Where's the Lemonade?

  Blended families bring lots of new stressors into a relationship. Anxiety is high and sometimes your attempts to help your family to blend just increases the anxiety for everyone. In this episode, Darren & Paige talk about causes of anxiety and how to deal with anxiety in your family. Finding the cause - It is right in your face. Establishing a new family structure new parent styles differen...

There are many studies on the adverse effects of divorce and the trials of blended families. In this episode, Darren & Paige are only looking at the "Lemonade" of blended families. That is right put on your "Rose Colored Glasses" and look at all of the benefits of a blended family. If you want all of the hard things that come with a blended family check out all of our other episodes. :)  For t...

In this episode, we review what happened in 2020. What our plans were, how they adjusted, and how we grew closer together as a family. Learn about travel plans, weddings, eating habits, toilet paper and how we handled it. What we thought 2020 would bring The year started off great with great plans for trips, weddings, and performances from the kids. Paige and the boys went to see The Cursed Child...

  Blended families get judged. No doubt about it. The kids get judged, they come from a broken family, they are going to have issues in school, and in relationships in the future. And the adults do too. They didn't try hard enough in the previous marriage, they gave up too easily, or be careful around them. In this episode, Paige and Darren explore the judgment they have made and have been victims...

In this episode, Darren & Paige try to figure out how to keep things even between the kids, the ex(s), and the different houses. This is not an easy task! In fact,  we find that it is impossible and probably a waste of time and effort. Time to swallow your pride and do what is best for the kids and not worry about keeping up with your ex. Trying to be even with your Ex Do you get  a new car wh...

In this episode, Darren & Paige discuss how to resolve conflict in marriage. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't. Not every resolution results in a WIN-WIN solution, sometimes it is just good enough to push the answer until later. Find out how we navigate this part of our marriage. Finding Solutions to Differences of Opinion Express Views - These are not concerns, just views. What...

  In this episode, Darren and Paige discuss how things in a marriage are not always equally balanced, but focusing on unity in a marriage can overcome the ups and downs of the equality equation. How do you balance the leadership roles with household management, discipline of kids, managing money, fostering romance, and providing for the family. Fostering Equality "Neither man nor woman is perfect...

Darren & Paige talk about the big decision on where to educate the kids. Due to COVID-19 and restrictions of being in person face to face. Tough decisions had to be made on what to do with the kids education. Once the decision was made making it all happen and as painless as possible is the next trip. Find out how we navigated the uncharted waters we are traveling.  Where to educate our kids A...

Find out how to throw a COVID-19 wedding when children of a blended family get married. Something that could be over the top stressful turns out to be wonderful and very low stress. Blended Family twist Wedding Invitations ( What names go on the invite, etc... Whose name goes first, etc...) Who is paying for what at the wedding, grooms family pays but which set of parents on the grooms family, who...

Darren and Paige spend a week away from the world with the family. No COVID, no riots, just the forests, canyons, and family. Learn how we disconnect from our worldly cares and have a fun time decompressing. Important to get away from the bad news of COVID, riots, etc.. COVID is still there and we followed the social distancing guidelines. We took a trip from Northern California to a remote cabin...

COVID-19 is starting to divide our nation and its families. Imagine trying to co-parent with different opinions on COVID safety, money problems due to layoffs, or school plans when schools start up again. There seems to be no gray area when it comes to people's feelings on all of these subjects with respect to COVID and the quarantine. In this episode, we call on a dear friend Reice Morris, a life...

COVID-19 and the corresponding quarantine has brought out some interesting stereotypes that we have seen over the last 3 months. This recognition of stereotypes has given Paige and Darren an internal look at stereotypes that they have had about divorce and blended families. In this episode, we expose the different stereotypes of divorced people, their blended families, and how to overcome those st...

COVID-19 got you down. Quarantine is playing a number on our emotional and physical selves. In this episode listen to how Darren & Paige handle their "Cabin Fever". Will anger and anxiousness take over or are there some things they have found work to ease the stress of uncertainty. Angry and Anxiousness Will the school decide to please (Grading for Distance learning) School just did a pass/fai...

Nine years ago when we got married we had the perfect vision of blending our families. Of course, we wanted it to be like a nuclear family with white picket fences and a dog. What we ended up with was several different family groups and plenty of lessons learned. But we love our blended family and constantly nurture and feed it. Check out how we got there in this episode. Blending 4+6 (2+5) We wan...

We have noticed an uptick on blended families have issues in their families that just seem insurmountable. Stress from the COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty in health, job stability, and the economy is driving wedges in relationships between husband and wife and kids. In this episode learn how to identify the signs of stress, their causes and how to deal with stress in a productive way. Causes of Stre...

It is week 2 of the "Shelter in Place" order from the state of California. In this episode learn how Darren & Paige handle uncertainty. anxiety, and lots of food. We focus on staying connected with friends and family, finding comfort, and finding lemonade when there are lots of lemons. Staying connected What's with the T.P shortage? Who knew that T.P. would become such a commodity! And yeast!...

In this episode find out how Darren & Paige handle the first week of having everyone home in a "Shelter in Place" order by the state of California due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Are we going to grow closer together or drive each other crazy? Adjusting to the New Normal Darren is home all of the time now. He used to travel 2 days a week. Paige got used to Darren being home all day for a couple w...

Money and kids can be hard in any family. When you throw two families together with different histories and expectations Money can be a tough issue to navigate. In this episode, Darren and Paige reveal some of the hard money issues they faced when they first got married and even pop up today. Everything is up for debate when it comes to money: College, Cars, Cell phones, Soda at restaurants who pa...

In this episode, we talk about the key things that you can do to destroy your marriage. We researched some articles and found some interesting things that we need to work on to have a stronger relationship. Check out these great ideas. Become Stagnant Forgetting to keep the romance alive Don't forget your spouse should be your friend too. Not finding ways to stay connected. Become boring Be In Lov...

Valentine's Day is always a stressful time for people. Expectations of the perfect romantic day never match the reality of the day. In this episode, we talk about our successes and failures of Valentine's Days past. It is a "funny look" at a difficult time of the year for many men and women throughout the world. History of Valentine's Day Based on St. Valentine Second card-sending holiday right be...

When we first got married we believed that love would conquer all. Blending families would be as simple as moving all of our stuff into a house and making it a home. Successfully blending families is hard work and takes some careful planning. we learned some invaluable lessons over the years. In this episode find out what worked and what completely failed in our attempt to bring two families toget...

We had to go to marriage counseling to resolve a problem that has bubbled up over time. In this episode find out how we have used marriage counseling to strengthen our marriage and help us feel like we can tackle the problems thrown at us (with some help of course). Counseling in the Beginning We started counseling the day we got engaged. Our counselor taught us how to communicate and empathize wi...

After years of marriage, our date night consisted of finding a rom-com and falling asleep on the couch. We freshened things up with new date ideas including trying to find something open after 9pm in Folsom. We ended up going to a grocery store and making more healthy brownies. Check out our episode about how to spark excitement in your marriage. Getting back to dating after a divorce When you fir...

The Christmas clutter leads us to start an early spring cleaning and organizing. In this episode, we uncover our deepest darkest secret, we are "Organizational Posers". We hide our inability to stay organized by putting all of the stuff in a couple places in the house (Office, and Garage). We learned some tips on how to survive the dreaded post-Christmas de-clutter. Faking organization during Chri...

We have been setting goals with our kids every year at the beginning of the year since we started blending families. We would spend a day after new years day and talk to the kids about the importance of setting and achieving goals. We would write our goals down and then put them in a box in the entertainment center. Then the next year at New Year's day we would dust off the box and look at the goa...