Eyres On The Road

In this additional episode of "travel stories" Richard and Linda discuss some special relationship-building travel with just father and sons and with just mother and daughters--and even travel exclusively with in-law children. But before they get into that, the Eyres summarize the challenging year just passed and look forward to 2021.

On today's show, Richard and Linda talk about how all of the classic Christmas stories are about giving and sacrifice. People old and young feel the Christmas Spirit as they give, not as they get. Then the Eyres tell us some personal Christmas Stories about giving, and challenge us all to help our children, for at least part of Christmas, to shift their attention from getting to giving. Illustrations for today's episode on Instagram @richardlindaeyre.

Richard and Linda Eyre discuss the value of Christmas stories and traditions, and how traditions can help us feel a sense of security.

In the final episode of their "travel stories," the Eyres advocate traveling more with our children as a way of getting them out of their comfort zone and awakening their sensitivity of other cultures and people. And family travel can actually be economical! During this time when travel is all but impossible, we can all think and dream about the traveling we may want to do when the pandemic ends. Today's stories are about family travel in Japan, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Europe, and Bali, with illustrations on Instagram @richardlindaeyre.

In the second of their three part "travel stories" Richard and Linda tell about the humanitarian expeditions they have been able to experience with their children, and about the perspective and sense of gratitude that third world service can give to kids. Specifically, the Eyres tell stories from their expeditions to Kenya, to the Yucatan, to Bolivia, to India, and to Romania. They have "illustrated" these stories with their most recent post on Instagram @richardlindaeyre

Today Richard and Linda start a three part mini-series on what they have learned about families, parenting and marriage from their extensive global travel. This episode focuses on travel stories from their speaking and book tours which have taken them to 45 of the more than 100 countries they have visited--and takes us on a virtual tour of presentations in Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi, Vietnam, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Moscow and Pakistan. For pictures to supplement today's show, go to the latest post on Instagram @richardlindaeyre.

The Eyres didn't get through all the "election stories" they wanted to tell last week, so they continue with Part Two on today's podcast, and this week's stories include Richard's work with President Reagan and his own run for Governor. The thread that runs through all of the stories is the importance of the family as the basic unit of our society, our culture and our economy; and the importance of being recognized as such by all larger political institutions.

As the U.S. waits for final election results, Richard and Linda tell some personal "election stories" from earlier times and comment on how important it is that all politics and all government recognizes that the FAMILY is the basic unit of society, of culture, of religion, and of our economy. The Eyre's interest in politics goes back to before they were married, and is interlaced with their professional lives over the decades. The election stories the tell today all relate back to family, and include everything from presidential campaigns to local elections. And since they ran out of time today, they will continue with more "election stories" next podcast.

On today's show, the Eyres return to their "stories" theme and talk about prayer stories, and how parents often pray in a very special and powerful way, acknowledging the true Heavenly Parent and asking that parent to help in their own "beginning parenthood." Richard and Linda tell their own stories of intense prayers in times of family crisis, and challenge all of us to make this pandemic-time an improved prayer-time, even to the point of keeping a gratitude journal and an "ask journal" keeping track of what we thank God for and what we ask for, and opening our minds to answers that we don't expect.

How will we all get together for the Holidays? What would a virtual Thanksgiving Dinner be like, or a Zoom Christmas. Many of us will find out this year. The Eyres, just back from London and the birth of their twin grandchildren, talk on today's show about families in Covid Time, and the joys and trials of staying close mentally and spiritually when you can't be close physically.

Continuing with the "stories" theme of the last few weeks, the Eyres tell us the stories of some of the wild and unusual things they have done with their children during summer vacations. Mostly with the frequent flier miles compiled from their global speaking engagements, Richard and Linda were able to take their kids to live in different cultures, and often in third world situations, in an effort to build perspective, empathy and tolerance. They talk about summers in Japan, in Romania, in Mexico, in Wales, and building a log cabin in the Oregon wilderness. Still in London, awaiting the birth of grand-twins, they also talk about earlier family time in England.

Still in England awaiting the birth of their daughter's twins, Richard and Linda reflect on today's show about Joy School and how it became an international phenomenon used by more than half a million families to teach preschoolers the social and emotional joys that make them ready for Kindergarten--and for life. The story actually begins in England where the Eyres were as the initial Joy School curriculum was being formed, and there were some other stories in connection with its beginning that all families, and all parents and grandparents can learn from.

Having completed their quarantine, the Eyres have moved from Somerset up to London to be with their youngest daughter who will deliver twins any day now.  So on today's show, they talk about the various times when they have lived in London--as Mission Presidents, and when they went back ten years later so that their younger children could have some of the same British experience and schooling that their older children experienced during the mission.  Richard and Linda go into story-telling mode and share some of the family centric English incidents that are dear to them and instructive to all of us with regard to our families.

Once again casting from England, the Eyres talk today about their English ancestors, and ancestors in general and how knowing their stories can give us both identity and resilience. Richard and Linda are in quarantine in the Southwest of England, where many of their ancestors lived, and they are using their time there to harvest all they can about those for-bearers and their lives and times. They not only share some of these stories on today's program, but suggest ways we all can bring to life the stories of our ancestors and make them available and accessible to our children.

Joining us today from the little village of Batheaston, in Somerset, England, Richard and Linda are in quarantine for 14 days, hoping that their splendid isolation will end at about the same time as their youngest daughter gives birth to her twins in London. So how could they talk about anything today other than baby stories--birth stories--those glorious moments when children from a pre-mortal existence enter into this world.The Eyres recall the birth of many of their children and grandchildren including their son who came nine weeks early in London four decades ago, and their other set of grandchildren twins that arrived in San Jose just hours before they left on a round-the-world book and speaking tour.  Every birth is a joyful miracle, and Wordsworth was right when he said "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, the soul that rises with us, our life-star, hath had elsewhere its setting and cometh from afar..."

Each week for the past year the Eyres have been reviewing the content of one of their 52 books. On today's show, they tell some of their "Book Stories" and get into how they became authors in the first place and how luck or fate (but we would like to call it blessings) led them on a path that resulted in books that sold millions, were translated into more than a dozen languages, and led to a secondary career of speaking and lecturing throughout the world. Richard and Linda take little of the credit, and their stories illustrate how many "happy accidents" went into their writing career. They begin today's show with a current story as they prepare to go on a "genealogy quarantine" to Bath, England and then to London for the birth of their youngest daughter's twins.

Lincoln said "Sometimes I am driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I have no place else to go." As parents, we often feel this same feeling. Parenting is hard, children are complicated, the world is dangerous and confusing, particularly in this pandemic--and we are driven to our knees because we have nowhere else to go. And this can be a GOOD THING, because an earthly parent praying to a Heavenly Parent about a child that they share can create some of the most fervent, effectual prayers ever uttered. And it can generate answers that we would never find anywhere else. On today's show, the Eyres talk about parental prayer and how we can all make it a more important part of our lives.

Is there any time when it is more important to count our blessings than in a pandemic? On today's cast, the Eyres give us twelve "Gratitude Challenges" that they guarantee will shift our focus from what's wrong to what's right. And they begin the show with 5 questions: How has the pandemic changed 1. The world? 2. This country? 3. The Church 4. Your family? and 5. YOU?

Any parent or grandparent worth their salt has known the joy of reading to a child. And there are so many great stories to read! But the best stories are the ones that teach a principle. If a child's story teaches them the importance and the blessing of a VALUE, then that value will become a part of them. The Eyres, when they founded Joy School for preschoolers nearly 40 years ago, had no idea that over half a million families would use the curriculum and the stories and songs and activities in their homes. Recently a publisher called BushelandPeck took all of the stories from Joy School and put them into one anthology. Richard and Linda got so excited about it that they decided to share some of those stories on today's episode--and to give praise to the two-way joy that happens when parents or grandparents read aloud to young children.

Marriaging is an active, grow-and-improve word like parenting, and on today's show, the Eyres expose 8 myths or misconceptions about the world's oldest institution and how false paradigms and unrealistic expectations of these myths can undermine a relationship. Most importantly, Linda and Richard talk about how each myth can be replaced with an "implementable" truth that will strengthen the most important relationship of our lives.