Scott Seiffert: 0:02

All stories are about people, I mean, it's about the human experience, and the big part of that human experience is who you are. And who you are is an echo of how you grew up, where you grew up, and it's an echo of the things that were brought down in a genealogy kind of way, but brought down from generation to generation that you're not even realizing.

Crista Cowan: 0:31

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. I've spent my whole life discovering the power of family history and I know that sharing the stories that live in you can change everything. Have you ever met a couple that you just wanted to just hang out with because they were so much fun? That is how I feel about Scott Seiffert and his wife, Lisa Dyson Seiffert. You're going to get to meet them in just a few minutes. I just met them right before I recorded this episode, but Ancestry has been working with them for a little while.

Crista Cowan: 1:20

My producer, Lisa, had the opportunity to meet Scott and Lisa when she did some family history research for them as part of the HGTV television show Revealed. Now, in that show they incorporate a little bit of the family history of the family into the home remodel, and Scott and Lisa will talk about that. But one of the things that I loved about my time with them was just how much fun they were and how much story plays such an important role in their life. Lisa is a middle school librarian and an actress, which sounds like the most brilliant combination for every child that comes into her library to be able to feel and hear about her love of story in a way that I imagine probably captivates their imagination. And Scott is the vice president of animation at DreamWorks, and if you think about the last DreamWorks film you saw, you probably know a little something about his skill in shepherding stories as well. So please enjoy my conversation with Scott and Lisa Seiffert.

Crista Cowan: 2:35

Scott and Lisa, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, absolutely so. I understand that you are both storytellers and I would love to hear a little bit more about that. Your career journey,L isa, why don't we start with you?

Lisa Dyson: 2:52

Well, right now I'm a librarian in the middle school, which is all about storytelling. So I'm completely involved with all of that and with getting the proper books in the hands of all the kids that deserve to see themselves represented in books. And I go around and I'll actually read aloud because I feel like that's super important and we've sort of lost that actual listening to stories as you're telling them. And so I go around to different classrooms and, you know, have them read, have them imagine, you know, and actually ask questions about what's happening and and introduce them to all different kinds of books. It's like first chapters to get them hooked on a different author or something that they may not have expected to like, you know. So that's, that's my storytelling as of right now.

Crista Cowan: 3:38

I love that. Did you read stories to your daughter when she was little? Was that a kind of a part of your family culture?

Lisa Dyson: 3:43

Absolutely, absolutely. From the time, yeah, even before she was born, I would just start reading out loud, and so, and breakfast time was always reading a chapter for me while she was eating her breakfast. So yeah, that was that's part, and obviously before bedtime. But yeah, that is part of our family, our family history.

Crista Cowan: 4:01

I love that. Did you have a favorite or did she have a favorite book or set?

Lisa Dyson: 4:05

of books we love. We used to love the Sandra Boynton books, the ones, and so we, you know, like it's pajama time and we make up songs to go with it and click, clack moo, you know, I mean just oh she loved click clack moo.

Scott Seiffert: 4:21

Oh, click clack moo.

Lisa Dyson: 4:22

Oh, she loved Click Clack Moo oh.

Scott Seiffert: 4:24

Click, clack, moo so fun. She also loved all of the Disney anthologies. She loved them. We had the little hardback Disney anthologies that covered all their movies and we read those all the time.

Lisa Dyson: 4:41

And then Scott would read her. Edgar Allan Poe, as you do, as you do, and she loves horror.

Crista Cowan: 4:46

That you do as you do and she loves horror. That's amazing. I love that we had to give a full round.

Scott Seiffert: 4:51

You can't just do click, clack and moo, You've got to balance it. Apparently Click, clack and moo with Sherlock Holmes and a little Edgar Allan Poe, that's so great.

Crista Cowan: 5:01

Scott. What about you? What's been your journey in storytelling? That's so great Scott.

Scott Seiffert: 5:04

What about you? What's been your journey in storytelling? I come from a long line of people who drank at bars and told stories. Actually, I come from a performing background, an actor background and a writing background no-transcript that was full of storytelling, true or untrue.

Scott Seiffert: 5:56

After a couple of drinks. There's always stories. Yes, because I grew up in Montana and I knew my, my grandparents. Obviously I knew my great grandparents and they would tell stories about, you know, when they were, when they were kids, what was happening, you know, and when they were kids it was still the Wild West in Montana, and they would tell those stories and we would hear those stories, especially at our cabin, because up in the cabin there was no radio, there was no television, there was just a piano and people sitting around talking, and so they told those stories all the time. And so I had an inkling of where I came from. I'm also several generations in Montana, but I had an inkling of who my immediate ancestors were, and they were fun folks.

Crista Cowan: 6:51

Sounds like it. That sounds delightful, right. Have you tried to create that environment in your own home? It's kind of hard right With the distractions of modern conveniences, but to carry that tradition.

Lisa Dyson: 7:03

He tells stories, sometimes more than once, so he is passing down the storytelling Fun. We laugh. He'll tell stories and, just you know, make us laugh till we cry and just relive moments of his childhood.

Scott Seiffert: 7:27

But yeah, there's lots of storytelling that goes on in our house. We actually we are lucky that our daughter works fairly close to us and so she comes over for dinner several nights a week and we talk about what happened during the day. We talk she works in a storytelling medium. We talk about what happened, you know during the day what story things she's working on, what's happening in her life. But we actually do sit around the table literally like you should do, and no phones are going. It's sit around and talk and chat and tell stories and laugh. It's part of our family, it's part of who we are.

Crista Cowan: 8:02

Yeah, there's something so important about that dinner table space and what it creates for families. I love that you have a strong, strong tradition of that. So Lisa Scott mentioned his roots in Montana and some of how he grew up. What do you know about your own family history?

Lisa Dyson: 8:19

My family history is based outside of Philadelphia, so I grew up outside of Philly. My grandmother on my mom's side was originally from New Rochelle up in New York, so then she managed to get down to Philadelphia I still don't know how and the Irish side, which is my dad's side, was definitely Philadelphia and my grandfather was a conductor on the Reading Railroad and so just, and he played in a, he played saxophone in a big band, and so I kind of learned sort of that history through them. But I really I wasn't as close to them they were. They were alcoholics, so I think my parents kept me away from them. But I kind of wish I'd known more about them.

Lisa Dyson: 9:00

You know, which is funny, your parents kept you with the alcoholics. You were all drinking on on your side. I wasn't allowed to go near them. Um. So uh, it's just um, it's just interesting to find out, and I and and and actually learning a little bit of the stuff makes me want to learn more, you know, and actually go back to my roots of trying to figure out. I remember what the house looked like. I wish I'd known then to ask questions, but you know, when you're two years old you don't really know. So what was it like back then? But I'd be curious to learn more about the Irish side and the Albanian slash Italian side, which was something new to learn which my husband will never let me live down, because I have to say I'm a baby and I'm not Italian. Just kind of knowing things and then really realizing how much you don't know is really what happened to me.

Crista Cowan: 9:55

So you guys, had the opportunity a couple of years ago to be on a show called Revealed, and part of that show was about redesigning your home to reflect your heritage and your family culture and what did you know? I mean, you've shared some of the things, but kind of going into that show, what were some of the things that you learned in that process?

Lisa Dyson: 10:21

We dug up between both of us. His mom had a whole bunch of pictures that we found in Montana, cause we were, we were actually in Montana, we were digging through research. My mom had passed away but I had gotten all her photo albums from that she had kept, which some of them I hadn't even seen before, of really old pictures, and the sad part is a lot of times they have the pictures on both sides. We found this out and then there's no names that go with them. So you're like, well, this is a really cool picture. Who was that? You know, and there's nobody to ask. So we found tons of pictures, like I found my grandparents on my mom's side their wedding picture from the 1920s was really cool and then in his mom's house my mom had a.

Scott Seiffert: 11:04

She had a memory. Her memory was so sharp she would say oh, that picture of so-and-so's of your great grandfather is on the third drawer down underneath this, underneath the scarf We'd pull out this thing. Oh, that's a picture of him when he was the police chief.

Crista Cowan: 11:23

So, Lisa, when you sat down with the genealogist before the show to learn some things about your family history, some of it was things you didn't know right. Tell me a little bit about that experience.

Lisa Dyson: 11:34

I think we focused on my mom's dad, my grandfather, who passed away when I was just a baby and I knew, going through his paperwork, that he had been in the army in World War I and then World War II and I think I remember my mom saying he had tried to enlist for the Korean War but they told him he was too old. But he came from what I thought came from Naples. When he came to the country and we discovered that he had come by himself and he was young, that he had he had come by himself and I and he was young I mean, he was just like a little like maybe I can't remember 13, maybe or maybe even younger than that I can't remember by himself. He came to the United States, went through Ellis Island and then went immediately enlisted in World War for World War One for the United States and then he was listed as being he'd. I think he stayed with his uncle and maybe that's how he got to Philadelphia and they were told he was killed in action. Come to find out that he was a prisoner of war and that he was still alive, but they're getting a telegram that says he's dead. And then, when he was wounded. They tried to enlist. He went back and enlisted again. I mean, you know, went back into.

Lisa Dyson: 12:46

I mean it was just like this whole fascinating thing of this sort of self-made kid, because he's really just a teenager. You know, at that time and and I knew my mom adored her dad and um, and he'd had a grocery store, a little grocery store, and, uh, when they were growing up and I know that they had a victory garden in their, you know, backyard for World War II. But seeing pictures, we had pictures of him in his uniforms. He was quite handsome, I have to say. Everyone was like, oh, he's very handsome. But it was just it's so interesting to learn about him and what that meant for him to fight for this country. That wasn't the country he was born in. You know that it meant so much to him to protect the freedoms here. You know that he would be willing to just, you know, put his life on the line every single time.

Lisa Dyson: 13:35

And I thought, wow, that's something I would have loved to have talked to him about and you know, didn't get a chance to and we talked about he had lung cancer, when, you know, and then those days everybody smoked a ton anyway, but I thought I wonder if it had to do with any of the chemicals that they, you know, were using in World War One too. I mean, you just don't you start thinking about those things and it's just. That's a part of history I would have liked to have delved into a little bit more. It's just learning more. Being able to talk to him.

Lisa Dyson: 14:01

I wish he hadn't, you know, and maybe he wouldn't have talked about it, because a lot of those, those soldiers didn't want to talk about what they'd seen in World War One or World War Two, so maybe I would never have learned anyway. But it's just, it's just kind of fascinating because he's got all these honorable discharges and all the you know the stuff that it's like, wow, he was that. That's the stuff that was kept, that was really important to them. So it's it's kind of an it. That was interesting. It was very, very interesting.

Lisa Dyson: 14:28

And I didn't know it wasn't told to me. My mom never said a word. I'm like he has a purple heart. You know I was like you could tell a person these things, like that's kind of important.

Crista Cowan: 14:38

Yeah, it's interesting what families choose to share and not to share, whether it's intentional or not, right? Yeah? Yeah, lisa, you mentioned those photographs and not knowing who the who the people were, is that something that you've since been able to uncover at all, or do you still have a lot of question marks there?

Lisa Dyson: 14:58

I still have question marks. I it's. It's very busy life, life happens, so I still have them and I will get to them eventually, but for right now they're all in a nice little safe place, so I've actually organized them. So at least, hopefully, someday I'll be able to track them. They're not just like sit around, you know, in the garage anymore. So so yeah, I'm still curious, I still would like to know. There's a lot of paths I'd like to follow, but I haven't had a chance to do any of that Because, you know, life Sure absolutely.

Crista Cowan: 15:33

Is there anyone left in your life? You know there's this kind of strange things that happens as you start getting involved in family history. And, lisa, you alluded to this earlier like there's questions you wish you would have asked but you didn't know to ask them at the time. And by the time you finally get interested in family history, sometimes anybody you could ask is gone. And, scott, you mentioned that your mom had the sharp memory and that she was able to share some things. Do you think, lisa and this is super philosophical, I guess but do you think that not having access to that information makes you more curious?

Lisa Dyson: 16:09

I don't think so. Yeah, because maybe I'd take it for granted if I, you know, could just talk about it or be bored with it or whatever. Yeah, you know how you, you know when you're a kid and stuff, it's like whatever. It's ancient history, who cares? And and the older you get, the more interested you are where you came from and the things you learn, you know or what your perceptions are.

Crista Cowan: 16:34

Yeah, for sure. And Scott, it sounds like your experience has been entirely different, maybe with your extended family. Is that a fair assumption?

Scott Seiffert: 16:44

with your extended family. Is that a fair assumption? It was really fun to go back and learn things, not just sort of facts, but here's an article that actually explained you know, gave it a little feeling of like who they were, not just a fact of like, oh, they were born here, it was a church here, it was this here. There was an article about my grandparents when they got married. There's an article about my other side of my grand, my great grandparents, during prohibition. There were things that those were the things that were super interesting, that I wish.

Scott Seiffert: 17:17

I kind of wish that I thought about this years ago when I had my first relative passed away. I thought about this years ago when my first relative passed away, and I thought, oh, it would be fun to write a little biography of them, of not only what they did but who they were, because some of those obituaries are very dry and very like oh, this person died of this. They were a hard worker and they are survived by these people, but it would be fun to be able to say this person, this is who they were, this is who the person was, this is what excited them about life, this is how they lived their life. This is what was important to them. That person was interesting. That person was. You can uncover stuff that that person is funny. Oh, you know, maybe uncover stuff that that person is funny. Oh, you know, maybe you know my sense of humor is from a long line of you know, these people that have something wrong inside their head. Maybe that's where that comes from. And I also thought, I thought about this when I was a kid.

Scott Seiffert: 18:18

All the people that had to connect over the centuries you know, going back centuries and centuries had to connect. All these people that had to connect all this way, had to get married, had to have kids, and these people for us to sit here, I mean that's, it's like a big thing to think about. It's like, oh, if you could go back and talk to each of those folks you know a hundred generations back, because all that had to happen for us to be alive and be here today. So we're connected. I also think that we don't. I think there are some cultures that their ancestors are important and they cherish their ancestors. Their ancestors are important and they cherish their ancestors. I don't think there are certain folks in the United States. I think that there's certain cultures that, do that and most don't, and I think it would be interesting if more of us did. Maybe we'd be a little nicer to each other overall. Maybe we would be. There's your philosophy, your morning philosophy.

Crista Cowan: 19:27

I love that concept, though, of that moment of perspective when you realize I am the result of how many millions of people and the choices they made coming together in the exact right combination to create me and who I am. And then the two of you sit here and you came together from opposite sides of the country and you have a child and the person that she's become because of the environment that you raised her in, with everything behind you. That moment of perspective that hits is, I think, a really important moment in people's lives, and it sounds like maybe you had it early, scott, and maybe it's kind of an ongoing thing in your life to have that realization in your life to have that realization.

Scott Seiffert: 20:16

Yeah, I think it's part of because there were so many generations in Montana and I knew them and those stories and those people and also the places we would go with my grandparents to go to go see. You know, my one set of grandparents had the mile away restaurant in Billings, montana. It was a mile away from the city center and would tell stories about that. The other set of grandparents we would go to this little what's now a ghost town, practically Marysville, where they grew up. My mom would go to this one place and it's a. The building is collapsed but she said, oh yeah, I used to play in here when I was a kid and that those in Montana, a lot of those places, are still around, they still look like the way they looked back then and so I really felt that connection with you know, with Montana. That's still a huge part of you know who I am and knowing that it then reaches back when we found.

Lisa Dyson: 21:05

You know we talk about people keeping stuff forever and ever and ever, but but we found this box full of stuff from his that his grandparents would have kept from their grandparents, maybe I don't know, like letters from the late 1800s. I mean it was because everybody just wrote that was there was nothing back then in Montana. You know, to me it's, you know it was frontier land or whatever, and they would just they just would write pages and pages and pages. It's all still legible and it's all and and the just the way it was kept is just just floored me. Just you know the full names and who was dating who and who was doing whatever, and it's. It's really kind of fun that we got to explore that and find that, which we wouldn't have if this wasn't a part of the show.

Scott Seiffert: 21:46

Also we hit they have in that same box. They have postcards. They sent pictures that were postcards of them and then wrote on the back and I thought, well, at first I saw this why is this on a postcard? Then I realized, oh, it must have been a thing in that time period that you would send a postcard of yourself and write on the back. You should get that and put it all in order.

Crista Cowan: 22:24

That would be fun to do. Put it in chronological order and just see what that story tells chronologically. It'd be fun. Newspaper article Sometimes it's something that somebody intentionally writes Hopefully, hopefully, those obituaries are written maybe a little bit more to tell us who that person is. Sometimes it's a photo and a few lines on the back with their own writing. But there's something important, I think, about recognizing our ancestors as something more than just names and dates and places that they were real people and that they were whole people, that they lived whole lives. Sometimes that's kind of hard to see and so as you start to look back and think about that, like, is there any particular ancestor that pops out for you as a character with a whole personality?

Lisa Dyson: 23:13

Many. Do you have a favorite?

Scott Seiffert: 23:18

Hard to say a favorite. It's hard to pinpoint one because so many of them are fun, so many of them are interesting. My grandfather I saw pictures of him and even my great-grandparents, and once they were there were pictures I know it was their Sunday best sometimes but they were dapper, they were very. I was like, wow, they looked very. They had they had not only dapper clothing but they had a dapper attitude. It was like it was like a very fun, like oh, I said I want to know that. I would like, if I could go back in time, I would like to sit down and know that person, because it looked like they'd be interesting to talk to.

Crista Cowan: 23:55

Yeah, and so what I'm hearing you say, though, is that this is, rather than any single individual standing out, that there was a family culture and a family narrative that was created. That becomes kind of this foundation that you've built your life on, scott.

Scott Seiffert: 24:11

Yeah, it all goes back to our cabin, when we would be at the cabin and my grandmother would start playing the piano and I one time saw my both sets of grandparents were there and my grandfather, who I never saw dance before, got up with my grandmother and cut a rug, saw him in all those years, never saw him day never. Think you look at the man, think this is not a dancer, this is not a guy that's gonna get up. He and we were all just our jaws just dropped because he was smooth, he was smooth and and she, he was leading her and she and I was like, oh, you saw a glimpse of them when they were 20 years old and it was, it was, it was awesome. It was awesome to see.

Crista Cowan: 25:01

That's amazing, Lisa. You come from such a different family experience. It sounds like marrying into this family and then making this conscious decision to start a family of your own. Were there things from his background that you wanted to make sure to incorporate in your family, and was there anything from yours that you also wanted to make sure you brought forward?

Lisa Dyson: 25:22

I think we both have pretty strong game playing. I mean, that's a sitting around the table playing cards we both had, and then just laughing so hard that you have to leave the table. I mean, I know he didn't sort of experience that with my growing up years, but that's, that's what I remember and that's obviously what we still do today, because we just did it yesterday. We were laughing really, really hard. So I think it's just the idea of being together and playing games, that is just it's ingrained in both of us and that. And now Maddie does it with her friends and so you know, it's sort of we're passing that along. It's not something that we all have to do, it's just a really fun thing. It's, you know, because she's an only child as well, but she brings her friends together and they play games and they, you know it's just she's carried on that tradition too, because it's just fun, you know it's just, she's carried on that tradition too, because it's just fun, yeah, and kind of like the storytelling around the dinner table.

Lisa Dyson: 26:24

The laughter around the game table is something that just deepens those connections between you as a family.

Scott Seiffert: 26:27

Right, it's also pretty strong competitions going on between my husband and my daughter over gin rummy, which is a tradition from his family. At the cabin we used to play gin rummy all the time and that's where I learned to play gin rummy. I taught it to my daughter, so we played gin rummy about every night and we play 50 cents a game and we tally up at the end of the year.

Crista Cowan: 26:52

I'm behind. That's delightful.

Scott Seiffert: 27:08

That's delightful, that's fantastic. So as part of the show you did sort of one specific thing. We have wood beams in the back, in our back we call it the stone room because it's got a big stone floor and on those wood beams our DNA said that I was mostly, just by a smidge, mostly Finnish, even though I was also almost all Scottish too, and that Lisa was mostly Albanian. Now in our backgrounds with our parents nobody ever mentioned that and assuming in our genealogy that didn't come up. But you know, dna said that.

Scott Seiffert: 27:48

And so on our beams they stenciled to look at her Albanian background, the Albanian flower, it's a little poppy, right, a little poppy. And on either side of that they stenciled little fish to represent my Finnish background. And so that's on our stenciled on our wood beams. And I made a joke at the time, which again didn't make me shut up, I was killing that day and it didn't make the show. I looked at the beams because I'm also mostly Scottish, almost equal amount Scottish, and I said, well, I'm just glad there's not haggis stenciled all over my wood beams.

Scott Seiffert: 28:27

So that's what they did Incorporate the genealogy into our house and honestly, it's kind of pretty back there. It's the way they did it. It's really pretty. I really like it. The fact that it represents our DNA. It's sort of like is it our genealogy or is that just our DNA sample?

Crista Cowan: 28:46

Yeah, it's interesting, when you start looking at DNA, that it's looking so deep, which is usually way deeper than the genealogical records can take us, and so for some people it kind of pulls you into further exploration because you want to know and understand that. For other people, it's just kind of an entertaining fact that you can share at a dinner party.

Scott Seiffert: 29:09

I will say that my mom, when I told her what the genealogists had uncovered, and she said well, you know what your aunt used to call her uncle, my little Finman, and she never knew where it came from. She goes, well, maybe that's where it came from, maybe they were from Finland, and so she was interested in that fact. So did we Finish Interesting.

Crista Cowan: 29:35

With both of you being storytellers. You know reading to your daughter, exposing her to a lot of different genres of storytelling, and now you have this like family history concept in the mix. What is it Like? What is it about family history stories that you think are important, that they need to be told and shared?

Scott Seiffert: 29:54

Well, I think it's because all stories are about people.

Scott Seiffert: 29:59

I mean, it's about the human experience, and the big part of that human experience is who you are. And who you are is an echo of how you grew up, where you grew up, and it's an echo of the things that were brought down in a genealogy kind of way, but brought down from generation to generation that you're not even realizing. Wow, that was handed to you 155 years ago. You know, your sense of humor, that sense of timing, that sense of compassion, that sense of timing, that sense of compassion, the sense of empathy, the sense of loyalty, the sense of honor was handed down, was, you know, coming across, you know, by yourself as a teenager and making your way in a brand new country, fighting for your country, for freedom. Those things are ingrained in us because they were ingrained by the people who lived them and passed them down from generation to generation. That's why it's important, because we are who we are, because where we lived, it came before us, and that's what makes the human part of the story so important.

Lisa Dyson: 31:20

It's universal, I mean, it's just something everybody can relate to. I think the more we share the stories and this is not just us, this is everybody, they're sharing their stories with each individual family that it makes them more human. I tell that to teachers a lot too, because it's just you're not just teaching, share some of your own personal history and then you appear more human to the kids. And the kids aren't like, oh my God, you're just like giving us the same lecture. But if you make it personal and tell stories that way, then it's like oh, I would never have thought of it that way, or maybe that's how I.

Lisa Dyson: 31:48

Oh, that's what my grandparents did, or that's what my parents did you know, or that's what my parents did you know, or that's how they've learned. It's just, it's a connection, like you said. So the family connection is important and some people don't know. You know their family connections and that's there's something about that too, you know, for the kids. There's kids who don't know where they come from, and so I just think storytelling all even if, even if you're adopted, even if you're a foster kid or whatever, if you're just hearing stories about different lifestyles and different experiences, I think that's just really important to share.

Crista Cowan: 32:18

As you kind of have had this family history journey, as you've got those boxes of photos waiting for you. When you have the time to start to go through them and uncover some more stories, what is it that you hope for the future with your family as you contemplate this family history journey you've been on?

Lisa Dyson: 32:37

I think we'd like to leave it more in depth for Maddie, so that she doesn't have to go. I don't know who these people were. It reminds you to to like let people know who's in the pictures with you so you can go, as opposed to just years later. Who was that? And for ourselves as well. So it's just more documentation, I think, along the way. So then, in case she's interested she may not be, she may be like who cares, but in case she is, that she won't be wondering like we were like, well, what was that?

Lisa Dyson: 33:11

Or maybe you know, especially for us it was when you go back to the turn of the century, the not the 2000 turn of the century, the 1900 turn of the century. There's so much that was happening back then that they weren't aware, you know, I mean that they were involved in, and then so much happened while through their lives that it's just kind of like it. You know tricks your brain. And the same can be said for us. You know, as we're moving into whatever technology that we're moving into. So you know, we had wall phones on the wall. You know, with cords, you did. You did too. I had a color TV.

Scott Seiffert: 33:44

I didn't Black and white two channels.

Crista Cowan: 33:48

That's how I grew up, scott. You had mentioned writing little biographies for your ancestors, and it got me thinking about this concept of who writes your obituary. Right and you know, are you the one telling the story or other people telling the story? And if they're telling your story, are they telling it through a singular lens or are they incorporating how other people saw you as well? And while it's probably decades off, is that something you've ever thought about, like how you would want to be represented toward the end of your life, and is that something you want to undertake, or do you want to leave that for Maddie?

Scott Seiffert: 34:23

Oh, hell, no, I'm writing it. I'm writing it. That's the last blog post thing I'll ever do and that's. I'm writing it. I'm going to look and I'm going to look amazing. Honestly, I have thought about it. My mom during this process she never got to see the show she passed away in In writing her obituary.

Scott Seiffert: 34:50

I actually thought of it, I actually thought, and so I actually wrote it as the person that she was and the things that she liked. I actually thought of it, I actually thought of it, so I actually wrote it as as the person that she was and the things that she liked. And I've got a lot of things like oh, my God, she sounded like an amazing woman and and and and she was, and she was so incredibly generous, but that we try to get that across in the in, the in. I remember one line of that thing that said and she survived, instead of she survived by blah, blah, blah, she survived by three rotten kids. Because that's something she would have said and it is so many people mentioned that line because it sort of speaks to who she was. But I think about that, but I'm writing my own. Oh, believe me, it's. I'm going to write every day.

Lisa Dyson: 35:33

I can guarantee that.

Scott Seiffert: 35:38

She's going to die before me. All her's going to say is like I'm not Albanian.

Crista Cowan: 35:45

You guys are delightful. I feel like I want to come to your house for game night now.

Lisa Dyson: 35:50

Anytime, door's always open.