EP – 120 The Year of Adventure

This is our monthly one-on-one conversation.

The Cool Grandpa Podcast

What adventures have you been on lately? Do you plan adventures for yourself? How about adventures with the grandchildren?

This conversation is about the importance of having adventures and some ideas for adventures with the grandchildren.

Using the word adventure creates vivid pictures about having an experience that is out of the ordinary AND something that could involve a little bit of risk. Our young grandchildren understand adventures from the point of view of the cartoons they watch and the stories that they hear and read. They get that adventures are something special and fun. So, knowing this, let’s use having adventures in our language when planning a unique outing or experience with our young and older grandchildren.

In this episode, I share some tips and ideas for adventures with different-aged grandchildren. I also share the importance of really “selling” your upcoming activity. We also talk about how not every interaction with the grandchildren needs to be an adventure but rather, the adventure should really be created as a unique experience that you have once or twice a year (if that cadence works for you and your circumstances).

If you are planning any cool adventures with your grandchildren this year, please leave me a comment below or on my FB group page (Click HERE for the FB page), letting me know what you are doing.

After you have listened to this episode, remember to like and subscribe to the show if you haven’t already. Please share this podcast with three friends that could use this valuable information. Sharing is the best way to help me spread the word about the importance of grandfathers in the lives of their grandchildren and families.

Links

To join our growing FaceBook group, click HERE and join the ongoing conversations.

You can now purchase my children’s book, My Grandpa’s Grandpa, directly from my website. Click HERE for the link.

My children’s book, My Grandpa’s Grandpa, is now available for download. You can download the Kindle version by clicking on this LINK.

I would appreciate it if you could support the show. You can support the show through “Buy me a Coffee” and donate a few dollars by clicking HERE.

Affiliate Links

Grandparents Academy offers some great educational opportunities for grandfathers and grandmothers alike. Click HERE to pick a topic that is great for you.

EP – 99 Favorite Grampy

Our conversation with Manny Oliverez

Manny Oliverez is on a mission to be THE FAVORITE GRAMPY. Manny is someone who didn’t grow up with his grandfathers setting an example about what a grandpa should or shouldn’t do. This left Manny with a clean slate to create the types of relationships he wanted with his grandchildren.

We discuss Manny’s reaction to hearing the news that he would become a grandfather for the first time. Hearing that news started exploring what it would take to become a grandchild’s favorite grampy. Manny shares with us how for him, being a favorite grampy is a combination of creativity, opening yourself up to acting like a kid, and sometimes setting the rules aside.

Another big part of being a favorite grampy is to create opportunities for adventures. Adventures can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Manny shares with us an adventure he and his grandchildren took in the backyard where they encountered deer that an Oger had frozen and the dark spooky path that would take them to the brink of danger. Other adventures come in the form of trips to Disney, Universal, and other theme parks.

This pursuit of family-friendly, skip-generational adventures has led Manny’s daughter to start Favorite Grampy Travels. The focus of Favorite Grampy Travels is to help other families create these magical, once-in-a-lifetime memories with all members of the family. Check out the links below to Favorite Grampy Travels and see if they can help you schedule your next adventure with the family.

After you have listened to this episode, please remember to like and subscribe to the show if you haven’t already. It would also be fantastic if you would share this podcast with a friend. Sharing is the best way to help me spread the word about the importance of grandfathers in the lives of their grandchildren and families.

Links

Click HERE to visit Manny’s Favorite Grampy website.

Here is the link to Manny’s interview with the Adventures with Grammy podcast. Click HERE to listen to that great interview.

To check out Manny and the family’s good times, you can click HERE to follow Manny on Facebook.

Be sure to follow Manny on Twitter by clicking HERE.

Click HERE to follow Manny on Pinterest.

If you are looking for a great theme park or travel experience, let Manny and his family over at Favorite Grampy Travel take care of your needs. You and find your Favorite Grampy Travel by clicking HERE.

Click HERE to find the books that Manny has available on Amazon.

Click on this link to learn more about Peekabond.

Click on this link to learn and sign up for Readeo.

EP – 91 Adventures with Grammy

Our conversation with Carolyn Berry

Carolyn Berry, from the podcast, Adventures with Grammy, joins us to discuss her experience being a grandmother AND a podcaster. We talk about her memories of learning that she would become a grandmother for the first time and what a special time that was for her.

Carolyn also talks to us about how she uses her farm and trips to State and National Parks to create adventures for her grandchildren. We both agree that adventures do not have to be high risk or involve lots of money. Sometimes the best adventures are when we help our grandchildren explore the world around them.

After you have listened to this episode, please remember to like and subscribe to the show if you haven’t already. It would also be fantastic if you would share this podcast with a friend. Sharing is the best way to help me spread the word about the importance of grandfathers in the lives of their grandchildren and families.

Links

Click HERE to listen to my conversation with Carolyn on Adventures with Grammy.

Click HERE to visit the Adventures with Grammy website.

Click HERE to connect with Carolyn on Instagram.

Click HERE to learn more about the Cold Harbor Battlefield.

Click on this link to learn more about Peekabond.

Click on this link to learn and sign up for Readeo.

EP – 77 RVing With Grandchildren

Our conversation with Jeanne and Ed Gaffney

Open roads, out-of-the-way adventures, and building relationships are just a few things that we talk about with Jeanne and Ed Gaffney. Through her article, “RVing with Grandchildren,” I found Jeanne on the Go RVing website (See the link below for the article). I thought this idea and experience sounded like great fun for grandfathers and grandmothers.

The Gaffneys share how they got into RVing while living out in Montana and started taking trips with their friends. Once Ed and Jeanne moved to Alabama and were closer to some of their grandchildren, they started taking two of their grandsons out with short trips to the local park. From starting with overnighters at the local lake to multiweek adventures to the mountains and their last trip to Key Largo for scuba certification.

Ed and Jeanne share valuable tips for anyone looking to start taking camping and RV trips with their grandchildren. A big bonus is just making sure the grandchildren can follow ‘the rules and stay the night away from their parents. Ed points out that camping is camping, and it doesn’t matter if it is ten miles down the road or across the country at a National Park. Jeanne discusses helping the grandchildren journal about their adventures and collects things like stamps or patches from the National Parks or places they visit.

Once you have listened to this fun episode, leave us a comment below about your memories of camping with your grandparents or camping with your grandchildren. What were your favorite adventures? What are some valuable tips that the other listeners could profit from?

Remember to like and share this podcast with your friends looking to create valuable and unique memories with their grandchildren.

Links

Click HERE to read Jeanne’s article about RVing with grandchildren

Click HERE to see a short video by Jeanne and Ed about RVing with grandchildren

Click HERE to visit Lazydays RV website

Peekabond

Readeo

Ep – 29 Root Beer Floats and Slush Funds

My Conversation with my old buddies Ted and Bob Reuss

Root beer floats and slush funds two valuable lessons that we learn about from Ted and Bob’s experience with their cool grandpa. In this episode, we learn about how Ted and Bob’s grandpa worked hard to connect with his grandsons.

The biggest takeaway from this conversation is how much my friends loved going to Malibu, CA., Oregon, Montana, and other places to spend time with their grandfather and have the adventure of a lifetime each year that they were together.

Their grandfather was open to just about anything and keep the rules simple:

  1. You had to respect
  2. You had to love
  3. You and to share

We learn from Ted and Bob’s grandpa that it is important to have a grandchild slush fund around for visits, fishing trips, and the occasional roadside ice cream binge.

You are going to enjoy listening to three buddies talk about old times, including a nickel poker game that almost ended up in my demise.

At the end of the day, we learn the important lesson that grandfathers have to make an effort to connect and nurture the relationship with the grandchildren. The secrete sauce, according to Bob, is to be relatable, be relevant and be passionate with your grandchildren.