship in the DHS office. So he brought that to it too. But I mean, at one point,

Rick Denton  24:12  
I've done my personal experience. So there was a picture that Tanner put up of these Japanese police boxes, and they had police boxes all over it that his point was, it's not a police state, but it's, you know, it's a heavily policed state. Right. And he said, he said this sentence, I have a lot of experience with those claims. I look like

Clancy Denton  24:33  
wait, what experience do you have? I know there's things you haven't told us.

Rick Denton  24:41  
And his point was that he saw Yes, yeah. And because we wanted to be responsible audience members, we didn't laugh both you and I kind of gave

Clancy Denton  24:51  
you to watch your facial expression. What experience do you have? At least one of his professors was kind of turned it could see our faces. So yeah, so I mean, the one got up and actually went to the whiteboard and started drawing stuff on the whiteboard to make her roundabout point. And Rick looked at me he's like, do I get an hour credit for this?

Rick Denton  25:19  
I had no, I will say that I've attended multiple universities. And now I will say that I've attended Barrett Honors her what her point actually was actually, I never thought of that. I mean, a guilt culture and a shame culture and what that means, and she had to made it to box. And it all made sense. It just was not what we were expecting. And so the intensity of this was well being. And I think, well, one thing we would have missed it. Had we been on Zoom.

Clancy Denton  25:44  
Oh, yeah. Because he turned that off. Yeah. And so

Rick Denton  25:46  
the idea of us being able to be there in person, even if he retold the story, those who are listening to this podcast, still won't get the same feeling of sitting in that room. Watching him be grilled. Yeah, I mean, they weren't antagonistic about it. But there was some challenge to it, and watching him go through it and the pride that you feel as a parent, I mean, kind of going back to the empty nest where you push them out of the nest. Well, yeah, I think he's got it. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  26:12  
Well, and, and Tanner, for those of you who personally know, Tanner, that child can be thrown up on any stage platform, even if he doesn't have anything prepared. And he's pretty good about, you know, getting his point across. And but yeah, I mean, it was, you know, I thought after he was done, okay, great job. That was really good. And then yeah, for them to, and then we all had to leave the room while they formally decided, yeah. And so Tanner, cuz Tanner came, I was like, Oh, you played like, yeah, they're discussing if I, you know, defended my thesis to how they wanted me to defend it. So

Rick Denton  26:55  
as you'd expect, because we're telling the story, folks, we came in and they said, What, we're happy to congratulate you for successfully defending it with some revisions. And that's a very normal thing is that? Tell me up about that, because that's normal. Because there's an entire 3040 page, something that he submits, in addition, the presentation. And so they had some recommendations on revisions that he should make to support his argument. Well, that's very normal. That's okay. And you and I, actually, in the moment, didn't even think anything of it, the professor turns to you and me and goes, now just want y'all to know that this is very normal. And something that is to be expected when I've

Clancy Denton  27:34  
only seen one that hasn't had revisions, and it was perfect for poetry, so we couldn't really revise.

Rick Denton  27:40  
It didn't rhyme well.

Clancy Denton  27:43  
By my thought we're sitting there going, Okay,

Rick Denton  27:46  
I'm not the one to finish. I think they're just so used to a helicopter parent, which I don't know some folks listening to this may think that well, y'all aren't you were there, weren't you? I feel like supporting as an audience member is different. Yeah, I think he was just expecting, he may have expected us go What do you mean, you're telling my wonderful, darling son, I

Clancy Denton  28:06  
could feel myself when the one professor was starting to say so. And I was like, Excuse me, my child did an excellent job. Back it up. But she wasn't really that it was.

Rick Denton  28:22  
I would have loved to sing you to stand up and flip that table. And

Clancy Denton  28:27  
all I want to know is, is it graduating with his honors? Yes. Thank you done.

Rick Denton  28:34  
I don't care about the rest. Yeah.

Clancy Denton  28:37  
I mean, because these boys have been dreading that thesis for the entire book. And a lot of people drop the Honors College because of it because it adds an extra element, your senior year that a lot of people just don't want to do think about it.

Rick Denton  28:53  
We don't know Do you have a picture of what we did? Yes. So where did we go postino round two.

Clancy Denton  29:05  
When the when we will be there again for graduation,

Rick Denton  29:08  
when the waitress came over and said have y'all been to posting before like Yeah 24 hours

Clancy Denton  29:16  
but it's and they normally enter in there. Normally

Rick Denton  29:18  
it's a great place. This picture is outside this was very chilly. A cold front had come through so that was great, but it is nice to sit outside there but yes, he deserved a picture of the finest whatever he had their dirty Woody

Clancy Denton  29:31  
is what he did. Well he enjoyed when she ordered actually like, okay, yeah, I know you come because it's an off the menu drink so but yeah, so now we celebrate Celebrate him that was you know, he was just so thrilled. Several of his friends are actually in town for the final four. So he was looking forward to going out with them now. He did schedule himself to rough Saturday morning. So he's like, I'm not going out tonight and I was like, yeah, just go home and go to bed. He you know, he? I'm sure that's a mental drain.

Rick Denton  30:06  
Oh, he's got Yeah, well, I talked about the adrenaline dump. So it was great to see it. It was great to celebrate with him. And, you know, it was also interesting to say, you know, hey, we'll see you graduation week. Yeah, I know. Yeah. We'll see. We will land two days before he got started his graduation scene. So it was fun. And we didn't make it back. It was interesting to see the people arriving for the Final Four, which I had hoped to be attending. I unfortunate my team did not make it. But we were able to do that. And you joked about well, I just want to know, is he graduated? Yeah. Well, two things come to mind there. One is he we want him to graduate because of where he's going. And then you talked about put him on any stage Exactly. Part of these honors thesis equipped him well for what his next stage will be. Yes.

Clancy Denton  30:49  
So yeah, so some of y'all know, and we've mentioned it before that, you know, Tanner has been applying to law schools. And he finally made his decision out of the choices that he had, and he will be going to, I don't love the the dead men School of Law at SMU. So I don't think I

Rick Denton  31:11  
even knew that was the name. Looking at this picture right now. So he's going to SMU law and

Clancy Denton  31:14  
blind SMU law. So he will be coming back to Dallas and which we are excited about. And we were kind of talking a little bit about what do you think that's going to look like? And you know, we're like, well, Tanner, you're not going to be living at home. So I don't know how much we'll see. You said, Well, can I come home for like dinners? Sometimes it's like, well, yeah, I'll cook for you. Anytime.

Rick Denton  31:34  
I want to explore that a little bit more. Because this is it's gonna be different. We haven't had this local ish. Kid in the like, we talked about the empty nest. And when we're with the kids, we're with them. Because it's an intense struggle. We will talk about it some more, but it's just going to be totally different. Yeah,

Clancy Denton  31:53  
it's gonna be a new experience. It is.

Rick Denton  31:55  
So we're happy for him.

Clancy Denton  31:56  
We're so yeah, we're very proud that he has, because a lot of his friends that we're going to go to law school have now decided that they're not going to so yeah, I mean, like I said, I've been telling Tanner since he was the age of 30, that he needed to be a lawyer. So anyways, but yeah, so that was great way to and you know that he's made his decision. And now they can just, you know, he still has several things to wrap up, you know, before graduation, but I know having the thesis done is a big weight off of his mind. So I did put in this text you You haven't even seen it yet, because well, well, you've seen the text, but I didn't tell you which one I did, because I thought this was kind of funny that you know, we got this on the plane, I think, because we had to our difference. So I kind of waited until I knew she would say happy birthday. And so this is Tegan and she said, Yeah, happy birthday to me, I have to get a point one on this quiz, because I have a 9.9 out of 10 points in this one class. And so we both said some more things. I have faith in you good luck, I believe in you. And she said, I'm just gonna draw a little picture. I'll buy most of them. So yeah, so again, she did get

Rick Denton  33:12  
her point one. Yeah, yeah,

Clancy Denton  33:14  
well above her point one, but I love to draw them in nice picture. And then further down, I'm had that issue that, well, this girl just did a presentation on a robot. So maybe I'll draw robot. But now again, you know, defending PCs. And but I will say this, this child has been knocking college out of the park this first year.

Rick Denton  33:37  
I mean, what do you want when you shoot?

Clancy Denton  33:40  
Very, you want to focused and having fun at the same time. And it's been great. So

Rick Denton  33:47  
you know, it's gonna be interesting that so we've had this, we started this podcast because we didn't know how to live life as empty nesters. And this was selfishly kind of just for us. And if folks want to listen along great, and we hopefully learn from folks as well. I was thinking this thought, are we masking some of the emptiness by all the travel that we do to the kids and that's our so we're now going to enter at least a brief period month not not a ton where we go back to being the pure play empty nesters, and I think it's gonna be good. I'm looking forward to kind of we even talked about having empty weekends and that sort of stuff. And

Clancy Denton  34:24  
we don't have many, but yeah, I know. I mean, because yeah, the things I was looking at our calendar I said, Okay, we have, you know, one free weekend weekend between now and when we go back out there, but

Rick Denton  34:35  
no kids. Yeah, that's it. I

Clancy Denton  34:37  
mean, again, I do. You know, we are very blessed that we have a great relationship with our children. Some people do not. So some people will not churches, some people would not be traveling to see their kids as much as we do. We enjoy it. I mean, here Tegan even said when I Because I was helping her carry her stuff back up to her dorm room when we were leaving for the night. And you know, her friends were so sweet and got her really personal things that, you know, she wasn't even expecting gifts from them. And you know, she was unpacking everything. So don't you know, you really have some great friends that really, you know, honored you today on your birthday. And she said, Well, I have great parents too. And I was like, Oh, thank you. So, you know, we just we love our kids. We have fun with them. So we enjoy being with them. But yes, I, I am ready for us to be able to have our adult time, you know, just just as empty nester a couple again, because after graduation, they'll be both back here for, you know, a few months, which we like to but it is different. So yeah. And we did we were having so and we still continue to remember it. But we were very couple focused at the beginning. And it's just, it's just been

Rick Denton  36:08  
with spring break with the two visits and none of them. No way would I change any of it now. It's just gonna be interesting. I probably should have dropped this right at the end of the episode, but it'll be interesting to see. Getting us back to being the empty nesters though. I mean, your kids are still a

Clancy Denton  36:21  
part of what we do next weekend. Because next weekend will be nothing now. We're supposed to do stuff with God and we are gonna do that. So. But there you go. It's been fun. It was a fun trip.

Rick Denton  36:34  
Glad to be back. Yes, of course. I always every time. I've just wish I were at the moment I get back. I wish it were back in Arizona. We'll get back there. Yep.

Clancy Denton  36:44  
All right. Well, there you go. It's been another episode of the loud quiet living the empty nest

Transcribed by https://otter.ai