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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers. Now.

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Speaker 2: I thought, because we live on the Sunshine Coast and

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Speaker 2: we've only been here for a year, I thought a

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Speaker 2: staycation would be heaven.

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Speaker 3: I thought it would be absolutely perfect.

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Speaker 2: But I think the importance of a holiday, the importance

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Speaker 2: of stopping getting away, changing up the routine, because those.

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Speaker 3: Three or four nights on tanglomer Island. Wow.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson, the founder of Happy

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Speaker 2: Families dot com dot you dad to six children who

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Speaker 2: I share with, the wonderful, the incredible, the magnificent co

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Speaker 2: host of the Happy Families podcast. Missus Happy Families, Kylie.

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Speaker 4: I feel like there should be some clapping and sharing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the fanfare, you deserve it all. This is the

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Speaker 2: end of our first week of podcasting. As per normal,

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Speaker 2: the summer series is over. The kids are back at school.

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Speaker 2: At least they have been in Queensland for a week week.

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Speaker 2: Pretty much the rest of the country toddles off back

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Speaker 2: to classrooms.

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Speaker 3: How good has it been?

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Speaker 2: How good has it been to have like six hours

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Speaker 2: every day where the kids are at school.

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Speaker 4: I remember thinking six hours a day would just be

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Speaker 4: such a magical treat. Yeah, yeah, it goes way too things.

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Speaker 4: As much as I love having the kids home during

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Speaker 4: the holidays, there gets a point where it just all

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Speaker 4: of us, not even just the adults, the kids in

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Speaker 4: the room. We're ready for the next phase. We're ready

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Speaker 4: to get back into things and the time purpose We

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Speaker 4: probably could have gone back a week or two earlier

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Speaker 4: this time, right part, But it's good to have everybody back.

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Speaker 4: And for the most part, it's been a pretty good

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Speaker 4: first week back.

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Speaker 2: Extracurriculars have kicked off, kids have actually felt good about

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Speaker 2: moving upper grade and moving along.

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Speaker 3: We're down to three well, not so much good.

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Speaker 4: I think there's just a quiet confidence that has come.

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Speaker 4: You know, we did a big move last year. The

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Speaker 4: kids have been at the same school now for a

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Speaker 4: whole year, amazing, and we're going into a new year

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Speaker 4: at the same school, and there's just this quiet sense

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Speaker 4: of confidence. I know what to.

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Speaker 2: Expect, security, predictability, Yeah yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: And they're going in, you know, kind of knowing who

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Speaker 4: their friends are.

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Speaker 2: And we've got three kids that are now finished school.

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Speaker 2: We're out of our last three. How easy in mornings

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Speaker 2: with just three kids to get ready.

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Speaker 4: It definitely is a case.

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Speaker 2: I know anyone with one or two children who's hating

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Speaker 2: it is just going.

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Speaker 3: What are you talking about? It's horrible.

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Speaker 2: But when you've had to do it for six kids

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Speaker 2: to get them all off to school at once, three.

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Speaker 4: Kids, I know you were winging complaining about the back

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Speaker 4: to school fees that are involved school shoes, show books,

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Speaker 4: all of that kind of stuff, But I can tell

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Speaker 4: you right now, when I stood at the register and

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Speaker 4: they told me how much it was for the three kids,

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Speaker 4: I was like.

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Speaker 3: Is that all these smakes?

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Speaker 4: That's amazing? I felt like I was getting a bargain

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Speaker 4: after buying for six kids for so many years.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been to get down to.

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Speaker 4: Three and to have kids who were just like, yeah,

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Speaker 4: I've got pencils from last year, Mom, I don't need

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Speaker 4: any extra. It's made such a difference.

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Speaker 2: Those back to school costs over the last handful of

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Speaker 2: years with so many kids at school have been just crippling.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's still a lot with three kids, but

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Speaker 2: I guess it's all relative, right, When you've been paying

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Speaker 2: more than double what we what we're up for now,

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Speaker 2: it feels like.

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Speaker 4: Well, in the early days, we even used to have

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Speaker 4: envelopes and we actually had to budget, yes, back to

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Speaker 4: school expenses the whole year.

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Speaker 2: Every week we'd put another ten or twenty bucks in

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Speaker 2: getting ready for or for thirty or forty dollars whatever

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Speaker 2: it was. Yeah, I remember those days, so Kylie. For

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Speaker 2: anyone who's new to the podcast, every Friday, we do

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Speaker 2: a segment called I'll Do Better Tomorrow. The idea is

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Speaker 2: that if we're going to become better at parenting, if

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Speaker 2: in fact, if we're going to become better at anything,

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Speaker 2: we want to review, we want to analyze, consider, and

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Speaker 2: when I go to hardcore, it's not like we're going

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Speaker 2: to get caught up in paralysis by analysis, and we're

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Speaker 2: not going to judge ourselves and feel awful when we

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Speaker 2: get things wrong, although we do we do get things wrong,

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Speaker 2: not feel awful, because well sometimes.

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Speaker 3: We do that as well.

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Speaker 2: But the power of regret is that we get to change.

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Speaker 2: And the whole idea of I'll do Better Tomorrow. Our

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Speaker 2: Friday episode of the podcast every week is you and

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Speaker 2: I get to review. And I thought that, well, we

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Speaker 2: could just do the last week. As the kids have

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Speaker 2: gone back to school this week, and we can review

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Speaker 2: how that's gone. I thought it might be more beneficial

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Speaker 2: to consider what we'll do better next holidays, next Christmas holidays, specifically,

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Speaker 2: because what we've just had six weeks off and I

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Speaker 2: don't know about you, but I don't think that.

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Speaker 3: We holidayed particularly well this year. I don't think it

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Speaker 3: really worked all that well at all. What do you think.

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Speaker 4: It's definitely not a holiday we'd probably want to write

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Speaker 4: home about.

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Speaker 3: No, definitely not.

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Speaker 2: And I think the reason for that, so I'm going

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Speaker 2: to go first for our older better tomorrow today is

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Speaker 2: these holidays. I really didn't switch off. We've got a

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Speaker 2: lot going on with work at the moment, and I

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Speaker 2: just had this feeling that I needed to remain attentive

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Speaker 2: to emails and to I don't know, I mean, we

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Speaker 2: kept the Happy Families podcast going with a summer series.

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Speaker 2: We did a whole lot of stuff that required lower

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Speaker 2: levels of work than normal, but still we had to

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Speaker 2: be attentive. We had to be switched on, and it

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Speaker 2: just felt like having a staycation. We didn't go anywhere

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Speaker 2: except for three nights at the end of the holidays.

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Speaker 2: It just felt like it wasn't that great of a break.

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Speaker 2: In fact, it didn't feel like a break in any way.

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Speaker 3: At all for me. I kind of finished.

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Speaker 2: It was like except for the three days that we

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Speaker 2: had on Morton Island. So we went across to Tangaloom,

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Speaker 2: the island resort, and we had three fantastic nights over there,

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Speaker 2: four days, three nights just off Brisbane. I would say this,

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Speaker 2: we had one of the best holidays we've had there

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Speaker 2: for those few nights that we've.

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Speaker 3: Had in years.

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Speaker 1: But in.

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Speaker 2: The interest of letting everyone know, if you're planning on

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Speaker 2: going there, you really want to take your own food.

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Speaker 2: There is food available at the resort, but it is

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Speaker 2: extremely expensive and it's such poor quality food that I

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Speaker 2: threw mine in the bat even though.

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Speaker 3: I paid an arm and a leg for it. But

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Speaker 3: all the rest of the time we took our own

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Speaker 3: food and that was great. So had a ball. We

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Speaker 3: switched off.

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Speaker 2: We spent really focused time with the kids and my

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Speaker 2: old do better Tomorrow is next year. At Christmas time,

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Speaker 2: we've got to take a couple of weeks and go away,

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Speaker 2: even if it means we drive to the in laws

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Speaker 2: and we hang out with them for a week.

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Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no.

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Speaker 3: To keep costs down, we need we just need to

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Speaker 3: get away and have a break.

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Speaker 4: So you just read what I wrote, because as you

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Speaker 4: were talking, I literally wrote, three days is not enough.

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Speaker 4: We need to book a longer time away because the

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Speaker 4: reality is, and this is the conversation we've had, is

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Speaker 4: that a staycasion is only good if you're committed to

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Speaker 4: actually stopping. Yes, But the problem with parents in general,

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Speaker 4: I'm going to suggest we're all pretty similar like this.

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Speaker 4: You're in the place where you work, you're in the

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Speaker 4: place where life happens, and so you still got to

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Speaker 4: get up and clean the house. You still got to

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Speaker 4: get up and you know, do the grocery shopping and

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Speaker 4: all of those kinds of things where you go on

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Speaker 4: holidays and everything that's kind of taken care of, and

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Speaker 4: it just forces you to stop.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or you've got you've got a different priority set,

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Speaker 2: a different routine, a different agenda. Bear in mind that

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Speaker 2: there are financial constraints, but I think that we actually

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Speaker 2: need to have a holiday, a proper holiday, for probably

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Speaker 2: a couple of weeks over Christmas next year. Just it

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Speaker 2: wasn't good to not switch off. So that's my odd

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Speaker 2: better tomorrow it's actually a bit of a learning. I thought,

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Speaker 2: because we live on the Sunshine Coast and we've only

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Speaker 2: been here for a year, I thought a staycation would

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Speaker 2: be heaven. I thought it would be absolutely perfect. And

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Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the opportunity to

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Speaker 2: get some.

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Speaker 3: Extra surfing in.

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Speaker 2: My hair actually got a little bit sun bleached blonde,

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Speaker 2: like when I was a teenager.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I felt like I'm reliving my youth in

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Speaker 3: some ways.

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Speaker 4: But that doesn't have any picture with the length of

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Speaker 4: your hair at the moment, does it.

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Speaker 3: I have grown my hair a little bit as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But I think the importance of a holiday, the

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Speaker 2: importance of stopping getting away, changing up the routine. Because

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Speaker 2: those three or four nights on Tanglomer Island, Wow, that

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Speaker 2: was so good. Like I'm really excited to get back

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Speaker 2: there with an eski full of our own food.

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Speaker 3: It'll be great.

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Speaker 4: Kids are already planning the annual patch up at Tangling,

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Speaker 4: aren't they.

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Speaker 2: It's so well worth it, all right, Kylie, missus, Happy families.

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Speaker 2: I'll do better tomorrow. Over to you, what did you

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Speaker 2: learn these holidays? What would you like to do better?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 4: These holidays were actually really really tricky for me. Without

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Speaker 4: going into a huge amount of detail, I've been on

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Speaker 4: a little bit of a health journey of my own journey.

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Speaker 3: I love that word.

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Speaker 4: It's a journey, it really is, and it's been a

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Speaker 4: long one. And I decided I ran out of some

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Speaker 4: medication that I've been taking, just spidermins and minerals, and

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Speaker 4: I decided that I'm spending a motzter on these things

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Speaker 4: every week, and so maybe I don't really need them,

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Speaker 4: and so I decided to take myself off them.

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Speaker 3: Now, you did that about three or four months ago, that's.

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Speaker 4: Right, And I didn't notice anything so much in you know,

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Speaker 4: first up and over the next little while, I started

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Speaker 4: to notice I was a little bit more irritable than normal,

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Speaker 4: a little bit more frustrated at life in general. But

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Speaker 4: come New Year's Day, I was hit with just how

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Speaker 4: exhausted I was, to the point that I got up

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Speaker 4: and a few hours later I was back in bed asleep.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You went back to sleep at about nine point thirty

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Speaker 2: that morning and slept for a good two hours.

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Speaker 4: And I'd been feeling it over those three months. I'd

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Speaker 4: been feeling this gradual sense of exhaustion and I just

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Speaker 4: thought it was We've had a really big year, there's

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Speaker 4: been lots of change in our lives, and I just

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Speaker 4: thought that that's what it was. But we got to

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Speaker 4: New Year's and I realized just how my body just

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Speaker 4: wasn't functioning, and I realized that maybe I needed to

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Speaker 4: take some action and go back on to my medication,

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Speaker 4: which I have done that in the process of doing that,

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Speaker 4: realized that there are some areas in my diet that

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Speaker 4: needed some consideration and attention. And it was amazing. The

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Speaker 4: doctor actually said to me, she said, tell me about

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Speaker 4: your alcohol, your caffeine, and your sugar intake. Well, I

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Speaker 4: don't drink alcohol or caffeine, So I was really proud

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Speaker 4: of myself. But then I kind of looked at her

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Speaker 4: and I suggested that maybe the sugar intake doubled up

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Speaker 4: all of of the alcohol and caffeine intake that I

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Speaker 4: was missing out on. And so as a result of that,

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Speaker 4: she's actually put me on a ridiculously strict diet and

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Speaker 4: that's been really, really hard, and it's changed the way

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Speaker 4: I interacted with the kids because I just have struggled

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Speaker 4: so much to just deal with day to day life,

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Speaker 4: let alone be the energetic, happy, let's go exploring mum

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Speaker 4: who loves to have an adventure every now and again.

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Speaker 4: So holidays have been really hard for me. You didn't

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Speaker 4: switch off, and I was physically struggling. And I would

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Speaker 4: love to say that the new year hit and everything,

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Speaker 4: you know, kind of picked up and there was this

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Speaker 4: new sense of energy, but it hasn't. It's been really

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Speaker 4: quite difficult for me. But there was a couple of

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Speaker 4: highlights through the holidays which I just loved, and I

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Speaker 4: was so grateful that, in spite of the hard that

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Speaker 4: I was able to push myself a little bit to

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Speaker 4: create some experiences for the kids. It's baby number three

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Speaker 4: turned eighteen last January.

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Speaker 3: Oh sorry last year year.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was a bit of a hard year

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Speaker 4: for her and she didn't really feel like she wanted

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Speaker 4: to celebrate, and so we just kind of let it go.

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Speaker 4: But this year she was like, Mum, I'd really like

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Speaker 4: to have a party for my nineteenth birthday. I was

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Speaker 4: so excited because she's actually a kid who's had very

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Speaker 4: few parties because she's just not that inclined. She's just

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Speaker 4: not that kid. But she wanted to go all out.

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Speaker 4: She wanted to have a sit down meal with ten

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Speaker 4: or so friends, and you know, we hired a photo booth,

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Speaker 4: and she just wanted it to be a really pretty

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Speaker 4: night of all my kids. Who would ask me for

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Speaker 4: a pretty elegant evening. She's not the child I would

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Speaker 4: have thought would have gone for this, But we went

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Speaker 4: and brought a table of marketplaces for fifty bucks, a

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Speaker 4: dining table, and I had my neighbor cut the legs

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Speaker 4: off and they sat. I don't know what it's called,

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Speaker 4: but they basically sat on a picnic table. It was

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Speaker 4: just like a little coffee table, cushions on the floor,

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Speaker 4: and I served them up a beautiful meal, and she

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Speaker 4: was just radiating. Loved about that experience, was watching her

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Speaker 4: fill other people's cups. She took the time to write

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Speaker 4: a letter to each of her friends and tell them

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Speaker 4: why she loved them, and while she was grateful for

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Speaker 4: having them in her life, I was just such a

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Speaker 4: beautiful evening. And then she decided that she wanted to

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Speaker 4: sing some songs with them with her guitar, and there

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Speaker 4: was just this beautiful feeling of unity and love. And

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Speaker 4: to think that twelve months ago she didn't even know

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Speaker 4: these kids, and yet they have come into her life

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Speaker 4: at a time where she really needed friends, but she

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Speaker 4: has been such an instrumental part in lifting them as

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Speaker 4: much as they've lifted her. And it was just such

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Speaker 4: a beautiful celebration. I was so grateful I could be

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Speaker 4: a part of it. And even now while we're a

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Speaker 4: month and a half down the road, and every now

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Speaker 4: and again, she just pops up and she's like, thanks

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Speaker 4: so much for that party.

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Speaker 3: It was the best.

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Speaker 4: So holidays were hard, they were really hard, but to

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Speaker 4: have a little moment events like that was just, you know, magical,

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Speaker 4: really magical moments. And I'm hopeful that in spite of

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Speaker 4: the fact that I am not switched on all the

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Speaker 4: time and I'm not the perfect amum, that those memories

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Speaker 4: will be the things that will help them to remember

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Speaker 4: the love that exists and my desire to do the

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Speaker 4: things that will live and elevate them.

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Speaker 2: I love that story, and I love how this kid

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Speaker 2: is so attentive to others.

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Speaker 3: It's beautiful. I love what you shared.

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Speaker 2: We hope that there's some inspiration, some ideas, or just

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Speaker 2: some high quality entertainment in today's podcast that helps you

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Speaker 2: feel better about parenting and gives you some inspoth for

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Speaker 2: the weak Ahead. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by

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Speaker 2: Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.

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Speaker 3: With Craig Bruce as our executive producer.

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Speaker 2: If you'd like more information about making your family happier,

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Speaker 2: please visit us at happy families dot com.

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Speaker 3: Do au