Raising Values: The Family That Preps Together

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks.

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[00:00:15] The Lengelian are behind the mic, and we hope welcome to the show that the topic was going to be the family set prepared together but first we have admin work to do. Yes okay so we are 68 days away the only reason I know that is because there's a counter from the women who prep conference. It is online it's an online conference April

[00:01:42] 20th through the 23rd. You can don't tell all of our secrets on a live conference.

[00:03:02] So yeah, so there's gonna be a mix of live and recorded sessions, community groups,

[00:03:04] just for attendees, pre-conference live chats

[00:03:07] with the community giveaways, I picked her up hitchhiking the first time we met. Wow, okay. And they did end in getting a, you know, getting in your smile elongated, so that's a positive. I made them drop me off at the entrance to the subdivision. I wouldn't even let them like drop me off of my house. I was like, no, no, that's not cool, man. So he's like, are you sure I could

[00:04:20] just drop in your house like now? No, I don't really want you to know where I live.

[00:04:25] Right? Yeah.

[00:05:23] So we wanted to have base housing together. So we got married.

[00:05:25] And then we decided we're not going to put our bodies.

[00:05:28] Well, when we learned she had education,

[00:05:30] so she'd probably be an officer.

[00:05:31] And I had no education.

[00:05:33] And I wouldn't.

[00:05:34] There, yeah, you guys will never be.

[00:05:36] Yeah.

[00:05:37] So we can't live without each other.

[00:05:41] I was also training to play Olympic ice hockey at one time

[00:05:44] and found out that it's 11 months out of 12 I got together with Brock when I was 17. So I was like, well, now he's raised me more than my parents' name. Right? Don't say that. No, she didn't mean that. You didn't raise me. I'll only claim to that. Sure. And then as far as the preparedness lifestyle,

[00:07:01] both of our family, like his family is.

[00:07:03] Yeah, my grandparents were farmers in North Dakota.

[00:07:07] My grandma actually lived to be my next question was like at what point did because like Gilean

[00:08:20] and I've talked about the fact that like a to put that out that you really started doing,

[00:09:41] reaching out to other people, you started your podcast

[00:09:45] and you started having-

[00:09:47] We started doing the hobby sustain itself financially. Making money on it is like,

[00:11:00] how do you make a million dollars podcasting?

[00:11:03] Start with two million.

[00:11:04] Yeah, fair.

[00:11:06] Yeah, it's so true. We're all like, I don't wanna take a shower in a black. What is your problem? They're like, oh no boys are up there. You don't have stalls? Stolls? No, hang on, hang on. It's all good together. No, no. So there's an explanation here. So in the men's bathroom, and I'm not shy about this at all because I enlisted when I was 17 years old and did like the whole group showers

[00:12:20] with 13 other men at a time.

[00:12:22] So all my modesty was ripped right out of me.

[00:12:25] But in the men's, and all that stuff so I agree I agree Yeah, and to me like I guess the thing since we got on the subject at prepper camp But like the thing I love so much about prepper camp is like I've heard variations of different people saying basically the same thing of like this must be like the safest place in the United States of America this weekend

[00:14:43] you shouldn't be, you know, he's coming down here at six o'clock in the morning by himself. And I'm like, yeah, and that okay? You know, so yeah. Well, people that love you, they're

[00:14:50] going to look out for you. Right. Right. And of course, no, we don't know everyone that's

[00:14:54] there, but we do know a good amount of people that are there that know our kids that I felt

[00:14:59] pretty confident that my at the time what she was nine. She was nine.

[00:15:05] And when she went the first time, and so it was like, yeah, do. You know, she's not a strong swimmer. I don't remember who she was with. Christian, I think, wasn't it? Well, yeah, she was a Christian, but she was also with a man, and I don't remember, maybe it was you, Brock. James, I know it was James. James, yeah. That had him in the boat. Yeah, they all were Christian, yep. Yeah, and so when I heard, yeah,

[00:16:21] she's with James and Christian fishing,

[00:16:22] I was like, oh, well, she's good.

[00:16:24] Like, you know, and in the back of my head going,

[00:16:27] does she have a life jacket? Yeah. Well, and I also. Yeah. It brings out the seat dog and a lot of men. Yeah. You got a care of everybody around you. And I love the fact that we I feel like we all kind of go the adults kind of go, you know, the old ways. Like if Piper was doing something, I know that Brock and Sarah, y'all could reprimand her the way that we would, you know,

[00:17:43] and you know, I get that and I camp. He's got his own prepper camp sweatshirt. Oh, I didn't know that yet. We get up earlier at prepper camp that we do at home. That's why we had to do the late show today. Right. But he's up to like six in the morning and just that there are great people and say hi and hang out. Yeah, that's because they bought Pletter last year, you know, he was slightly hung over on Saturday. That's why Christian went up by himself in six of the morning. Yeah, I was about to say I, I go over here.

[00:20:23] I do remember Friday night, but I could though I don't think y'all would consider a lot

[00:21:40] of a lot of the things you do as a family to be preparedness related.

[00:21:43] Like how do you bring preparedness into the family dynamic, the dynamic bodied little boys that can haul vegetables, can shut vegetables, you know. They take care of chickens. Take care of chickens. I would say. Peel peaches when we try to make peach wine, which ended up being peach vinegar this year. Ooh, but. Yeah. First time we learned how not to do a lot of things this year.

[00:23:01] We are gonna see if we could distill it

[00:23:03] for like, for canning later.

[00:23:06] So, but yeah, they help, you know,

[00:23:08] when the stuff comes in, And and it's actually just kind of the way we were when we before we moved out to Texas We were living on 40 acres. Wow, and we were out and BFE. I mean we were in the sticks Just take us about 40 minutes to drive to the grocery store So when you're in living that kind of life, I mean everything we did together was as a family

[00:24:22] Yeah, firewood cuz we couldn't afford to heat our house. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm a help mom, I'm big. It gives them that real big sense of accomplishment

[00:25:43] and understanding that they can do that.

[00:25:45] They are people.

[00:25:47] And now, Christian made us dinner last night. that sense of accomplishment that they can do those jobs is so, so, it's just so important for them growing up to be the kids that we can run free at prepper camp kind of thing, you know? Powering. Yeah, thank you, that word.

[00:27:01] Empowering. And it is for girls too.

[00:27:03] I see it with our youngest at school

[00:27:06] who get to do whatever jobs they want, They can't do that. They're just kids. They shouldn't have a knife. They shouldn't. Yeah. Why? Why? What is going on? When are they supposed to magically develop these skills? I mean, it's our job as parents to teach them how to be adults later in life. Yeah. For a couple of years now, I've been like really big on whenever Piper would want something in the kitchen, she'd be hungry, I'd be like, why don't you come to the kitchen and you and I

[00:28:24] will make it together? Or if she was like, hey, dad, I don't know how happened. I'm like, what happened? It's not an everywhere. Oh my gosh. And then Nina in the comment is saying that her daughter's plate on fire. Yeah. He put one of the Tupperwares. He's like, oh, I need to warm up water. He takes the Tupperware and put it on the stove.

[00:29:42] Oh, no.

[00:29:43] Oh, no, no, no, no.

[00:29:45] We're not doing that. I was learning how to do woodworking or fix stuff around the house. Like, you know, there's time to the difference between when you're a child and when you're an adult is that when you're a child, your net, most children's natural perclivity. No, not upset with them for this is they would rather goof off and have fun than do work. When you reach adult, whatever age that happens after some of us is fairly young for some

[00:31:04] of this, it's like, you know, like, I agree. I totally, I understand. I understand, but I don't agree with the idea that let kids be kids.

[00:32:20] I understand, but don't agree with the idea of like, I want my kids to have an easy

[00:32:25] life that's making their life easy is not my job.

[00:33:24] book, 50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. And it goes from things like piecing fireworks together and letting

[00:33:30] them light them and placing pennies on railroad tracks and

[00:33:34] microwaving a spoon to see what happens. And things that not

[00:33:38] necessarily are going to hurt your kids, but things that we

[00:33:41] did as kids just because there was no adult supervision. And we

[00:33:45] just wanted to do those fun things.

[00:34:46] out. Ons were broken. Color bones were always broken. Somebody was always in a cast. Somebody always had like bruises somewhere. We were raising wild cats like in a fort. I don't know

[00:34:53] if y'all built forts. But I mean we had forts all over town and we had to go ride our bikes

[00:34:58] to go check on the forts and feed the cats and how we didn out in the rain one time. And was like, well, where did Fletcher go? And here he is out on the beach starting his own fire. You know, it was just great. And, you know, for him, that was his first moment when he was like, old enough to be part of like the adult team. Right. And oh, man,

[00:36:21] that was like the best. Yeah, was really that thought exercise. And then with introducing Star's character, here's this little girl, eight years old, now her parents are both dead. She has no other recourse, but to rely upon the person who saved her. Now, granted it was Erica, great, you know,

[00:37:41] great things to it, right?

[00:37:43] It was good to be saved by the heroine.

[00:37:44] By the heroine of the story, right.

[00:37:46] But what if you weren't? give them those tools to be able to go take care of themselves, to have me in their heart and not have me there. I can remember I'm conversations with Piper probably as young as four, maybe five. Conversations about being aware of her surroundings. One thing that me and my co-hosts, as a matter of fact, are really big on is wargaming, which is

[00:39:03] you're giving a scenario, think through all the pros and cons of whatever action you have at your her watch behind me. I wanted to watch behind me because I was trying to belt these four scrabbling limbs down into this car seat and I couldn't watch my back. It was one of the few times when she and I were out shopping together when Gilliam was working where I was completely vulnerable because I didn't have my head watching my surroundings. I was focused on what I was doing and when

[00:40:20] she got a little older I told her the reason why I wanted her to do that but it

[00:40:24] came to pass one time because somebody was literally just trying to skirt between And it was all on me and I feel like now all these years later We have a much more well-rounded preparedness viewpoint our plans are much more well-rounded our preps are so much so much more Three-dimensional and deep than what I had envisioned because I only saw things from my point of view And I couldn't think of all the things that Gillian could bring to the table and Piper can bring to the table

[00:41:43] So like that's always been my encouragement to other people is like if you involve your families in

[00:42:41] of these different classes. I have pictures of Piper's first year there.

[00:42:44] She's taking notes.

[00:42:45] She's in fourth grade, fifth grade,

[00:42:48] fifth grade taking notes at, you know,

[00:42:51] how to clean a hide.

[00:42:53] And I'm like, you will probably never ever do that.

[00:42:55] But you know what babe, you take those notes

[00:42:57] and you learn how to clean hide, you know?

[00:43:00] But she did it in every class that she attended.

[00:43:04] The two of us I think have a lot of the same passions And yeah, and that's, so I was gonna say, well, I told you, I was training ice hockey back in the day, right? And when I gave up on that dream, because I just knew it wasn't gonna fit with my family, I'd always wanted to do martial arts. Right. And then Brock wanted to do martial arts. And it was our date night, so to speak,

[00:44:23] that we started martial arts classes together.

[00:44:26] And we found a school where it was like weapons all black belts now and you just develop this family at the school and then you know it's just so such a pure fun experience to do together really. Yeah not to mention sparring is actually some of the best marriage counseling that I was just to pick each other in the head for an hour and then go out to

[00:45:42] dinner. Let me start googling the nearest. our family togetherness and then giving everybody those skills that they needed to like okay bring it on to the half the ways good luck. Yeah. I um sparred with Phil when we first got together in our 20s after he had just come home from Iraq and that oh yeah no no no no that wasn't

[00:47:00] fun at all it wasn't cute or romantic or anything else because he was filling that mindset of kill

[00:48:01] encouraging. With the Swiss.

[00:48:02] Way to teach her some self defense there.

[00:48:04] This is how you get destroyed honey.

[00:48:06] Now go cry in the corner bitch.

[00:48:09] She doesn't want to put the jacket on.

[00:48:11] Come on.

[00:48:12] In my defense, I think the problem was I might have got smacked in the face and that was

[00:48:17] what flipped the switch.

[00:48:19] Like I was trying to take it easy on her and then yeah.

[00:48:22] Then she gets one and it's like oh no you're dead.

[00:48:26] Oh yeah now.

[00:48:27] You're mine now.

[00:48:28] That's the way we're going to do this. And it's like I'm wondering like oh was that her being slammed onto the bed or was that him being like punched in the gut? Like what was that? Yeah, but it was Fletcher, you know now Fletcher's that big and so there reaches a point where You know for him to advance his skills. He can't be sparring his mother anymore

[00:49:43] There's a line there right like then we're into everybody's getting upset or things like that. Like Gillian noticed, I don't know what point in our being together you noticed it, but like when we would sit down, I would always, my eyes would always be scanning the environment. Like, I would never totally disengage or totally relax. I think I noticed that from the time you got home from Iraq. But you expected it to fade over time, didn't you?

[00:52:20] No, I never did.

[00:52:22] Okay.

[00:52:23] I didn't, I knew who I was getting in a relationship with and I figured that it was probably going to do. You know, most likely they're not going to walk through the front door. Some yes, sometimes they will. But for a lot of reasons, they won't, especially, you know, I hate to say this kind of stuff, but especially on a school campus, they're probably going to find the easiest way in that's going to be the less detectable. And it's commendable too, because a lot of people don't even think about that, go in.

[00:53:41] They don't know.

[00:53:42] Walk through life.

[00:53:43] They don't even want'm always thinking that.

[00:55:01] I think a lot of times because I worked

[00:55:04] at the front desk of the school.

[00:55:06] So I was the first person somebody saw happy call, right? Yeah. And I'm not in the office, I work remotely. But I'm like, uh, people in the office, you might want to be aware of like how ticked off people are getting because they're like, maybe more left leaning. Okay. And they're like, Oh, everything Sunshine and Roses. And we're

[00:56:21] having unicorn farts this morning. the hole was like, you've learned over the years that when I get that look in my like some something has elevated my attention beyond the standard. I'm just looking and checking people out like somebody has done something or somebody is presenting themselves in such a way that I'm suddenly like the switch

[00:57:41] has flipped and I'm like something about this, we will very quickly just sit there and put together a really quick little plan and be like, I've even told Gilead that you remember the time we were on a date, chips and saw, I said the little Mexican food place, I went and burned him down. And I saw in the next parking lot over, there was a man and a woman, obviously having an argument,

[00:59:00] I say man, woman, they're probably in their 20s,

[00:59:02] but it looked like the guy was trying to shove the girl

[00:59:05] into the back seat of his car.

[00:59:07] Do you remember that? But, I mean, I just, I don't know how we got to this point in the conversation. It was the one. It was the one. It was the one. A lot of squirrels. A lot of them. But yeah, I think it's just super important to have a whole family involved in preparedness. I think, I think, I think y'all probably see preparedness the way we do, we came to this

[01:00:23] lifestyle because we want to be able to take. It could be you lost your job. But hey, I got three months worth of food in the pantry. He, I don't have to worry about food for a little bit. When your hips went down and we had all of our food, because he wasn't working, now how are we think I think some of it is you see it on social media a lot and so you see all these women who are making gardens and learning how to can and they're romanticizing it and all that stuff and it's like okay that's great

[01:03:02] I'm glad you're prepared with all of that stuff but when shit really does hit through and planned and ready to go. They're not standing there like a deer in the headlights going, which way do we do it? Which way do we do it? Now what do we do? Now what do we do? When the trees fell in the house, Darren Ida, there were obvious holes in our preps. Chainsaw. We fixed those things. We were able, thank God they weren't life-threatening

[01:04:21] enough that we weren't able to fix those things,

[01:04:25] but we did fix those things they were good. And luckily the holes, like I said, weren't life threatening enough. But prepping isn't rainbows and unicorns. And it's not for the weak of heart. It's thinking about really, really hard topics.

[01:05:42] It's thinking about what happens if my husband

[01:05:44] is no longer here.

[01:05:45] It's thinking about six seconds later, the front door opens up. My daughter sprints to the mailbox. And that's, I'm here.

[01:07:00] And well, but that was, she didn't stop, turn around,

[01:07:04] or slow down until she got to the mailbox.

[01:07:06] She didn't even ask here, then you're not safe. I just think that we're growing up. We're in a time where people just don't want to think about the hard things. They don't want to think about the sad or the those scary things. And that's why we're in a lot of the situations that we're in in this country.

[01:08:20] But you have to.

[01:08:23] You have to think about those things because,

[01:08:27] a lot of them are going to come to fruition trying to grab it. We've had nights where you know Piper was scared you know she couldn't go to sleep because of what we had talked about that day it's you know we live um what is this 12 interstate 12? Interstate 12? Yeah which goes across the entire Interstate 10 Interstate 12 because it's interstate 10 everywhere but from here to Baton Rouge. But we the interstate goes across the

[01:09:43] entire country and so we see a lot of abductions but in this corridor of So we have to split. Yeah. Right. And I'm like freaking out. So luckily Fletcher had come up behind me and I'm like, you keep eyes on your brother. That guy went in the bathroom. He only washed his hands. And then we come out and we're all walking away from the store. Fletcher went to Arby's to go get something.

[01:11:00] So he peeled off of us.

[01:11:02] Here comes the guy again.

[01:11:05] Right up behind me and Christian.

[01:11:06] Yeah.

[01:11:07] And I mean, I pity the fool. code word? No, it was not. Yeah. I haven't even gone to the route to the go on the route of a code word because to me it's just like unless you're talking to a police officer I'm not sending anyone you don't know. Yeah, they can dress up like police officers though. True. True. This was years ago when we had this conversation when that wasn't as much of a thing. Right. But

[01:12:22] I've also been but I've also been very very front with Piper. There have been

[01:12:25] times when like I had I would leave her You know what? I got the perfect family code word. No one will guess it. Piper will never forget it. Okay. Uh-huh. That sounds good. That's same with us. That's ours.

[01:13:41] Well, it has been so much fun having y'all on this morning.

[01:13:45] I miss you guys. I can't wait. It was like... Nice. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. Well, thank you guys again. So totally appreciate it. We'll have to do this again. This has a lot of fun. Right? Is it Sunday morning ritual? I know. Now we gotta go record some lines because I think we're still behind.

[01:15:00] So I was like, yeah.

[01:15:02] You're at the first...

[01:15:04] Okay.

[01:15:05] So I am so excited.

[01:15:06] Don't worry, so am I and I love you.

[01:15:07] That actually makes me feel so much better, bro. I'm like voice actor don't you know? Yeah. And now you're finally out from, oh no. Oh, I'm not giving anything away. I can't give anything away. I've been writing too much. I'm not writing too much. You can't have the author on the show.

[01:16:20] I know right.

[01:16:22] Well, it has been a ton of fun. It is with DJ. Something you can do there. The only play we missed out on being part of this audio drama is that I don't have a villain voice, because if I'd have been TJ and you would have been, what was your character's name? Theresa Theresa. God, we could have played that up here at the house. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm glad that you weren't TJ.

[01:17:40] I'm glad that we didn't get to play that up at the house.

[01:17:45] That was some of those.

[01:17:47] You got to be the good guy.

[01:17:48] Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. It's been so much fun, but all right. Well, I think that's it. I think that's our episode again It's been a blast having y'all on so we'll have to do it again, but Where can everybody find you Sarah? Yeah, rock. I'm changing Series changing earth series

[01:19:02] Back on yeah, I will make sure I include that in the show notes Brock. I would ask where people find you