#21 - Interview with Andrew and Erica Boyne: How They Built Their Dream Home [Life]

Speaker 1 00:00:03 Andrew and Erica Boyne are two incredibly inspirational people. You might think it's because they planned design and built their very own home, but in fact, it's so much more than that. They've managed to bring to life in their home, a space that reflects the way they see the world. By creating and constructing with their values at the heart of it, they now reap the rewards living every single day in a way that is authentic to who they are. This chat was an incredible insight into a true team who are a powerful example of what you can achieve when you are aligned in life and go after your big dreams together. Hey, we're Kim and Roger and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together. Speaker 2 00:00:46 We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should we think about the future as a field of possibilities, and we let joy be our compass. We've Speaker 1 00:00:54 Taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together. Speaker 2 00:01:03 From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house flipping business, we've achieved some big dreams and most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had. Speaker 1 00:01:12 Pick conversations from inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team. Speaker 2 00:01:21 These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfortable, whatever tickles you, pickle, and enjoy living the team life. I think we've always thought of you when it comes to couples who are teams. I think you guys have always been the two that came to mind. Um, you've always seemed very aligned with each other from day dot and all our, um, couple conversations. We love to, uh, get to know the couples and one of the ways we do that is asking how you guys first met. Speaker 3 00:01:57 Uh, we met, we met on the first day of, well, when I was studying over, I wanted to go on exchange over to University of Oregon and um, we, I went with a friend and we booked a last minute into one of the dormitories and, um, I don't know, we had, we had no idea what we were in for and we went into this dorm and we were given a room and I think we had an orientation day. And you were the first sort of person I spoke, I spoke to there, I suppose. Speaker 4 00:02:27 Yeah. From my perspective it was, um, it was a dorm introductory meeting, so we were all, we didn't know our way around the campus, so they had everyone meeting in the bottom of the dorm and then walking over to the lecture hall where they were gonna tell everyone what the rules of living on campus were. I was with a girl who I had just met that first day as well, and I remember I was talking with her and she's kind of interrupted me mid-sentence and said, shut up. There are Australians over there, <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:02:54 And Speaker 4 00:02:54 So of course the accent Americans love the accent. So we had to go talk to them. And so, um, my friend spoke with Dave, his friend, and, and I kind of was with Andrew and we walked over to the lecture hall and were talking and I said all sorts of dumb things. Like I asked him if it snowed in Australia and would've sounded like an absolute idiot. Um, but yeah, that's how we met. Um, he was the first boy I ever talked to at uni. Speaker 1 00:03:19 Aw. To be fair, it does snow in Australia, just not Yeah. Over this side. So, Speaker 2 00:03:25 You know, I like it how you, you've both said you're the first person you met at uni and you're like, well, I guess that's it. Like, I think we're done <laugh>. I know. Case closed. <laugh> I got, I got what I came for. Yeah. Yeah. <laugh>. And so how did it progress from there? Speaker 4 00:03:42 Um, pretty casually at first. I think it was, we would just see each other at, you know, different frat parties or get togethers and, um, I, I think I lived upstairs. Yeah. Like he was downstairs. I was one floor above, so you, you would see each other in the dining hall and stuff. And I guess we just continued talking and then, I don't know, Speaker 1 00:04:02 One thing leads to another, Speaker 4 00:04:04 I think, I think we went on Speaker 2 00:04:05 A date. Where did you guys go from your first date? Cuz um, I don't know. I think maybe Australians have this idea of what, uh, college and frat parties and Kegers and all that, uh, look like. Where did you go to go to Wendy's for your first date or something, or <laugh>, something like Speaker 4 00:04:20 That. I'm sure it was, it was something like Tracktown Pizza, but it was Tracktown tastes. Yeah, it was like, um, a small restaurant just like on the edge of campus that had food that students could afford. It was nothing fancy. No, no. And I think it wasn't worth like some, it was probably some dorm by, no, it was outside, but our first date wasn't, you know, like when you're, when you have somebody in the room below, you just hang out all the time. So we would've spent a lot of time by ourselves or talking, you know, with a group around. But I don't think our first date was for three months, but we would've hung out and talked a lot in the meantime. But, so I actually remember our first date being really awkward because it was the first time I was sat down with you across the table, forced to have a conversation, you know, and not have things be awkward. And I remember thinking, oh, this is weird. Speaker 1 00:05:10 Did you, did you feel like when you guys were, uh, friends at the beginning, did you feel like it was just a friendship that you really enjoyed? Or did, were you both thinking, oh no, I'd like it for, for something else to happen? Speaker 4 00:05:22 I don't remember. I had clear intentions that I wanted to Oh yeah, that's right. No, yeah, I had clear attention that I wanted Speaker 2 00:05:30 To put here, Speaker 4 00:05:30 But I wasn't, I wasn't like, look, I, I hadn't thought about, you know, I wasn't like, you're gonna be my boyfriend forever. I was thinking, oh, he's cute. Like, let's just keep pursuing that. So I was definitely hoping you and so it was totally one sided Speaker 1 00:05:45 Sounding a lot like our, our story Erica. I was, I knew what I wanted at uni when I saw Roger <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:05:51 Yeah. And as soon as, Speaker 1 00:05:52 So much so I didn't want the other girls near him either. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:05:55 And as soon as she hooked me in, it was like, all right, um, play hard to get, so, Speaker 1 00:05:59 Yeah, that's right. Speaker 3 00:05:59 That's right. Speaker 1 00:06:00 <laugh>, I did my work. You work for the next 20 years. <laugh>. Speaker 4 00:06:04 Well, I do remember though, I was rushing a sorority, which I didn't join a sorority for a lot of reasons, but I remember they all were talking about the Australians that lived in my dorm and they were talking about the three of them. And I remember one girl said, oh yeah, but apparently one of them is really keen on one of the American girls upstairs. And so that I had thought, I assumed it was them that you had been talking to them saying, oh, I might be interested. So I took that as, cuz I thought maybe he might not be that interested. But when I heard that, I'm like, I am not rushing the sorority and I'm gonna go go back to my dorm and find it True. <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:06:42 It's so sweet. It's, it's funny, I think people look at young relationships that start when we are younger and sort of think that you don't have any idea, but actually when you're younger, there's something about being open to, uh, I guess being more flexible when you meet someone, rather than, I think as you get older you can become more particular around what, what works for you. And, and we do get, uh, more inflexible as we, as we get older. So I feel like listening to your story, and obviously it resonates a lot with ours. There's a lot of, you know, there's just an openness to trying to, having a date, to building the friendship. And like you said, Erica, it doesn't have to be forever. I'm just gonna date this guy, hook up with him and, and see what happens. Speaker 4 00:07:26 Yeah. Believe me, I had no intention of <laugh> meeting my future husband on the first day of uni. That was not my plan. Speaker 1 00:07:34 Can you tell everybody what you guys were actually studying? Cause it'd be lovely to uh, sort of get a bit of background on each of you. Speaker 3 00:07:41 I was studying architecture Speaker 4 00:07:43 And I was studying history and political science. Speaker 2 00:07:46 Can you tell us what happened then? Like, Andrew, you were only in the States for a year, was it? Or? Speaker 3 00:07:52 Oh, it wasn't even that long was um, six months. Six months. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:07:55 So what happens at the end of the six months? Heartbreak. Speaker 3 00:07:59 Yeah. Yeah. It was, and you sort of thought, well, that was unmanageable, but like a long distance relationship with that nature would be unmanageable. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But we sort of made it work for I don't know how many years. Speaker 4 00:08:12 Yeah. Um, like I, we agreed to break up. I would've felt really bad for the people in the Memphis airport when we had to say goodbye. Cause it would've been an absolute shit show to watch. Really. Um, we were both really upset, but we, we didn't Yeah. Two young kids really upset. They didn't quite know why. Um, but for me, like it was, I was never gonna see him again and I wasn't ready for it to end. But we couldn't really see how it was gonna work and he was going off traveling and, and we kind of just kept in touch. But, and then I was, I was really upset probably to a point of being depressed and my mom actually tuned into that and said, look, I am sick of seeing you this way. How about, you've always said you wanna study abroad in either the UK or Australia. What if I bought you a ticket to Australia? You check out the universities there and see if he wants to like, just see what his life is like there and you know, if you guys are still, um, interested and, you know, let's just start from there. And so I did that and it was kind of after that trip that we decided, okay, we're gonna try and make this long distance thing work. And we did that for three more years. Like both of us finished our degrees. Speaker 1 00:09:22 That's amazing. Speaker 2 00:09:23 And this was before Facebook even, was this only MySpace back then? This is, this is, Speaker 4 00:09:29 No, this was before that. We were calling each other on calling codes. Speaker 2 00:09:32 Yeah. That's that's nuts. Oh my god, I Speaker 3 00:09:35 Remember this. Yeah. The ones you Yeah. You'd find you'd scratch off. Yes. The the code on the bank. Oh, Speaker 2 00:09:41 Yes, Speaker 1 00:09:42 Yes. And you had like 50 numbers to put in. It was a very long process. That's right. Speaker 3 00:09:48 Process. Speaker 4 00:09:48 Yeah. And my, by the end of my, I would buy big cards, like by the end I would have old numbers memorized because I was, we were talking every night. Speaker 1 00:09:57 Oh, that's so lovely. Speaker 2 00:09:58 That's incredible. Um, three, three years is a really long time. Speaker 1 00:10:01 How did you make three years when you look back now, especially obviously, you know, almost 20 years or plus 20 years on, how do you think you made that work at that time? Speaker 3 00:10:11 I, I think it kind, it kind of did work. Like it, we sort of, and I think it made it talk about relationships, but I think it made our relationship better because we, we sort of always were individual people mm-hmm. <affirmative> and we sort of had our own lives. And then you'd sort of communicate at the end of the day or whenever. Um, and I feel like, I feel like it was, it, it sort of, it sort of just worked. Right. Speaker 4 00:10:36 Yeah. I guess you were watching people. My I was watching my friends around me and, you know, you're discovering yourself a lot Yes. At that age. And you would see some people having an inclination to wanna develop in one way, but they were dating somebody who maybe wanted them to be different or, you know, wanted them to be the person they always were. And you could see that that that has a, a pretty significant weight on, you know, couples sometimes, or even people say, how do you do that long distance? I watched couples who were two hours apart struggle a lot more because it, you could get into those fights about you're not making enough effort. You know, we, if they chose not to come down for the weekend, for us it was always, we could live those lives. We could extend ourselves to be the people we wanted to be. And at the end of the day, we worked hard to see each other every six months. We would call each other every night and we did our best to come back. But I think we didn't have a lot of that expectation and that daily grind that can really go at couples, um, at that period in your life. And so I think that that actually was helpful for us in Speaker 1 00:11:42 One way. It's, it's a really interesting perspective. And, you know, something we talk about here is, is setting exp expect clear expectations in your relationship and getting aligned really as a couple. And funnily enough, by having that distance so young, you have actually gotten more clear about what you expect from each other, uh, when you need to see each other. You know, like, we are gonna make it every six months. And I think perhaps when you're that young in a relationship, sometimes you don't have the ability or the understanding yet that setting those clear parameters for the relationship of what's important to you. Like, yes, we're gonna talk each day at this time. You know, that's actually practice for life and setting up a really constructive and open relationship. So it's almost like it, it fast forwarded that learning that I think most people get later on in their relationship when they start to realize that there's benefit to being very clear in what the expectations and the agreements in the relationship are. Speaker 4 00:12:38 Mm-hmm. Speaker 3 00:12:38 <affirmative>. Yeah. I think, I think also that there, there was a lot of like, because you had the distance, the level of obligation was a lot lower. Like you didn't, you weren't, as Eric was saying, you weren't obliged to go and see each other or spend so many hours with each other each day. You were sort of just living your life and you were sort of calling each other cuz you wanted to in the evening. Like, it was just kind of simple in that way. Speaker 4 00:13:01 And I think in, in later years we've talked about we were choosing to be with each other and we were always very open saying, the minute that someone's starting to get tempted or thinking this isn't working, we need to be honest about that. Because what we were doing was living our life and then choosing to come back to that person every night or every six months. We were choosing to spend the money that we were saving to go across the world. And the minute someone didn't want to choose that, we needed to be honest about what we were doing. But I guess with that agreement, I never, I never got to that point where I wanted to choose anything else. Speaker 3 00:13:37 Yeah. I wouldn't admit to it <laugh> Speaker 4 00:13:40 Dangerous. Speaker 2 00:13:41 Yeah. I did see the stare, the daggers. Speaker 1 00:13:46 Oh, Speaker 2 00:13:46 I love, it's, it's very mature I think. Um, yeah. You know, that's the word I was thinking of. I think, uh, I was very immature probably at that same age and Kim and I were together at that same time and we lived out of each other's pockets in the first couple of years that was really intense and was really amazing. But I think as we started to grow it, it became harder and we've constantly chosen to, to come back to each other over the 20 odd years. But I can see how maybe a bit of a slow burn, a deliberate approach to I choose you every day. Uh, while it took a bit of pressure off it, but it made it more deliberate. Speaker 3 00:14:22 Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like you were both, you were both, you both sort of knew you were consenting to it all the time, you know? Yes. There was no sort of like, obligation to it. Yeah, Speaker 1 00:14:31 Yeah. Yeah. And I think Speaker 4 00:14:32 There was a period where, you know, there was a little bit of, um, I was still trying to take that approach when I probably shouldn't have when I studied abroad. Like I came to study in Perth for six months and you know, like for him, I, I've come across the world, this is the chance to be together again. And I think I was set on not being the girl who was in the pocket of my boyfriend the whole time I was gonna have my experience, but I, I feel like I was a, I almost distanced myself too much. I was still pursuing that too heavily. And you know, luckily we were mature enough that you were able to raise that with me and, you know, I could, I could see that, you know, I had come halfway across the world, I, I should wanna hang out with him a little more. Cuz I was trying to be like, no, I need my friends in the dorm and I don't wanna be the girl who's always hanging out with her boyfriend. And at the same time I was like, well, you did choose to come on halfway across the world for six months. What are you doing? It's Speaker 1 00:15:23 Such a beautiful example again, I think of, of being really clear about what your ex, I mean, again, it comes back to you guys having clear conversations and you've obviously even at that point, built enough trust that you feel like you can say those things to one another. Because often I think what we are seeing and and hear from people out there is they don't necessarily feel like they can tell their partner what's happening for them. And I think at that age, to have that ability and that safety and that trust, which you built over the years of long distance, uh, is is pretty incredible. And that's given you the permission to have these trickier conversations. You to hear it with an open, open mind and Andrew to be able to give it freely without fear of, of it backfiring, which is pretty amazing. Speaker 4 00:16:11 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Speaker 2 00:16:12 So, so were you Speaker 4 00:16:13 Afraid it would backfire <laugh>? Speaker 1 00:16:15 Probably. Speaker 2 00:16:17 So who, how did you make the decision to come live in Australia? Is that what happened next? Speaker 3 00:16:22 Uh, no, I, I went, I went, I went and moved back to the us. I went and got a job in Oregon, in Portland, Oregon. And we lived there, um, for two, three years. And then I lost my job in the financial crisis or at their sort of tail end of it. And that's why I had to come back. And Erica stayed there for another year or so. Speaker 4 00:16:43 Yeah. I finished my master's degree. I was halfway through, so he lost his visa and couldn't stay. And so he left and we decided I would finish my master's. So we did another year of long distance. And then I moved over and, you know, we got married within the month that I moved <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:17:01 Whoa. Seriously. Speaker 4 00:17:03 Yeah. So his mother was a saint. She helped, she was my wedding planner from a distance. So when he moved back, you know, we, we got engaged, we knew that we were gonna get married and so I was finishing my master's degree and then we planned the wedding long distance and then flew over and all my family followed me and we got married like less than a month after me arriving here. Speaker 3 00:17:25 I think it was conditioned a visa. Speaker 4 00:17:27 Yeah. To be honest, it sounds so unromantic. But, um, we knew we wanted to be together and it was the easier path for a visa was a, a fiance visa and so we, we chose that path, but it's not like we're Speaker 3 00:17:39 Engaged before. Speaker 4 00:17:41 Yeah. But then you start looking at visas and it, it's amazing how immigration can Yes. Make relationships sound very unromantic. Speaker 1 00:17:48 I have two sisters-in-law from overseas and I've been through the process with both of them. So it, yeah, it, it, I think it might sound unromantic to others, but actually I think it just forces conversations that are going to happen one way or another anyway. And I certainly saw in our family, you know, no one got married because they had to, they got married because they wanted to, and sometimes it just happens on a different timeline because they needed to. So, um, yeah. Yeah, Speaker 3 00:18:16 Yeah. Well I remember, I remember going to a, um, immigration agent when I, before we, when I lost my jo when we ran outta work and I was losing my visa and Erica's mother organized for me to see an immigration agent and he was an absolute waste of time, <laugh>. And he showed me pictures of his trip to Australia and stuff like that and charged $400 <laugh>. But the, the only thing he said to me that was of any use was he said, don't get married for the visa. And so we, so we, that was, that was $400 worth of advice. It was actually probably pretty good value. Speaker 4 00:18:50 Yeah. Because when he was losing his visa and having to leave, they said, just get married. Like he'll get the green card and stay. And the one thing we knew is we didn't wanna get married just for the visa. Yeah. But as you said, probably brought up conversations later that meant, it was like, well, what are we waiting for? We're actually ready for that. Speaker 1 00:19:09 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna skip forward. Thank you so much for walking us through that. I, I, I knew details of that, but not the full story and I just, I, especially your long distance, which I found absolutely amazing and I think is such a rarity to be able to, to be able to manage that and is probably, you know, a good indicator for why you guys have been so successful for so long in your relationship. I'm gonna jump forward because we do really wanna talk today about a big dream that you guys have have fulfilled in the last few years, and that was building your very own home. So how did the dream to build your own home begin? Speaker 3 00:19:51 Well, it probably, it probably didn't begin as a, as a dream really. And it, like, it, we, we were quite happy living in our little rental and I don't really, I've got a funny thing where I don't really like owning anything. So it was always a, uh, the idea about owning a house would, is not, never been particularly attractive. No. But we, I, I once had this boss who said that the prerogative of an architect was to build on a difficult site. And there are so few in western Australia because they're all sandy and flat that we, one, one day we sort of just, we would just went for a walk along the river, um, and we drove and we parked in front of this sign and, um, it, it was a for sale sign and we went and walked down It just, just cuz we were interested and it was a, it was an unusual difficult site. So like from that point we started to think it was a good idea. Mm. Um, it was just an opportunity I suppose. Speaker 4 00:20:49 Yeah. And I guess like we had always, um, we had structured our life and had decided that, um, we would live in a way that we would save as much money as possible and for a period we put down what we like term anchors. Things that would like keep you tied to a place or something. We avoided that. We avoided the anchors. So, you know, we didn't get a pet. Um, we didn't buy a house, those things, um, because we were just waiting for, we wanted to have flexibility for when an opportunity came up, but we didn't really necessarily know what that opportunity was gonna be. We never dreamed it was gonna be building our own house. Was it, it was just, we wanted to have the ability, if an opportunity that was great came up that we could take it. And I guess it ended up being Speaker 3 00:21:35 This house. It was, it is also, um, worth noting that we were, at that time we were also thinking about moving back to Oregon and we were booked a, we had booked flights to even go and make that decision whether we would do that or not. Mm-hmm. So, and then we found the, like two weeks before we left, we found the site. Mm-hmm. So it sort of became part of the, um, compensation or what Speaker 1 00:21:56 You talked about there though, with the flexibility and saying that, you know, that was something that you really were focused on and it is really a value that you've put, that you've put out clearly. Right. You didn't have those anchors you said, so that you could be flexible. What it's enabled you to do though is pivot in whatever direction you wanted to go. And it's such a lovely thing to think like when we get really clear, you know, one of the things we talk about all the time is how important values are. And rather than thinking about action, so my action was I wanted to go and live in Oregon, or I wanted to buy a block. My value was flexibility. You didn't know how that would evolve and what it gave you was just an incredible opportunity to pick up whatever mattered to you or whatever you liked in that space and, and pursue the dream. You didn't even know what the dream would look like at that point, but you started with what your value was, which was clearly the flexibility to pursue a big dream or a big opportunity when it arose. Speaker 3 00:22:52 I think there's also something that came out of the financial crisis for us from that, which was that when we're in Oregon, like I don't think people in West Australia understood what it was like to be there and see all your friends unemployed, Speaker 4 00:23:06 Their families losing their homes after 30 years, Speaker 3 00:23:10 Having your, um, student college fund wiped out. Like all those things made you think like you couldn't, you, you shouldn't over commit to anything. Like you should only do it when it sort of made sense. Speaker 4 00:23:23 Yeah. And my family would kind of give us, you know, a little bit of, you know, $200 and in their cards they would write things like put it to whatever it is you're saving for. Like my family found it quite odd that we didn't have something very specific that we were, we were striving towards. Um, I think we confused them a little bit with that. Didn't, Speaker 1 00:23:46 But you did. You, you knew you wanted the flexibility to pursue it, you just didn't know what it was gonna be. And I absolutely loved that. Yeah. So you saw the block and it met the, the mandate, which was that the block, the block needed to be difficult because that's the prerogative of an architect is to conquer the difficult block. Yeah. How did you guys agree that okay, we wanna undertake a monster project of actually designing and then building a house together ourselves? Cuz you guys did a lot of the work, right? Speaker 3 00:24:18 Um, I I think it's like it, I don't know. I think you, I think, well it was gonna be designed by me. Yeah. Speaker 4 00:24:25 That was obvious. Speaker 3 00:24:26 Or us, Speaker 4 00:24:28 Me <laugh>. You <laugh>. I'll put a side note. I always knew he didn't necessarily want to build his own house. And I had always made given him a hard time when I would go through his buildings that he built for other people and they were amazing. You know, I would always say, when do I get one of these? And I knew that that wasn't necessarily, um, something that he wanted. And so when we decided we did wanna undertake this, um, while it is my house, I understood that this was probably one of the only opportunities he would have to design a house and build a house, um, without, you know, the client really, um, changing the, the shape of it. And that's what an architect does. But you know, sometimes there's a pure vision and I am the client and I have shaped it in some ways, but I was trying as hard as I could to let him have as much freedom, um, creative freedom as possible. So I kind of gave him a few non-negotiables, <laugh>. Um, and we'd talked about what we wanted our house to be for, for years. So it wasn't a surprise. I think there was only one thing I had to come in later with that I didn't expect and say actually that that's a non-negotiable as well, <laugh>. Um, but yeah, I I wanted him to be the designer and to interject as little as possible if I could. Speaker 2 00:25:47 The design you've put through is actually a bit counterculture. So it's a two bedroom, one bathroom as you said, on a, on a different block. It might, it it might have affected resale value of what a typical, uh, west Australian house would go for with en suites and this and that and the other. So how did you stick to, this is what I believe in, this is the design I want, where you are building a house for you, not for, ah, this is, this is what society says I should build. Yes. This is what, uh, a real estate agent says will get me more money on the, on the backend. Speaker 3 00:26:20 I suppose first of all, it probably was never a financial decision. Like it was a sort of life objective decision. So that, so that may mean that the weight of the finances was less. Yeah. But we'd also always thought, well I at least, I mean we've been together for a very long time. Anything I thought we've discussed, but, um, we always sort of thought that it was difficult to, oh, it was difficult to build a house for somebody you'd never met. And so all that we figured we would do was, was meet our requirements and the things that we would like, and then hopefully there'd be somebody out there that would buy it, is how we sort of saw it. So we sort of figured that, well, if we like it, there may be someone else, so maybe it's not so bad. Speaker 4 00:27:07 Yeah. So we weren't expecting if we wanted to ever sell it, that you're gonna have people lining up to buy the house. We knew that it was gonna have to be a very specific buyer and that we might have to wait a while, but we figured that well it is possibly counterculture. There are other people who believe in things that we believe in as well and would buy it. We would just have to probably be a bit more patient than others Speaker 3 00:27:29 Would. You're right about the, the sort of pressure was that I think we had a lot of people and you particularly, I don't see, people don't raise these things with me because this is my job and it's possibly a little harder to do, but Erica was at the bru brunt of a lot of criticism or critical questioning about Yeah. You know, why aren't you doing this? Why are you doing that? Um, so that it was possibly harder for you than it was for me. Speaker 4 00:27:54 Yeah. It was, it was interesting how, um, you would explain what we were trying to do and, and we, we approached this as an experiment. You know, we thought that this is possibly what would make a good house even better. You know, we wanted to try new things that weren't normally done and to test them out. And I think that challenged a lot of people. But also anytime we tried to do something that wasn't normal, I think people were taking it almost as, um, Speaker 3 00:28:21 As a criticism, Speaker 4 00:28:22 As a criticism of themselves, uh, a criticism of their house. And they responded that way, not to Andrew as much, but to me. And so I actually got a lot of quite aggressive comments that I was then having to defend. And while I believed it and I had a hundred percent faith in him, it, it, it did leave me feeling uncomfortable because I was just surprised that, you know, they don't have to live in my house. Why do they have such strong feelings about something that they're never gonna have to deal with? Yeah. Speaker 1 00:28:50 I think you raised such a valid point and something that again, like we really love to talk about is, is getting clear as a team on what you want out of life and not what society wants. And, and one of the things I think you're just a hundred percent right on is why is society pushing us to do certain things? And I think a lot of it actually comes from insecurity because people feel like if you don't do it the way they did it, then what they've done might not be right. Speaker 2 00:29:19 Yeah. You're cha you're challenging them Yes. On who they, what they really believe and who they really are. And that's really uncomfortable for people who haven't actually challenged themselves. Yes. At any stage. We get it quite a bit when we tell people that we're doing a podcast on people becoming a team in their relationship <laugh>, and they're like, who, who are you to to broadcast what you are Speaker 3 00:29:40 Thinking you are feeling? And Speaker 1 00:29:42 The well, what about the individual? That's the most common societal mis Yeah. Misconception because they're so afraid in their own world of giving up their independence as they call it. And they haven't sat down and gone deeper on what the relationship actually needs. And so by us saying we wanna be a team, it just plants this seed of fear that like, well, what I'm not allowed my independence, are you saying that's wrong? Am I wrong about the way I live my life? And you get this, like you say, quite aggressive response. They're defending their own, um, I would say their own lack of understanding around what they really value because they haven't had those deeper, clearer conversations. Just on that, you said that you guys had some very clear beliefs that you thought, uh, a future buyer would, would be in sync with, and that's where you think you'll get your future buyer. Not necessarily tons of people, but you will find someone who thinks like you. Can you talk us through what some of your beliefs are? Because I think it's fascinating to hear how clear you guys were on who you are as a team and what you believe in. Speaker 3 00:30:47 Uh, we definitely wanted small, um, we wanted to only build what we needed and to, um, build something flexible because we understand needs change. And so the way that this house has been designed is that it's small, but it can change shape and look to accommodate changing requirements, which we've proven with the addition of Jack. I think I do. One of the major drivers behind the house is that that comes from, it sort of comes from that original decision on whether we would move to Oregon or move to West Australia or stay in West Australia. And we'd found it up until that point we'd sort of all because we'd had never really known where we were going. We sort of never committed to either, and we were sort of like lightly engaged with the community or place. And so we thought, well, if we're going to make this about our move or our decision to stay in Western Australia, it has to be about absolute commitment to the place mm-hmm. Speaker 3 00:31:41 <affirmative>. So we, we have sort of built the house in a way that's sort of is intended to connect us with that place. So it's about, it's not only about, um, you know, plants and things that are West Australian, but also trying to explore what a West Australian lifestyle is. So is it more about being outside and what are the lovely things about being a West Australian? So it's about, you know, there's, there's a, like one of the things I think is kind of fun is that I made sure that the grass was long enough to play, to kick to kick foot for kick to kick football <laugh>, which I think is about 14 meters. So we, we had to make sure that that was the case. Um, and there's, there's lots of other things about trying to tie like our story, our stories and our holidays and stuff by like collecting seeds from different places and growing plants. Um, we built this bookshelf to showcase all of the knickknacks that we collect. We Speaker 4 00:32:38 Get a knickknack per place and we wanted that to be on show. So like you had little small things like that dictating that, like that concept. Um, and also, um, people are quite critical of us for not building fences to fence in our property. It was really important that if we're gonna bat ourselves in this community, we wanted to be as part of the community as possible. So, you know, building fences keeps people out, but it, I guess it keeps bad people out, but it also keeps your neighbors out. And we've, we tried to foster ties with our, our neighborhood as much as we could in the design. I Speaker 1 00:33:13 Absolutely love the way you talk about connection to place because I don't know that people think that overtly about how connected they are to the place they live in. And it's something that I think for us moving to Nissco, we were very clear about where we were living and we lived on, oh, I, I knew I wanted to live on a snow forest. I, I knew what I wanted to embrace being part of a, of a snow village and be, be living the life that you would, that would maximize my connection to our connection and our daughter's connection to the snow and the lifestyle there. And, and that's really affected when we came home and we thought about what house we would want in our connection to place here. Outdoor living is such a huge part and advantage of West Australian lifestyle and, and innate in who we are. You know, you drive down to the beaches, there's people walking along in the sunshine six in the morning. It's, it's a joyful part of what and who West Australians are, but I don't know that many people are as clear when they buy a house that there's an opportunity to really connect with that deeper side of the place we live in. I dunno if people even think about it like that. Speaker 2 00:34:23 Yeah. And what we will do is, we'll, on our socials we'll put up some of the amazing Oh, so beautiful videos that you've done, Andrew. Speaker 3 00:34:31 Oh yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 00:34:32 Especially the ones where the, uh, when it's raining it, it's like you're in the country, uh, or country Australia with the gum trees and the water falling off the corrugated iron and it's, it's magical. Speaker 3 00:34:46 Well, well those are, those are things that we were trying to capture. I think there was another architectural reason for that is that if you were to build a, let's say you were to build a house and you wanted to, I don't know, make it feel like a Balinese villa, um, it's a lot of investment to make a Balinese villa. And you have to like, you have to go and grow the right plants and you have to build the right surrounds and to build a big concrete landscape to fence it all in so you don't see your neighbors and stuff like that. So to create a comprehensive environment, it's a fair investment. Yet if we actually broke down all those things and just sat amongst the environment, we kind of almost get it for free. So we get this far more complexity for nothing. So that was the sort of driver behind that. Speaker 1 00:35:34 That goes to the, the what Erica said as well at the beginning was, um, you know, that you, you didn't need, you didn't want a big house. You didn't need to take more than you needed. Isn't it like all of what you're saying is actually about being, uh, careful with resources. We don't need to put more money into, like you say, creating the space. It's already there if you want to lean into it and use what's available. And I think when we think of, of scarcity of resources, you can think about it in every aspect of your life. How do we have reciprocal assets, things that both people can use or, you know, rather than being, because I think one of the things that's so sad in, in Western world especially, is how siloed we've become. You require every little unit requires its own set of resources as opposed to when you're more community focused. Not every single family requires their own set of resources. You can share the, the natural resources, you can share the community resources. And I think that yeah, it's, it's a lovely way of approaching things. Speaker 3 00:36:34 Yeah. It's, it, yeah. And I just sort of think it's, it's, it's just per value <laugh>. Yeah. You know, you get, you get all that complex because I think life is better being complex. And so you get far more complexity from your neighbor doing something stupid in the backyard. Then you do like with a concrete wall and a balanis villa and a french pan trees, you know, like the complexity. Sometimes it's inconvenient, but the complexity is richness. And I think that was sort of, that was a sort of driver. Mm-hmm. Speaker 2 00:37:06 So there is one thing though. You did design an outdoor toilet. Can you just, Speaker 1 00:37:12 Now that's a complex Speaker 2 00:37:13 Issue. Ca can you take us through the conversations, through the design to the build and now the actual operation of the outdoor toilet? Speaker 1 00:37:22 We, we said it was the Roger I were talking about this beforehand, was saying there's the design element and then there's the relationship Speaker 2 00:37:28 Element to the outdoor <laugh>. Can you take us through both Speaker 3 00:37:32 <laugh>? There's lot, there's lots of drivers behind her, but interestingly, it's one of the, the, you our in, I found through residential architecture that most people want more or less similar things, right? Like they, they tend to like the same sort of kitchens and the same designs and the same bedrooms and things, but toilets are the one thing that really differs between <laugh> between people. It's, it's one of the, it's one of the strange, strange bits, Speaker 4 00:37:59 But I think that that's one of the, the things that we had most in common is you and I hate toilets. We hate them near us. We hate hearing what's going on. We hate smelling what's going on. Like we have a equal passion to not know what's going on in toilet. And so I, it was a pretty easy, easy answer for us to put our toilet outside. Speaker 3 00:38:20 But it also, it also came from when Erica was doing some, uh, recent, Speaker 4 00:38:25 Uh, I was at Soaker Museum as the curator and I was researching Dgl, which was a garden suburb. And I was looking at all of the old, um, newspaper articles and I found a letter to the editor, which was, um, expressing, uh, like absolute outrage that, you know, it before toilets were all outside and Dags was kind of trying a new way of living and they were starting to bring their toilets inside the house. And, and it was this letter to the editor saying, why on earth would you bring a toilet inside your house? And and I said to Andrew, I'm like, yes, Speaker 3 00:39:00 Yes. Speaker 4 00:39:02 I finally found someone vocalizing how we felt about toilets. <laugh>. Yeah. So like, um, this is the thing that, you know, some people will walk through our house and there are a lot of things that are not normal and, you know, they might walk out and only thing they're talking about is that, that outside toilet, it really, um, Speaker 3 00:39:20 It's is the one that <inaudible> difference I think like the other. But in terms of livability, like if what it does is it, it, so we, we made this house that's meant to be engaging with its environment and it's the one time when you sort of can create a transition between the outdoors that is short enough to just be a transition. Mm. So it creates four seconds of movement through the outdoors into the toilet and it on a, on a reason <laugh> reasonably regular interval. So it's a, it's a sort of forced, forced um, engagement. Speaker 1 00:39:59 I love that. I have never thought about that. Cuz I have thought about your toilet a lot, so there you go. Speaker 3 00:40:03 Yeah. Speaker 4 00:40:04 And Speaker 1 00:40:04 We have an outdoor dny, you know, our house is a hundred years old, you guys know that. We have a, a very disgusting outdoor dny that I send Roger out to. And it just does not appeal to me. I mean, granted, yours is a lovely outdoor dny. Ours is, ours is full of spiders and all sorts of gross stuff. But it, I have thought about it a lot. I never thought about the fact that it's an invitation to go outside and, and have, I always thought about the discomfort and that's probably part of the conditioning. Again, we are always thinking about trying to be as, as least affected these days as possible, as least effort to go into something. We want comfort, we want ease of use as quickly as possible. But when we go for all the quick fixes, the quick wins, the, the laziest options, the most comfortable options, sometimes we miss the most beautiful options. Speaker 3 00:40:57 Yeah. And I think that might be right. Speaker 4 00:40:59 And it's interesting, even living in our house, which is almost all windows. And you'd say, I'm, I'm constantly around surrounded by nature. I remember I was working from home one time and I was just so involved in my work that I, I wasn't engaging with anything around me and I needed to use the toilet and I walked outside and for that 30 seconds that you are not involved in something, our toilet has a full size window. So you're looking out and I was just watching this big poplar tree just wave. And I thought, oh, I didn't realize it was so windy. And then I started looking around realizing how have I coexisted in this space of windows everywhere and I haven't noticed a single thing about what's going on around me. And, and that toilet then made me come back into the house and go, okay, come out of your work a little bit and appreciate what's going on around you. And, and the way I felt about my work for the rest of the afternoon was very different. Mm. And so it, that our toilet, um, offers you that, that option. And, you know, I didn't, I didn't even really think about that too much until we actually had the outdoor toilet. Speaker 1 00:42:08 This has ended up being far more complex than I had given it credit for. So you've definitely hit on the complexity <laugh>. Speaker 2 00:42:15 Yeah. Some of my greatest achievements have happened on the toilet. So don't Speaker 1 00:42:18 Edit that out. That's Speaker 4 00:42:19 Disgust <laugh>. Speaker 3 00:42:22 Yeah. Well I I guess like, yeah, there's a lot, like a lot of, we, because we have spent a lot of time talking about it and like there are a lot of decisions that go into everything, I suppose. Well Speaker 1 00:42:32 Now, and, Speaker 4 00:42:32 And I do wanna do a disclaimer for your listeners. It's not like we're, we're trucking outside for 30 meters to get to our toilet. It's, it's Speaker 3 00:42:40 A meter. Speaker 4 00:42:41 It's a meter and it's covered. Just so everyone says, how do you go out in the middle of the night? Um, to be honest, sometimes it's more sheltered in the back there than it was in our old rental unit in Shenton Park, which was freezing cold and more pleasant cuz you're walking on all these cold tiles and stuck in this old concrete thing like I'm, it's a better option than that. And that was all inside. So Speaker 1 00:43:05 It sounds like, it sounds like from what you're saying, because you designed a house that reflected your values very clearly and as you've said repeatedly, both of you, that you talked about it and talked about it and talked about it, which is, you know, obviously one of the key tenets of your relationship and one of the things that makes you guys so strong is having these deeper conversations. But because you've gone deliberately about designing a house that reflected your values, you actually get to live your values naturally every day now. Speaker 3 00:43:36 Yes. Yeah. I think that that's the sort of surprising thing. What it's, you know, like you, I don't know cuz I, it's my job to draw stuff and you have all these ideas, but actually you never experience them because they're other people's houses. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, I think, I think that yeah, it's a nice thing to try and run with it, I suppose, or live it. Speaker 4 00:43:59 One thing I've noticed from this is that I think some of the design decisions, especially that Andrew made, they were deliberate, but he's still surprised by some of them. Um, and not like he had no idea what he was doing. He knew what he was doing. But so for example, not having walls that went up to a sailing, I was very, very concerned about that. And he always said, but it'll just force us to have conversations about how we're choosing to live in the space and, you know, that's okay and there can be great outcomes from that. He wasn't specific about it though. But now we spend so much more time together, so much less time watching tv. We sit down at the dinner table like, because our, the, the, the center space is shared. We communicate about what we want to do that night and all of a sudden, you know, it's up for ne it's not up for negotiation. It's like, oh, you wanna read? Actually that sounds like a good idea. Can I read with you? And that was not something I an I was just worried about, oh, what happens when I wanna read and he wants to watch TV and we're just gonna be all over each other. But he did it very deliberately. But even though the small outcomes sometimes are surprising as to how they come to fruition, I don't know if I've never clear. Speaker 3 00:45:08 Yeah. But, but then you may also say that if we had walled up the whole thing, we may be sitting here saying, well it's excellent we get to live our lives and you know, we get to do different things. So it is just, you know, I think there's been a lot of successes and we're really happy with them, but it's not particular genius or anything, it's just, just it sort of worked itself out, I guess. Mm-hmm. Speaker 1 00:45:29 Can I ask something else, just switching for a second, because we know that you guys did a lot of the physical labor on your house yourselves, and this is just such an amazing feat watching someone literally physically build their own home. How did that impact your relationship and your day-to-day life? And I presume those two are intertwined. Speaker 3 00:45:51 Well, I, it was a lot, but it, it was just, you know, like it was both e Eric and I driving there on Saturday morning at eight o'clock or something and getting home at 10 and, and we were, we thought about this, um, last night and we were saying, oh, you know, we ate a lot more McDonald's than than we'd ever done cuz it was too everywhere. It was too loud. Everything was closed on the way home. Speaker 4 00:46:13 Yeah. Um, I think responsibilities in the household shifted. Um, I that was true. Yeah. I was not, I'm not, I don't know the building industry. I had never picked up a power tool before this project. So there were a lot of things where the weight was falling on him. Um, he had the knowledge for the project management. He could talk, I tried doing the quotes to take some pressure off of him, but the tradies would come back with very specific technical questions. I couldn't answer. I couldn't take the burden off of him in that way, which meant I had to probably pick up a lot of the normal life duties. Um, and that challenged me a lot internally because I would like to think of myself as a feminist and I really wanted to resist that. I've become like the domestic goddess, but I really had to keep myself in check and realize this isn't me becoming the domestic goddess because I'm a woman. It's because we needed to allocate skills in certain directions and I could do, I had certain skills and he had certain skills. So we just had to do that. And that's not the way our life is now. Like I'm, I'm not stuck in the domestic sphere. It was that moment in time required us to do that situation. Speaker 1 00:47:26 How do you, or how did Andrew address this to you? Cuz this is a really important point that I think women, um, experience at different, in different seasons with, especially with young children. How do you do support Erica so that she didn't feel like, oh, I've just left alone in the home to always do all the house chores and I'm feeling quite resentful about that. Speaker 3 00:47:47 I doubt I did it adequately. I dunno, <laugh> Speaker 1 00:47:51 Erica, do you know, Speaker 4 00:47:52 I think that Andrew is very good at, when I was expressing some discomfort with the situation reminding me why it was, I, I think I too was too inclined to be like, why am I stuck doing the housework cuz I'm a woman? He said, no, like, I'll come and cook if you want to do this. And it would've been something that I had no skill doing. I would've been very intimidated. And he said, sounds manipulated. Well, no, it, it says like, this is, this is what needs to be done because we've both agreed this is our dream. This is what needs to be done. I'm happy to switch at any point. And I didn't want to go pick up the drill and do something and waste money and do it. Speaker 3 00:48:33 This sounds like you weren't on the site a lot. Yeah, yeah. Like you were there every day as well. Speaker 4 00:48:38 Yeah, so I was on site and he was very good at teaching me how to do things so that I felt very invested in it. It was just, you know, like at the end of the day when we're both like, or he would stay on site a little longer, I would go back and try and do washing cuz you have to have clothes to go to work that week. You know, like yeah. It's little things like that, um, you know, where you, you sense your, you're taking up more of the domestic duties than you normally do. And I think it was a transition to change, but once we got into it and we both understood what we were doing and how we were gonna do it, it operated really smoothly. It was probably just the transition into that situation. Speaker 2 00:49:13 Hmm. We experienced something fairly similar in some ways when Kim gave up her career in counseling for us to decide to go to Melbourne for a career change. And even when we moved to Necco in the snow, while Kim started her own business, she was still Lola's main caregiver while I was working very long hours in a a high stress job. Now we run our business together and I have to pick up a lot of the household work that a lot of other men probably wouldn't do now, in all honesty, I probably don't do 50% yet, but I do 90% of the cooking. So I'll cook breakfast and I'll cook dinner every day pretty much without fail. But then I'll still probably ask Kim to clean the bathroom. Speaker 1 00:49:57 Was that just so you could tell everybody how much you helped with the cooking? Speaker 2 00:50:00 It was all about the change of dynamics that can happen within a relationship and that how we can support our women. Speaker 1 00:50:07 I think there was a lovely Yeah. That's great. I'm gonna frame it again from, from a slightly different angle cuz it really is, it's such a great point when you had the, the potential frustration, which I think everybody has at different points. You know, you guys have come back to what's our purpose here. And I just think, you know, you guys speak so beautifully as a couple about being so clear on these things, you know, and, and Andrew's saying, you know, if you wanna change up the way we are running this and getting to that purpose, that's fine. I'm open to that. And you've gone, okay, well no, that's, I mean, this is really not an option, not my preference. So let's stay in the, Speaker 4 00:50:41 I'm actually not comfortable with that. Yeah, Speaker 3 00:50:42 <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:50:44 But because you're both so clear on your purpose, you can come back to that and draw. Cuz it's not saying it's gonna make it any more fun to do the household chores on your own. Sometimes we have seasons, and Roger and I talk about this as well, sometimes we have seasons where, you know, you're going to have to do more of something you don't wanna do. And that's what a team is. Sometimes one gets to do more in one area that they prefer and sometimes the other does. Sometimes you both have to do crap you don't wanna do. It just depends on the time of life and it's remaining connected to one another and clear on your purpose in that time, that's going to make that not easy, but a little bit easier. So, uh, Speaker 3 00:51:18 The question is, would you do it all again? I, um, I loved it and I think it was great fun, but I, with a child, I can't see any capacity to, to do it <laugh>. So yeah, I'd like, at the moment I'm thinking, I was looking at my tools in there and thinking, oh, I can probably sell them because <laugh>, I can't see myself using them in the next five do it. Andrew, Speaker 4 00:51:40 That being said, he does wanna build a, like a little replica of this house as like Jack's little play area, you know, like, so Speaker 3 00:51:48 Yeah, yeah. There'll be stuff, Speaker 4 00:51:49 There will be building but not an entire house again, I don't think. Speaker 3 00:51:54 Yeah, I would love to do it again. I think my, um, I really enjoyed it. I think we enjoyed it. Yeah, I think, um, it, it was great cause my parents helped and my friends helped and wonderful time to spend with all of them and I can't see it happening in short term. Speaker 4 00:52:08 Yeah. And like getting to spend that time with your friends, like, um, you know, some of the days were really hard and you didn't wanna get up and do the manual labor. It was hard on your body. Um, you had to, we didn't see our friends for two years practically really, unless they were on the work site. And like there are a lot of hard things. But now every day in our house, you know, like I get to look at that bookshelf that Andrew and I made entirely by ourselves on the back of our ute and like I get to feel a lot of pride about us and what I was able to learn having never picked up a power tool. And then you get to see that little bit that our friend did and you know, some of our friends who helped have moved away to the UK and it's lovely to have a daily reminder of them and, um, his parents, you know, get to come into this house and pretty much feel like it's theirs and there's some, there you can't, you can't buy that. So it was definitely worth it. Speaker 3 00:53:05 And this is a, this is my, my, uh, something I really like about it is that because I have an aversion to owning things, it's, it's not a, it's not a big deal, but I think it came from that, um, our long distance relationship and we didn't really like owning stuff because it really made the movement between the two places very difficult. So we spent a lot of time not acquiring anything and I don't like owning stuff. So the, I'd always thought the house, if it was shared amongst everyone, like every, if other people could take ownership, I'd feel more comfortable with it. That's sort of the way that I'd looked at it. Speaker 2 00:53:41 It's really interesting that today's conversation, when Kim and I really wanted to talk to you, it was about the dream. But what I think I've understood from today, what is so powerful between the two of you is your values. And I always have seen values as like the, the, the rails of life. And if you've got those rails in place, cause you understand what your values are, it doesn't really matter where you pivot, where you go, you know, you're gonna be going in the, towards the right direction. So whether it, whether, you know, sliding door moments happened and you ended up moving to Oregon cause you didn't park outside the, the block that you currently live in now, I still think you would've been really happy. I still think you would've been working on something you're passionate about. You'd still have a lovely little son. You'd, you'd have all these things and cuz you would've had those barriers, those values in place. Speaker 3 00:54:31 Like yeah, you're right. Like if, if, if we ended up in Oregon, which we were very close to doing, I think there'd be other great outcomes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maybe you wouldn't have as good job as you do, but <laugh> Speaker 1 00:54:46 Yeah. With that in mind, and we know that you guys have got your beautiful baby boy who's been your, your big dream and as you said, take up a huge amount of capacity. Is there any other sort of big dream on your plate at the moment or are you guys pretty good for now? Pretty set in enjoying the fruits of your labor? Speaker 3 00:55:07 Um, I don't like, I suppose if we were to say that, you know, the house was more or less just a, as you said, a sliding door moments, I think that we are possibly open for the, for the next one. Yeah. But yeah, I know there's, there's things I'd like, I'd like, I'd maybe like to do a bit more education, um, and I would, so a few things like that. Speaker 4 00:55:28 Yeah. And I would as well. So, um, I think we have things that we know we probably wanna do. Um, but again, I mean we certainly have more anchors in our life now, but we're still trying to keep that flexibility to, to pivot and go where we wanna go. It's just we have a slightly different situation than we did before where we could do anything now. Um, we still can do anything. It just means that we would have to consider, you know, the house that we own and the son that we have and, and that's, that's okay. Speaker 3 00:55:59 Yeah. I think like anchoring now is like a little bit, as a little bit older, having a few, few anchors is not so bad. No. Some, yeah, Speaker 1 00:56:08 I love that We also share that exact same, uh, core value, which is flexibility and it's, you know, we're a little bit different. Obviously we have a, a daughter with additional needs, so we have a pretty firm anchor in the supports that she needs. Um, but you find the flexibility in other ways, the way we've built our business so that we can be more flexible with the responsibilities in the home and also with our days. You know, if we wanna go for a run at 11 in the morning, we can, because we've, we've scheduled things around that. Can we go on holiday at the moment with her needs? No, we can't. But you can find flexibility, you can fulfill that, that mandate in different ways. So, um, I love that that, that that's your core value as well. Speaker 2 00:56:56 You are amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship, Speaker 1 00:56:59 Feel that you're on a roll. If you want more living, the team life, relationship, insights and conversations, head over to Kim and roger.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies. Speaker 2 00:57:10 And if you like today's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy. Speaker 1 00:57:18 Until next time, keep on living the team life.