Fa La La Full Nest – Greatest Hits E117

Rick Denton (00:00)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Loud Quiet. We are releasing this episode on Christmas Day and we hope that you all are having a wonderful Christmas and just a very special holiday season. Thank you so much for being a part of the Loud Quiet audience.

Clancy Denton (00:13)
This episode was from 2023 and this was our first experience as empty nesters when the kids came back from college. Tanner was a senior, Teagan was a freshman, and I'm sure we had lots of stories to tell from that holiday season. So we hope you enjoy and again, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and we will see you guys in 2026.

Rick Denton (00:35)
Welcome to the la-

Clancy Denton (00:36)
to the loud

quiet. ⁓

Rick Denton (00:42)
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. I don't know if I'm recording. Yeah, I Okay.

Clancy Denton (00:51)
Sans children, just us. We need a tissue box up here. Follow along on our journey and maybe, you know, we can learn from others. This is the loud, quiet, living the empty nest.

Rick Denton (00:59)
I don't have a clue how to be empty-nester, they're-

Clancy Denton (01:06)
All right, well, welcome back. Welcome to 2024. Today is the first day of the new year. So we decided we finally have had time to actually sit down and do a recording. We've been pretty busy. And so we, as you can see, we are in our gym clothes, but we went to the gym because it's Monday. That's right. Not because it's January 1st. This is not day one, but

I'm not trying, I'm encouraging those. If you're starting a new fitness journey, then start and stick with it. And you can reach out to me if you need help suggestions. There are tons of workouts out there. So even if you don't want to go into the gym, there are so many things available on YouTube. So, but yes, like I said, this is just our.

We were a little later to the gym, it's our Monday. mean, guess. Well, You were, guess I'm there because I work there, so yeah.

Rick Denton (02:07)
definitely a lot later.

Yeah, so headed into the gym today and realized, you know, let's just hit, let's hit record. Let's tell some tales from what we've been, what we've experienced over the last couple of weeks. ⁓ Kids have been home. It's been the holidays for us. It's been the holidays for y'all. And so I just thought we'd do a little storytelling.

Clancy Denton (02:33)
Yeah, and I mean, yeah, one kid's already gone back and is coming back this weekend.

Rick Denton (02:38)
He's boomeranging back. And we'll talk a little bit about that. This was the first time that we had both kids returning. And Teagan got back first. I think we may have already talked about that. Then Tanner already joined. And so we went from that, what we've been talking about for the last X number of episodes of The Empty Nest to the full house. It really was. And what a full, fun house it was.

Clancy Denton (03:07)
It was a good, this was just a good fun break. And I think a lot of it was because their semester ended. They didn't have to think about anything. Teagan wasn't thinking about, okay, but I need to practice these dances for competition season. I need to think about some of my classes that I did have work in over the break. So I think for her, that was such a realization of.

I'm done. It's a complete just stoppage. don't have to do anything. You know, I've already registered for my next classes, everything, you know, so yeah, I think that just made us all just more relaxed and willing to, Hey, yeah, let's go out on whatever night and stay out and do whatever.

Rick Denton (03:57)
And that's what you and I had talked about this a lot of during the break that we call it a break, right? You and I still worked pretty much through it, but the kids break is that this one more so than at least the recent holiday seasons that I can think of. felt like we really embraced it. really was. And it wasn't just because we were doing stuff all the time because there were times we weren't. This adhered as Jan one. have the chance to look back and a lot of those look backs would be

man, it just flew by, I missed that, I wish we'd done that. and just not even that sit still and appreciate. this time I can look back and confidently say that in many times I'm being literal with this statement. I sat still and just appreciated.

Clancy Denton (04:48)
I just really, I listen to more Christmas music this year than I think I have in a really long time. And I don't know if it was just because I was just in such a good, happy mood that the kids were back. Neither one of them had been back home since they left in August. So I think I just was really, sometimes I go into the holidays thinking,

Rick Denton (05:07)
There was no Thanksgiving.

Clancy Denton (05:16)
Okay, and we gotta do this and we gotta do that. But this one, just, yeah, I just really, I feel kind of the same way you did. just, I was just in a really good mood. I mean, of course, yes, there were things that irritated me and I think I yelled at people in the kitchen once, but.

Rick Denton (05:37)
We

weren't rolling film on that, it didn't exist.

Clancy Denton (05:39)
Things

fall on the mom that, you know, there's a lot to do when you're hosting one event or multiple events. And, but it was, it was just a nice, you know, now, I mean, there was a ton of like schedule coordination because they both had, you know, I think we kind of talked about that a little bit. Do we have this on this day? And what am I doing? You know, you know, Tanner still has a very active social life back here.

And Teagan did too this time because she hadn't seen any of these people. So it was very much we were still trying to coordinate everyone's schedules, but I do, feel like we took, it was just full advantage of having them here. And yeah, like you said, just sometimes just all being in the same room together was just nice. And sitting down and all eating dinner together was just nice, so.

Rick Denton (06:33)
Watching the two of them interact was a lot of fun too because we have seen our kids We well now Thanksgiving obviously we've talked about that but in general when we go out to see kid we see kids independently So this was nice to just live life together The four of us Even if it wasn't anything special. I think that's the thing is it didn't have to be something special It was just living life again and you know

To your point of not being in semester or anything like that, also the length of the college break really helps with this, right? There was no, ⁓ if the team advances, there'll be somebody dancing on Friday or Saturday night. It really was. The only people that had to worry about getting up early was you and me.

Clancy Denton (07:20)
Yeah, I do, it is nice to see they interact, the kids interact differently now that they're both in college. Tanner never treated Teagan like a little sister that was annoying, but they just now are having similar experiences that they can really.

talk about and it's common, even though he's a senior and she's a freshman, it's just, it is, it's different and it's nice hearing them talk about, that class sounds fun that you're taking and I'd like to take the, so yeah, it was nice and. ⁓

Rick Denton (08:01)
still,

I think this was something that I don't know, like I'm doing this very much off the cuff now in my mind, but I think there were elements too that in spite of kids being back, we still were the couple that we were, not just the parents that we are, where I did stuff with guys, you did stuff with girls, we did stuff as couples, that sort of thing. So it wasn't just all kids all the time. So I think there's an element too that it was because we've all advanced to this phase of life.

We did stuff, they did stuff, and then all of us did stuff.

Clancy Denton (08:32)
But I will say to that, I did feel like there were certain times when I was like, okay, wait, but what are you doing tonight? I wanted to make sure that they had something doing before we.

Rick Denton (08:47)
before we abandon that.

Clancy Denton (08:48)
Yeah,

mean, yeah, and like I didn't, felt that, that I don't want us to go out because I want to make sure that they have, you know, and we did like Tanner went with us to happy hour. Then we came back and got Teagan and went to dinner, you know, so we did, but yeah, but I did have that in the back of my head when I was like, okay, we're going to this party, but they look like they had stuff going on anyway. So yeah, so it was, it was, that was still though in my head.

Rick Denton (09:17)
Maybe

I've just moved a little. ⁓ You don't care. I'm just a selfish, bad person apparently. I just don't like my kids apparently.

Clancy Denton (09:25)
So yeah, so we did, we had a really nice, you know, we hit the restaurants most that they wanted to hit. And when Tanner comes back this weekend, we'll do probably a couple more, but ⁓ I cooked, they asked me for certain things to cook. So we did that and.

Rick Denton (09:42)
does that feel like? that, I think this is the most softball thing I've ever asked someone, but you how does that make you feel when the kid says, mom, would you please make this

Clancy Denton (09:51)
Yeah, and I it does it makes you feel good and it's not anything crazy or fancy but ⁓ But no it doesn't it makes me feel good when Teagan's you know saying okay the summer I want you to you know Teach me some of the recipes that you you know put together and I mean like I've talked about before I don't do the kind of cooking that I used to do and You know, I've tried to like

minimize the time it takes to cook, but you know, there's still things that they they don't know how it gets made. So to them, it's like, ⁓ this is awesome. And I'm like, yeah, it took me like 10 minutes to throw everything in the crock pot and it comes up.

Rick Denton (10:35)
Do want to reveal your secrets or do you want to make it sound a lot more complex than it actually is?

Clancy Denton (10:40)
So, but I did, have done more cooking though over the past, I I still cook for us during the week, but when you throw in Christmas Eve, having friends over, doing Christmas day, ⁓ I just made rice and broccoli casserole for us to have for our New Year's Day meal, which is kind of funny, while we'll get to all that stuff.

Well, let's let's go back. We'll go back to you. Let's start.

Rick Denton (11:13)
we'll be talking about today.

Clancy Denton (11:17)
So yeah, so we posted this picture I think already, but yes, this was our Christmas Eve. This was before we were about to go to Christmas Eve service.

Rick Denton (11:29)
And I just wanna say this, this was not, the color coordination was not there between Clancy and This is the same red velvet jacket that I wear every year. ⁓ And so when I saw that picture, I thought, my gosh, it totally looks like we staged that. It was pure coincidence ⁓ of matching.

Clancy Denton (11:47)
And everyone was ready on time and early enough for us to be able to do a couple of pictures. So that was nice and appreciative of the kids.

Rick Denton (11:59)
It was good of them. We definitely had sort of a time limit. Somebody didn't necessarily wake up with hours of advance in every sentence, but in his classic style, he gave us plenty, enough time, exactly, there just wasn't a buffer.

Clancy Denton (12:04)
Yeah.

Rick Denton (12:18)
Yeah, and it was nice. for those that don't know, we go to Preston Trail here in Frisco. They did a fantastic Christmas Eve services. They always do. Paul and Jim. Let's see, was Jim gave it this time. it just, in effect, it was either Paul or Jim that talked about sitting still during the season. And that wasn't the theme of necessarily the Christmas Eve. It just, was great to have all four of us sitting there together, experiencing that moment, recognizing what Christmas is about.

Clancy Denton (12:46)
Yeah. It's us. Yes. So church plug, if you're looking for a church in the Frisco, McKinney, Allen area, North Plain.

Rick Denton (12:55)
or Prosper, Celina in there maybe.

Clancy Denton (12:57)
Preston Trail is where we have returned to. So yeah, so yeah, that was really, it was good. So then we always traditionally when we're in town, head over to my parents' house for Christmas Eve. And this is the obligatory stair and tree picture. We're missing Chad and Noom. They weren't able to be here this year, but you know, I love it. Everyone's always worried about.

Rick Denton (13:01)
Dude, we're back.

Clancy Denton (13:24)
We always have to watch where we put Tanner so that he's not blocking everyone else. The Esh side is not so tall, so not that Tanner's some giant, but he's taller than everyone.

Rick Denton (13:36)
Well, there were a couple of photos that were not showing here where he was in front and I mean perspective so skewed it was like Goliath and the little

Clancy Denton (13:43)
And

it's like, it's like Santa and the elves.

Rick Denton (13:46)
That's better than mine. Much better.

Clancy Denton (13:49)
Well, even because in this picture like where Teagan standing, she looks like she's and she's not, you know, it's just, yeah, being upfront, but no, it is fine.

Rick Denton (13:58)
and I like that tradition. certainly the picture gets done very quickly.

Clancy Denton (14:04)
We do.

Well, yes, we do it before anyone eats and the Cowboys game was on too. So I was even had that incentive of let's get this done so we can watch the game. And yeah, we always do Mexican food and it was also the tamales issue were so good.

Rick Denton (14:19)
They were, and they were the HEB and brought to you by...

Clancy Denton (14:21)
⁓ no, I'm sorry, not the tamales. I don't eat those. The enchiladas were really good this year that my mom had someone from their church was doing a fundraiser or something. They were so good, but you like the ATB tamales. I don't eat tamales. They're not my favorite.

Rick Denton (14:36)
I

how we used to do it where somebody made them at home better. again, brought to you by HEB.

Clancy Denton (14:43)
So, and I will, let's give a little shout out to our nephew, Carter. yeah. Who, he is very thoughtful with his gifts and he has always done the school store, well, they don't, he's in middle school now, so I'm guessing they don't have that anymore, but he gave us this podcast microphone. That's right. And. For the. Watching.

Rick Denton (15:05)
those that are listening and not

imagine a classic old school microphone that is sitting on our table. It will become a decorative feature for us. ⁓ And he gave that to us because he knew we had the pot.

Clancy Denton (15:19)
mean, yeah, the kids even said Carter won on the gifts. Cause he gave us that. gave Teagan this foot massager that, you he said, well, I know you walk along across campus a lot, which yes, she does. She was very excited about that. And then he gave Tanner the game where you throw the hook or throw the little ring. It's like what you see about bars. So, and so Tanner was like, no, this is awesome. We'll put it in our kitchen or upstairs on our thing. So yeah. So.

Rick Denton (15:41)
I'm sorry, Bob.

Clancy Denton (15:48)
Carter did a very good job.

Rick Denton (15:51)
Head over to the video, make sure you take a look at Carter's microphone. So thank you Carter.

Clancy Denton (15:55)
Yeah. So then we did, you know, Christmas day at our house, we host and had our tenderloin. The food was so good. It's just, we watched die hard. was just, you know, that's what I said. This, this year just, it seemed more low key, even though we didn't really see, we, and you know, I, I get,

Rick Denton (16:17)
We were busy the whole time.

I'm agreeing with you.

Clancy Denton (16:25)
so wrapped up and everything being perfect, I wanted it to be perfect. I think this year, and maybe it's just my age, I don't know, I just, I tried to let some of that go. Like my pies did not come out perfect this year. So, yes. Here's another tip. Don't use self-rising flour. I didn't even realize I had that in my pantry and I used that. It rises in the middle of the pie.

Rick Denton (16:54)
The crust floated to the top of the pie. I've never seen it.

Clancy Denton (16:56)
Why

do these, I kept, when I was rolling it out, was like, this crust is weird. But I went with it. Then when they came out, was like, they look weird. And we cut open the pecan pie and the crust was like, ⁓ yeah.

Rick Denton (17:12)
It was, it's like upside down cake upside down pie.

Clancy Denton (17:15)
It was

so weird. But yes, the flavors were still fine. but something like that a few years ago might have. But we just went with it and it was fine. And it was just a good laid back. mean, Tanner, I don't think he even got out of his pajamas the whole day, which I don't care. I don't need people to be.

Rick Denton (17:35)
We don't really do a real formal thing anyway.

Clancy Denton (17:37)
Even though our food is formal, but we don't. So yeah. So that was it was just a good day. And then we headed down to Austin the next day to see my family. family. Yeah. ⁓

Rick Denton (17:50)
And that's how we've been doing. We stopped decades ago, except for one exception a couple years ago, doing Christmas rotation in Austin. And I know as much as I enjoy the Austin Christmas Eve and Christmas traditions, we made that choice a while ago that, especially when the kids were younger, we would do Christmas in our

Clancy Denton (18:10)
It just got too hard to try and Sanagas and all that.

Rick Denton (18:14)
⁓

So we made that choice and so what we do is we go down the day after. Now, truth be told, a lot of us were like, man, that's the thing I wanna do is get on the road. And yet we got down there and it was great to, it was certainly great to visit with my mom ⁓ and see her there, got to see Jerry, Rachel and Stephen and the girls and their whole family. And it was nice to be able to experience that with them.

There's always that, and I haven't talked about Naniacs, I know that picture's coming up, but we got to see Nana as well. There's no sugarcoating it. My mom is in the deepest stages of Alzheimer's. Whether she actually knows that we're there or not, could this be the last time the kids see I have a Christmas with her? I don't know, we never know. And that has continued to be a reinforcement anytime I do anything with the Austin crew is, seize whatever moment you have at.

whatever stage of life you're having it because you may not have that moment later. And so it was great to be with them.

Clancy Denton (19:15)
And I think to that point, have to make it because it is when we go to where she her memory care facility, which is amazing. We've talked about, you know, you have to make it. I we laughed. We were cracking each other up. It's just yeah, you can still be.

Rick Denton (19:33)
without with with not with disrespect, but we can acknowledge Not the craziness. I don't want to say that in that context, but just acknowledge The just The unexpected the You know what forget it. I'll just say the craziness of what it is the ridiculousness of what it is the residents that do what they do the the the

I'm losing my train of thought because I'm just struggling with this. Just, you know what?

Clancy Denton (20:05)
It's just experiencing it. It's what it is. I mean, it is. That is.

Rick Denton (20:11)
And so when

Clancy Denton (20:12)
She is

where she is. so you can't let it so affect you. And we don't want to be there and be all, oh, this is so sad. Oh, yeah, gosh, yeah, absolutely. It's horribly, horribly sad, but we try to still make it light. you make fun of yourself every time you're telling a story and she falls asleep. Oh, she yawns.

Rick Denton (20:40)
And

every single time I start a story.

Clancy Denton (20:42)
You

have to find the...

Rick Denton (20:44)
when she is in heaven downloading this episode. Yeah, mom, you kept laughing every time that I do.

Clancy Denton (20:49)
You have to find the smiles and laughter in it, even though it's a not fun experience. yeah, and I would have put the picture of all of us. We only took one, but it's the one where we're all leaning over the camera. And so everyone's face just goes, so it's not good.

Rick Denton (20:51)
or yawning.

So go to Clancy's Facebook page. You'll see that picture if you want to. But what this is, so Austin, so we did do a couple of Austin things. One is we did go to the original Chewies and it is where Chewies actually started. Wait, what was that?

Clancy Denton (21:24)
That was a freaking nightmare. I'm sorry.

Rick Denton (21:28)
Some of us enjoyed the original chewies. Some of us did not enjoy the original chewies. It was crowded, it was an hour wait. ⁓ The table was what it was, but we had, it was good to be and having our Mexican food there and with everybody. And then we followed that up by, it's hard to see in this picture, followed it up by the Zilker Christmas tree. And I would encourage you if you go over to Clancy's Facebook page and you can see kind of when you're standing under it.

it makes this incredible pattern and you spin around and there's kids around there. You spend maybe five minutes there. It's not something you spend a lot of time there, but it is, we hadn't been there since 2009. And I saw that video and so the kids were super young then and it was neat to go back there and do that. And that was, mean, Austin is always gonna be a quick one, right, for us, but we did earlier that day get to see my 99 year old Nana and all of us were there. And this picture here, again, if you're listening, go check out the pictures, but it is.

Teagan and Tanner there with her. I did find it funny that they were wearing their college sweatshirts that they've got Arizona State.

Clancy Denton (22:29)
They didn't know that we were still doing things, but because I told him I said it doesn't matter what you wear on the way home So it doesn't matter

Rick Denton (22:37)
Yeah,

and oh, that's right. This was on the way out. That's right It was on the way out and it was just great to see her. I mean, she's 90 Bleeping 9, right?

Clancy Denton (22:43)
She looks amazing. Like whatever her skincare, which I've never asked her, it's probably similar to what my grandmothers did with the old, know, old way that they, I mean, the woman looks amazing.

Rick Denton (23:02)
And she's certainly getting up there as far as physical elements and the like, but it's still, she can still, I mean, she's still there having a conversation with us. It's not, this is, not trying to lead into something that it's not. She's just 99. And it was great for us to be able to see her and the kids to be able to see her again. She still lives in her house. And ⁓ I think for all of us, I hope that we have as full of a 99 years as she has had.

Clancy Denton (23:29)
She is an amazing woman full of just wealth of knowledge and stories.

Rick Denton (23:34)
She got great

She was ahead of her time in a lot of areas, ⁓ very progressive, especially about doing things that women didn't necessarily do ⁓ earlier than others, going to college, ⁓ working in the nursing field.

Clancy Denton (23:52)
She orders her groceries online before that was the thing to do. I mean, she's,

Rick Denton (23:58)
She's

always a technological gadget, but she was always the gadget person.

Clancy Denton (24:03)
She can still like text and you know, she's 99. She's, yeah, just, yeah, very impressive.

Rick Denton (24:11)
She is also the lady that when she would go in for a tire change, would just say, know what? And that's not an exaggeration. She would go to the Buick, and again, Buick, right? But she'd go to the Buick dealership. When she needed new tires, she'd come home with a new car. And they were not taking advantage of her. This was not one of those cases. She wanted a new car.

Clancy Denton (24:15)
Just give me a new car.

No, she's been independent for so long that since your granddad My granddad passed away when I was in high school.

Rick Denton (24:39)
I don't know exactly which year, but in high school. that gives you context. She's independent for a while.

Clancy Denton (24:44)
So yeah, so that was, you know, it was a good, that rounded out our Christmas season and we got back and I don't

Rick Denton (24:55)
I

don't even remember what it was.

Clancy Denton (24:57)
No, it's like we got Tanner ready to go back for a week and he went back to be to do his New Year's Eve.

Rick Denton (25:06)
So let's talk about New Year's Eve. So we like to do New Year's Eve a certain way and Tanner likes to do New Year's Eve a certain way.

Clancy Denton (25:14)
I mean, it's been this way. Teagan had her friends over. They go upstairs. They went out to dinner. They went upstairs the media room. We don't ever even see them. So ⁓ I was glad that Tanner was not here this year for New Year's Eve. It's enough on regular nights of him going out and coming in now that they can all go to the star. That was the place they were all at this year.

And so, you know, they're coming in at 2.45 via Uber. So I was kind of glad that I wouldn't even have to think about, you know, when he's coming in. So, yeah, so I don't remember what this was ours. So, I mean, Rick and I, we are, we, you know, we enjoy going out, we enjoy doing things, but

Rick Denton (25:52)
absolutely.

Clancy Denton (26:13)
I have no desire to be up until midnight. There's two things.

Rick Denton (26:18)
We don't care to be out that late, right? There's just no desire to do it. And the second is we've backed away from event nights in a big way. Like I have no interest. I would much rather do the nicest dinner possible on the 27th as opposed to the 31st because my experience is gonna be so much better than every time we watch. So for those that are listening, what you're looking at on the screen is Andy and Anderson, the CNN version of the New York Times one.

And I'll explain what's on the right side here in a little bit, but that's, we've several times looked at the crowds there, the ones that have been there since 10 a.m., the ones that you don't know how they handle their biological needs, and that's our vision of hell. Whereas I was in my PJs, had a glass of bourbon next to me, we had just finished our pizza, and we're very comfortable. Oh, we watched Dumb Money. We don't have time to talk about that, but that was a great movie. Dumb Money, big, big thumbs up to that one.

Yeah. Well, so then John Mayer gets in and he had been performing in Tokyo. And this is something that would not have made any sense to us at all, except that we experienced something like this. And this is a cat cafe or a cat bar in this case. So John Mayer is there with cocktails. It's a cat in the box. It's in Shibuya. I can't remember if Shibuya or the other neighborhood. Either way, but.

Clancy Denton (27:39)
It's right outside the station.

Rick Denton (27:44)
whatever, and there are cats everywhere. And Miso had not been all that interested in the New Year's Eve programming, and then suddenly when these cats came up, he hopped up on the table, the TV's on the table, and just started pawing around, looking around, trying to figure out where these cats were. So that was our night. Miso figuring out where cats are at a cat bar slash cafe in Tokyo with John Mayer.

Clancy Denton (28:11)
It was enjoyable. was, you know. I loved every bit of it. I mean, I knew the next slide we got Tanner was at a big EDM festival in Phoenix, something that, you know, okay, yeah, if I'm 21, I would have been into it. I did that stuff back then.

Rick Denton (28:27)
Electronic dance music. think rave if you're thinking that.

It's out at the Raceway, the big NASCAR

Clancy Denton (28:41)
⁓

They got a party bus and went out there and yeah, so he was so looking forward to that. And so he was texting us when he got there and then he sent a text, here's the stage. Well, the picture never came through. So I told Rick, said, just wait at whatever time, three o'clock our time, my phone's gonna ding because he'll be somewhere that services back. So before we went to bed,

I turned it way down. So I heard it, you did not. But yes, so here's the contrast of, here's Tanner at his big party.

Rick Denton (29:23)
And he sent us other, videos. Actually, it looked really, really cool. Like if it were something that was 7 p.m. that I had private transportation to and I could be in the back and watch it, it looked awesome.

Clancy Denton (29:36)
or I could be somewhere in a covered area with chairs. ⁓

Rick Denton (29:43)
They

were in the EDM. It did look really, really fun. It was a lot different than ours. And he said, he did text us today saying, you know, thank goodness that they did the party bus because while he got back at 3.30, others were just leaving at 4.30 because of trying to get out of that place.

Clancy Denton (29:59)
So yeah, so he had a good time. Teagan and her friends had a good time.

Rick Denton (30:03)
We have no pictures of that because it was as quiet.

Clancy Denton (30:05)
Yeah,

now I, and so that's what I was trying, like New Year's Day today, she and her friend wanted to go see a movie and she said, you know, will that interfere with anything that we're doing? I was like, no. I was like, dude, go. I said, I will cook at some point today, but you go do what you wanna do and then.

Rick Denton (30:28)
We'll have our black eyes at the very basic version of it. You're cooking a nice meal tonight and we'll just have it very laid back again as we get back into the regular routine. So that was it. That was, mean, the holidays were fun. I don't want to belabor it even though I kind of do. It was filled with activity and somehow filled with sit and appreciate. And I don't know how in my mind we pulled off both, but I really do feel that I...

We squeeze the juice out of the things to do and embrace the stillness of the season.

Clancy Denton (31:04)
Yeah, I agree. This was a this one, like I said, it was just a good laid back, even though at times it wasn't. But I guess maybe it was just, there wasn't pressure to.

I think a lot of it was just that they didn't have their other activities going on on top of us trying to do what we wanted to do.

Rick Denton (31:32)
Schedule expectations. I think that's the word as you were saying. I just don't think there were expectations. And that's not entirely fair. Yes, there was an expectation that we did do a Christmas meal, that we did go see family on Christmas Eve, that we did go to Austin. Those are all expectations. But for some reason, it just felt different. And you're right. It may be the school expectations removing that layer and just being family allowed us to enjoy family.

Clancy Denton (31:57)
Yep, that was good. So there you go. That's our holiday recap and stay tuned. 2024, we've got some exciting things coming up, hopefully, if it all, if things work out and.

Rick Denton (32:11)
From the fun to the meaningful to the intense to the light. There's some things on the docket here that are interesting. And for those of you that have hung with us this long, thank you again. always appreciate those of you that have listened. For those that are new to this, we say this each time, but we're sincere. Give us your ideas because we're learning this together. So part of why we're doing this is to learn. And I want to hear from others as they...

What was your holiday like? What went well? What didn't go well? If you couldn't sit and enjoy, or you didn't do all the activities, why was that? And we'll learn from that and maybe even share your stories in future episodes.

Clancy Denton (32:49)
All right. Well, thanks for joining us again on another episode of the loud quiet living the empty nest.