Welcome to The Stoke Fam Podcast!

Tiffany 0:00
Welcome to The Stoke Fam! The podcast designed to help families adventure more and stress less. On this show, we give you the confidence and inspiration you need to find your stoke by sharing interviews from real families doing amazing things, conversations with brands who make adventures easier, and all the things we wish we’d known sooner. Come on, let’s goooo! (kids)

Hey, Stoke Fam. It’s Tiffany – and John – and we are excited to welcome you to our very first episode.

John 0:31
In this episode, we’re going to share with you our story and kind of where we came from and our background. And then also, we’re going to share what you can expect from this podcast. So first, let’s get star ted with our story.

Tiffany 0:45
Our story

John 0:46
Our story hour…

Tiffany 0:48
Oh, if you know, you know, okay. So I am Tiffany and I grew up kind of – I grew up kind of. Okay, so…

John 0:57
I kind of grew up too – everybody keeps telling me to grow up.

Tiffany 1:01
Oh, yeah, it’s not working. So I grew up in the south, and I remember hiking some and camping as a kid. But the memory that really sticks out and kind of the only one I really remember is this camping trip where we packed everything up and we got our tent set up and about, I don’t know, two in the morning, I woke up to all my parents woke me up and said, Come on, get out – we’re leaving. And I looked around, I was like, what’s going on? Why is the – why is my bed wet and here like I’m a kid, right? I think I peed the bed. But no, I didn’t pee the bed. We’re sitting in like two inches of water in our tent. It’s cold, it’s wet. Everybody’s cranky. I’m the oldest. And if I’m old enough to think I peed the bed. You can guess how old everybody else was. I think my mom was actually pregnant with my younger brother, who’s nine years younger. So like she was out, we were out. Everybody was out.

John 1:52
That’s a brave trip to go!

Tiffany 1:54
We packed it up and went and stayed the night – the rest of the night in a in a condo my grandparents had nearby we were like, nope, we’re done. And like beyond that, like I remember after that I don’t really remember camping much until my parents bought a fifth wheel years later.

John 2:09
go figure. I remember camping a little bit differently. For me growing up out here in the Pacific Northwest. I always kind of remember sleeping outside, in a little pup tent or like even on my sleeping bag on a tarp or not even on a tarp out in the backyard more times than I can remember. And then real camping trips with like youth groups. I do remember having a very similar instance, where we were near Mount Rainier. And it was a beautiful weekend when we got there. We set up camp, and then it started dumping. And we were there for the weekend. And everybody was kind of just having fun. And we were playing and we were laughing. And we were joking. And then we realized that it is dumping and there’s water that is pouring into the tent. And so instead of packing everything up, we just dug a trench for the water to go underneath the tent. Because that’s what 11 year olds think is the smartest thing to do. And that’s how we spent the weekend we actually stayed out there for the rest of the weekend we huddled by the fire we had tarps that were strung from the trees. So we were at least covered from the rain. And we did mostly stand around and try and stay dry. But I fell in love with it. And I can see on your face that that sounds like the most miserable existence.

Tiffany 3:33
I don’t think I’d have made it. (laughs)

John 3:34
I’m confident that you would have been looking for the closest hotel. Wherever your 11 year old legs would have taken you.

Tiffany 3:43
Ha! Yeah, I don’t know. So somehow the two of us met each other and decided this was a good thing. And somehow you convinced me to start camping and hiking more. And actually, it’s kind of turned into this thing that we’ve I really have fallen in love with being in nature. But let’s be real, I still like to be kind of comfortable. So it’s trying to find a balance between those things, and having the right gear and all of those things makes a big difference.

John 4:06
And that’s actually gear is exactly right. That is one thing that has always been what I have talked to you about. You can always have a great time as long as you have the right gear. And that’s definitely one of the things that we will be sharing with you. In this podcast, the type of gear that will keep you stoked on getting out and having fun with your family to keep everybody’s spirits high…

Tiffany 4:26
Even if you would prefer to only be warm and dry all the time. I’ve found a few tricks.

John 4:32
So moving back to our story we met in nursing school.

Tiffany 4:35
Yep. We met in nursing school and then got married had kids lived in the south for several years before moving back to the Pacific Northwest where we eventually ended up finding a house that we thought was our dream house. And it was on almost eight acres had this beautiful yard and

John 4:53
…we were ready to start a farm…

Tiffany 4:54
Yeah. It had woods behind it. We actually we had chickens. We had a lot of chickens. At one point, like, a lot

John 5:01
We had chickens, we had elk. We had deer. The chickens were ours. The elk weren’t.

Tiffany 5:07
They tried to, but they tried to come practically in our house. Sometimes they’d be like right next to the window with the cherry tree. Oh, man, it was crazy. But so we have this this property. But what we realized like reality started to set in. And it was like, we are spending a lot of time and commute because although we had this property, it wasn’t close to town. So we were driving everywhere. Commute time was anywhere, even just for work for John was like 30 minutes to two hours

John 5:32
Depending on where I was going that day. It was a one way of driving one way.

Tiffany 5:37
And then we were spending a lot more time maintaining the farm, taking care of the chickens, taking care of the garden, taking care of the kids just mowing, it was a massive yard.

We had big pasture, and we had five acres of woods as well, yeah, we have a lot to handle a lot to maintain. And we were trying to start the garden and the orchard and all of the things that go with having a farm.

And homeschooling. On top of it all, so schooling, it was a lot. And so we were we were loving the farm. But then when john got a call, about a potential job opportunity that we kind of couldn’t say no to where it gave me the ability to stay home with the kids and not also have to work. So less childcare, shuffling, and

John 6:19
There was still definitely less travel time to and from work as well, which freed us up to have a lot more time to go out and take more adventures. And so we decided that that was really what we wanted. We wanted to spend more time together adventuring as a family.

Tiffany 6:33
Yeah, we had to really take a hard look at what was more important to us than the farm life or the the adventuring memories and the adventuring memories is what won out.

John 6:42
And we found the time together was what we were always looking for.

Tiffany 6:45
Yeah. And our kids are probably grateful that we chose the adventuring time together instead of work time on the mini farm based on

John 6:54
…how they pull weeds around this house? Yeah, they’re more than happy to not have to do farm chores.

Tiffany 6:59
And so shortly after we moved here, we were up snowboarding one weekend and the conversation came up and I think it was you that said something along the lines of…

John 7:09
All I remember was looking over my shoulder seeing Mount Rainier, this beautiful vista and going this is some people’s jobs. What if this was OUR job?

Tiffany 7:18
And while we’re not quite there yet for a full time job. It’s keeping me full time busy. We ended up starting The Stoke Fam the website and Instagram where we were sharing our adventures and helping get information to others about how to actually make things happen.

John 7:34
We had lots of friends and family that wanted to get out and take their kids and go do the fun crazy things that it was that we were doing because we were the crazies at that time. Yeah, loading up everything and heading up to snowboard. Yeah, loading an 18 month old to go snowboard.

Tiffany 7:51
Right? While also bringing the nursling along.

John 7:53
Yeah, yeah. So that was us take a wild guess how that went. So people saw us and they were like, you guys keep doing this like in you’re happy about it? What are you doing?

Tiffany 8:03
Usually we’re happy about it anyway, right?

John 8:05
Like they didn’t see the other parts. Like everybody has those moments, right? Everyone, everybody.

Tiffany 8:11
If you say you don’t have those moments, you’re a liar dirty, rotten liar. Yeah. Like, it’s not true. It’s not true.

John 8:19
Our life is not the influencer type life like we will be showing you and telling you exactly how it really in our experience, which is…

Tiffany 8:28
sometimes great. And sometimes not so great. Like, if you have kids, you know, right. Like, I think our audience is going to be parents with kids. And if you have kids, you know that sometimes things are perfect. And you’re having like this wonderful family moment. And then somebody poops their pants – like I mean, it’s just like, that way.

John 8:44
Oh, man.

Tiffany 8:48
He didn’t think I was gonna go there. But…

John 8:49
No, I did not. Hey, let’s let’s throw some poop in the first episode, why not?

Tiffany 8:54
Hey, I’m down. Welcome to two nurses in a podcast.

John 8:56
Yeah, number two. All right.

Tiffany 8:58
So anyway, our goal with this podcast is to open up the conversation a little bit more where we can bring more voices to you and share even more information about adventures and maybe some that we don’t know as much about that we haven’t experienced with our kids and…

John 9:13
You keep saying adventures. What do you mean by adventures?

Tiffany 9:16
Things like hiking and camping, backpacking, RV life, all those things. (pause) Snowboarding – we do that too.

John 9:22
You almost missed the MOST important thing.

Tiffany 9:25
Well, obviously – we’ve already been talking about snowboarding. They already know that – they’re smart!

John 9:31
This is true.

Tiffany 9:32
But in addition to all that we’re gonna share gear and brand recommendations and tips and things that have worked for us and our personal experiences and stories from guests who are doing really cool things. And the other thing that I have to say because it’s like the only thing that keeps me sane is how we organize it all because it’s it’s a lot. It’s – when you’re when you’re planning for four people – like our recent trip comes to mind where we’re planning a spring trip. Where you really don’t know what the weather’s gonna be like, and you’re snowboarding, but the weather in the in the town is going to be around 60 degrees, but you also have to plan for the snow.

John 10:08
So we’re gonna talk about organizing, packing, planning for adventures, Tiffany is very much a planner, and she is excellent at it. She’s extremely organized. I am not. And she is realizing.

Tiffany 10:21
*whispers* You said it not me.

John 10:21
Oh, I’ll be the first one to own it. I am a mess. And Tiffany is the glue that keeps all of this together and keeps us on track and keeps us planned. And so we do not miss out on all the fun that we should be having. Because we forgot our fill in the blank because inevitably, we will forget, fill in the blank.

Tiffany 10:41
Oh, seriously, like this past weekend when we were leaving? And I was like, okay, hang on, we got to check the checklist before we leave. Totally legitimately did this,

John 10:50
We do have a legitimate checklist.

Tiffany 10:52
Yeah, and it’s on the blog, you can find it if you want, but I’ll give you that later. But if I pulled it out, and I was like, okay, going through the checklist, and then we get to, to one of the meds that we have to take for our youngest has a food allergy. And I was like, hey, do you have your epi and he’s like, oh, shoot, no, that’s something we literally can’t leave for. If we were an hour away from home and didn’t have it, we would have to turn around and come back. So this is why a checklist makes such a big difference.

John 11:18
So what can you expect from us? So here’s some details. We will be putting out podcasts on Mondays,

Tiffany 11:23
That is the plan.

John 11:24
And if you are trying to figure out how to find us. You can find us on our website at thestokefam.com

Tiffany 11:31
And yes, and if you want to find information on the podcast and different episodes that we have, it’ll be thestokefam.com/podcast.

John 11:39
Also head over to Instagram check us out as

Tiffany 11:41
@thestokefam

John 11:42
And then you can also see us on all the other Facebook’s and Twitter’s and but we’re primarily over on the Instagram active for the blog. Yeah. And that’s where you’re gonna see all of our hijinks going on our beautiful pictures.

Tiffany 11:58
And you can check out the other information we already have available about gear and destinations and camping and hiking all that good stuff over on the blog, which is just thestokefam.com. You can also come connect over with us on Instagram, say hi, shoot us a DM we’d love to get to know you a little bit and

John 12:15
Totally! Come hang out with us.

Tiffany 12:17
If you’ve been listening to this first episode thinking Yes, this sounds awesome, then we’d love it if you’d hit subscribe. That way, you’ll know each time that we have a new episode with one of our awesome guests. And those packing checklist – I don’t want to forget those those packing checklists I mentioned earlier. You can find them at thestokefam.com. Just click on resource library at the top. There are packing checklists and a bunch of other info in there. I’ll also drop a link to it in the show notes so you can find it easily.

Our goal is to turn The Stoke Fam into a true community where we get to know you more and we share information that you really want to know. So if there’s something that you really are looking for, something you want to know, if you want to know our experience with something, or somebody that you think that we should talk to who’s super awesome in the outdoor family adventure community, please let us know shoot us an dm over on Instagram. Send us an email at hello at thestokefam.com. We would love to know so that we can bring you the most helpful information and really get to know you guys as a community.

John 13:19
Absolutely. We want to be there to help out. We want to share the experiences with you and most of all, we want to help you find your Stoke.

Tiffany 13:25
Yes, yes. Ultimately, that’s the goal – adventure more, stress less, find your Stoke – all those things.

John 13:31
And we’ll see you out there.