Spring break sounds like a good idea.
This week on Moms Unhinged, Andrea Marie is joined by Stephanie McHugh and Merit Kahn to talk about what spring break actually looks like when you’re the one planning it.
What starts as a simple trip quickly turns into shifting plans, weather problems, and realizing halfway through that no one is enjoying the thing you spent the most time organizing.
From road trips that keep getting longer to a Hawaii vacation that didn’t quite land, they share the moments that felt stressful at the time and funny later.
Because apparently, the more effort you put into a trip, the less it goes according to plan.
We Talk About:
- Planning the “perfect” spring break and watching it fall apart
- The pressure to create a memorable experience for your kids
- A Hawaii trip that didn’t go as expected
- The Road to Hana and other questionable decisions
- What kids actually take away from family vacations
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Prefer reading to laughing out loud? Peek at the transcript.
The spring break chaos begins
Merit Kahn: He gets to school and the teacher asks, you know, so what did you do on your, on your holiday break? And he starts, he does this whole thing about the playground at the airport. And I’m like,
I just spent a small fortune, I spent your first year of college to take you to Disney World.
Andrea Marie: We are Moms Unhinged, a nationally touring standup comedy show. Join us in our podcast as we explore everything from motherhood, midlife, crisis, marriage, divorce, online dating, menopause, and other things that irritate us.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Moms Unhinged podcast.
I’m your host, Andrea Marie, and I am joined by two of our amazing comedians, Merit Kahn and Stephanie McHugh. I’m super excited to be chatting with you guys with all three of us. This’ll be fun.
Stephanie McHugh: It’ll be great.
Andrea Marie: And here’s something fun. So Merit, I’ll just tell you real quick. ’cause they each have been on the podcast before. Merit travels around with her one woman show Optimistic Personality Disorder, and also with Moms Unhinged all over the place. Stephanie McHugh has been traveling on cruise ships.
She headlines all over with Moms Unhinged and she’s a new grandma. It’s exciting.
Stephanie McHugh: I am a new grandma.
Andrea Marie: Exciting
Stephanie McHugh: Thank you.
Andrea Marie: The crib is right behind you.
Stephanie McHugh: The crib. We’ve got the crib.
Andrea Marie: In crib without the baby. No baby.
Stephanie McHugh: Right? No baby. Baby’s taking a snooze on her dad’s chest.
Andrea Marie: That’s Awesome. That’s awesome.
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah.
College spring break vs. mom life
Andrea Marie: Well, we just wanted to talk today about like some, it’s spring break time here. And we just wanted to like talk about how those crazy times of spring break. It’s kind of funny ’cause all three of us are now kind of empty nesters and the spring break chaos is a little bit in the rear view mirror for us, but the scars are still fresh.
Merit Kahn: You know what I’m looking forward to. I’m looking forward next year’s spring break when my son’s already graduated from college and he realizes, wait, I don’t have spring break anymore.
Andrea Marie: Yeah, right.
Merit Kahn: No, you have to work that week.
Andrea Marie: Such a luxury. Such a luxury. And I was telling Merrit before we hopped on here now my kids are in college and they’re not even, they’re not even coming home. They don’t wanna hang out with mom on spring break anymore, you know? But I get it. I get it.
Spring break, what a luxury. They’ll realize how good they had it.
Merit Kahn: Oh yeah.
Andrea Marie: Later, yeah.
Stephanie McHugh: Gosh, I remember one spring break. I went to school in Fort Collins, I grew up in CSU. I grew up in Durango.
And worked at Purgatory Ski Resort. And then, so one year I drove home, worked the first part, and then my friends came and then we drove all the way down to the Baja of Mexico and hung up there. It was supposed to be a big party place and it wasn’t.
So then we drove back to Arizona and spent the rest of Spring Break there, and then drove all the way back.
Andrea Marie: Oh my. Oh my God. That’s funny. I do have a similar kind of college spring break story where we were, I was going school in St. Louis. It was my junior or no, senior year I think it was. And I wanted to go somewhere like to a beach. So we drove down to Texas, to Corpus Christi and it was gonna rain all week.
So we’re like, okay, this is terrible. So then we decided to drive to New Orleans and we drove there and then it was like gonna rain. We stayed there one day and then it was gonna rain all there, and then we drove to Florida. This is all in one week. I’m like,
Stephanie McHugh: Right. I know, I’m exhausted.
Andrea Marie: I know we did eventually get to the beach, so in the sun.
Merit Kahn: I remember when I was in college, I remember telling my father that I finally was So glad that I looked young because I would be able to go on spring break till I was like 30.
And then I went on like the second spring break, which we went to South Padre, in Texas. And after that one I was like, yeah, I’m done with spring break. Like that is enough.
Andrea Marie: I know it’s enough.
Merit Kahn: Like the idea of going, doing that again is crazy.
The pressure to plan something “special”
Andrea Marie: That is enough. Yeah, yeah totally enough. But when the kids are little. I was also saying this beforehand too, when the kids are little, I just felt a lot of pressure as a mom to do something cool for spring break because, you know, I think it just was always like, oh, people are going cool places.
And it’s so hard, especially when the kids are young and they’re, you know, I don’t know, I just felt a lot of pressure to. Do something interesting, but we usually just ended up going to Chicago or something, you know, like, oh man.
Stephanie McHugh: Oh, nice. Did you go hit the museums though?
Andrea Marie: Yeah, we would hit the museums. We would, so we got to spend time. We would spend time with my cousins and so, you know, or their cousins, really, my sisters’ kids. And so that was always a lot of fun. ‘Cause especially. You know, Chicago spring break time is better than Chicago Christmas time in terms of weather.
Merit Kahn: For sure.
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah, yeah. Or summer and heat and humidity.
Merit Kahn: My son would not have put up with the museum thing at all. He once literally told me, he’s like, mom, I’m more of an action adventure kid. I’m not really a sightseeing kid. And gotta admire a kid who just really knows themselves. You know, he’s very grounded. He knows exactly what he likes And doesn’t like. The problem with me was, you know, I love sightseeing, I love photography, and I thought, well, maybe if I get him excited about some of the things that I like, then we can do them together. Yeah.
Andrea Marie: Right.
Merit Kahn: Just so you know, moms out there, that doesn’t work. Didn’t work for
Andrea Marie: I know.
Merit Kahn: Didn’t work for me. Did not work for me.
Andrea Marie: I know, you know, and it kind of sucks that you’re spending all this money on a vacation that you’re kind of stressed on. It’s not sometimes always that relaxing for you as a mom.
Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah. Gosh, I can’t even remember. It seems like we would either go see family, we didn’t really do that many vacations. Just like for the sake of vacation type things.
Andrea Marie: Yeah. that is a challenge. If you are, You know? if you are in a place where your family is not a lot of times these holiday trips are spent just going to see your family and that’s, you know, also like then when do you actually get the vacation?
Merit Kahn: Yeah.
Andrea Marie: Exactly.
Stephanie McHugh: Exactly. You need a vacation from the vacation.
Andrea Marie: Yeah. Totally.
Hawaii trip… gone wrong
Merit Kahn: Well, I definitely needed a vacation. I will tell you the one spring break memory that I have was after I got divorced, I felt even more pressure to do like the perfect vacation. Right. Because.
Andrea Marie: Oh yeah. Yeah, it’s gotta be better than Dad.
Merit Kahn: Yeah. Well, and dad had skiing, so I’m not a skier and my son loves skiing, so they had that thing and that was like their go-to thing.
And so it was always fun to be with dad.
And you know me, I’m like, well, why? I like photography and museums and sightseeing. He’s like that’s not fun. So I’m like, all right, well he’s always wanted to go to Hawaii and we never took family vacations mostly ’cause our family really didn’t enjoy being together. So I decided I would take Jake to Hawaii. So we go to Maui and I’m like, all right, now I planned what I thought was a great Hawaii adventure. We started with the luau, the welcome to Hawaii Luau.
Lemme just say teenage boys are not interested in the luau, the history of Hawaii. None of that. None of that. Not even the girls in the cool grass skirts. I mean, none of that. So that was mistake number one, followed by the next day, which was, all right, we’ll do action adventure. So I booked this like kayaking trip, and I’m thinking, all right, you know, we’ll be out on the water.
We’re doing something physical, it’ll be great, except that it rained. And so weather canceled that plan. And now I’m sitting here with like, okay, I need a backup plan.
The Road to Hana regret
Merit Kahn: And I don’t know what possessed me ’cause I had been to Maui before, but I’m like, well, let’s do the Road to Hana.
Andrea Marie: Oh God.
Merit Kahn: The Road to Hana, if you don’t know what it is a very long, windy road of nothing but sightseeing. And I just don’t.
Andrea Marie: A little historical, you know, significance.
Merit Kahn: Which I don’t recommend with a teenage boy in the rain.
Andrea Marie: Oh God.
Merit Kahn: Yeah, so that did not win me any points. And the other problem with traveling on spring break was that it was March Madness. And so there were sports to be watched, which meant I am paying for a Hawaii vacation, which he wants to spend inside watching basketball games.
Andrea Marie: Oh my God, oh my God. And how do you not like strangle them? Just a little bit when they’re like, just a light choking. I’m like, oh my.
Merit Kahn: It was tough, but you know, I brought my book out to the pool, so I was like, I sort of wanted to strangle him and I was also happy to read my book.
Andrea Marie: Yeah, exactly. You stay in hotel room, watching your football on Hawaii, you know? Right.
We did the Road to Hana. Gosh, with my kids when we were older. It was right after COVID. And it was like, you know? I wanted to get out and do something and we did the Road to Hana with my son who gets easily car sick. So, we didn’t make it too far ’cause that is a curvy, curvy road.
Merit Kahn: Well man, that was probably a blessing. Turn that around.
Andrea Marie: I know. Yeah, how long is the ride?
Stephanie McHugh: How long is the ride?
Andrea Marie: It’s like an all day thing practically.
Merit Kahn: This, I think there’s like this one place where it’s like you could kind of like turn and sort of cut it off or you can go all the way around the island.
Andrea Marie: It’s long. It is long. And you can turn.
Merit Kahn: I committed to the longer way.
Andrea Marie: Yeah. You’re committed after a certain point, yeah.
Stephanie McHugh: The driver wouldn’t be able to really look that much either if it’s really curvy, right?
Andrea Marie: No, that’s true.
Stephanie McHugh: You’re kind of focusing.
Merit Kahn: Yeah.
Andrea Marie: So the one person probably was interested in looking was driving.
Merit Kahn: I do remember switched driving, at one point because, you know, it was one way to get him to stop complaining about it, is if he could be in control and actually driving it. But he seemed to think the road to hana was like, you know, the Indianapolis 500
and he is just taking these curves. And I’m like, okay, we’re gonna die. This was such a bad idea all the way around.
Andrea Marie: We’re gonna die on the Road to Hana.
Stephanie McHugh: Oh.
Merit Kahn: Really upset teenager driving. I don’t know.
Andrea Marie: Oh my goodness.
Stephanie McHugh: I am trying to think of crafts. We did, but you guys had have sons, so you really didn’t do like it felt like we were craft.
Andrea Marie: Yeah, I mean, that was the interesting thing too, is when they were home and you were trying to entertain them during the week and think of fun things to do at home if you’re doing like one of, you know, the staycation or something. But yeah, sometimes I was like, I’m out of ideas. I don’t have anymore.
Stephanie McHugh: I totally forgot about it and I couldn’t remember what it was, but it was like, Julie, my youngest would say, I could tell I’m a little tired. ‘Cause I almost said Julie, she’s a girl. Like in case you didn’t know. My daughter Julie, she would go, hey mom. Hey mama. Can I do an experiment? And I’d say, yeah.
And basically she would just go in the kitchen and mix just a ton of stuff up and just stir it up. She wouldn’t eat it or anything. It’s just an experiment that it was the easiest.
Andrea Marie: Yeah. You’re so tired. You’re I don’t care. the, the beans in with the ‘ cocoa, whatever. You know, whatever you want.
Stephanie McHugh: Do baking soda and vinegar. Just don’t use all the brown sugar.
Andrea Marie: Yeah. I suppose, yeah, depending on They what it was, it could get kind of expensive if they’re dumping all the.
Stephanie McHugh: And they would always ask when I was on the phone too. They knew the phone.
Merit Kahn: Oh yeah, you could get you were distracted.
Stephanie McHugh: If mom’s on the phone.
Disney trip reality check
Merit Kahn: I remember traveling when they were little, little, like when you could just pick em up, put ’em wherever you wanted to go, you know. And like that, that was the best. I remember this one time when Jake was super little. We took him to Disney World. We did the thing and he was, kindergarten age, whatever that is. I’m so out of it. And we did everything in the park, right? Like just everything and. He loved the monorail, you know, which is basically just transportation to the park.
Andrea Marie: Yeah.
Merit Kahn: that was his favorite ride. And then when we’re at the airport going home, there’s like one of those playgrounds across from our gate. And so he is playing in the playground and, you know, I’m following him with all the disinfectant ’cause ugh. And then he gets to school and the teacher asks, you know, so what did you do on your, on your holiday break? And he starts, he does this whole thing about the playground at the airport. And I’m like,
I just spent a small fortune, I spent your first year of college to take you to Disney World. These like lifetime memories I could taken you.
Stephanie McHugh: Oh.
Merit Kahn: What?
Andrea Marie: 4B.
When mom got left behind at Disney
Andrea Marie: That’s hilarious. That’s hilarious. I have a funny, story from Disney. We, I think we went. We ended up going three times. It was really gonna be like a one time one and done. But then we, I was really surprised at how much I liked Disney. I didn’t think I’d like it, but it was, it was really fun.
And so we went one time and I went to the bathroom. We had just had breakfast at and had like by Lilo and Stitch or something like that, whatever, you know, had the whole thing. It was at one of the hotels. So we were waiting for the monorail and I was like, okay, I gotta go to the bathroom really quick before, because then we were gonna go into the park and I come outta the bathroom and it’s gone, it’s empty.
Like the monorail has left, they left me behind.
Merit Kahn: Wow. Lost mom. Lost mom.
Andrea Marie: Just was in the, and I’m texting, I’m like, Hey, did you guys leave? And they’re like, oh, yeah, the monorail came. And I was like, well, let’s wait for the next one.
Merit Kahn: Wow. Nothing says family fun time like leaving mom behind.
Andrea Marie: I know, know. I know. And I think we, my kids are really into Jack Sparrow and the, you know, the whole black Pearls, what, whatever that series was, and there was a saying, whoever falls behind, gets left behind, or something like that. Oh, was in the motto of the family vacation. I was like, wow.
Stephanie McHugh: Uh huh.
Andrea Marie: What were your favorite?
Stephanie McHugh: What was your favorite ride then?
Andrea Marie: Oh man. You know? Yeah. We actually, the last time we went, we did go to the Star Wars experience that they had at, where is it? Is it at, I forget, it’s not at Animal Kingdom. It’s at, I forget which one it’s at now, now I can’t remember the name of the ride, but it’s so cool, was the Rebel Experience or something like that. It was amazing. We also really liked at Animal Kingdom, we liked the himalaya one.
I’m forgetting all the names.
Merit Kahn: Oh yeah.
Andrea Marie: Oh, I do have a funny story about the rock and rollercoaster.
Merit Kahn: Oh, I love that.
Andrea Marie: I know that one was so fun. So my kids were young. They were, I mean, young-ish. My youngest was eight and my oldest was 11. The first time we went to Disney.
They had never really been on an upside down roller coaster where they had hardly been on any roller coasters really. And so I knew that the rock n roller coaster went upside down. I just didn’t realize how crazy fast it was. And so we, ’cause it starts off at 60 miles an hour, like out of the gate.
And so we get in there and I’m like, okay, alright. They’re young, they’re little, I’m a little nervous. I’m behind them, you know, with my husband. We take off at 60 miles an hour. And that’s like, right. It’s like, you know, that crazy music and everything, and I am dying. I’m like, they’re probably so scared.
Oh, my babies. Oh my God, I’m so scared. They’re terrified of scarred. My youngest for life. Oh man. He’s freaking out. And the whole ride was just a nightmare for me. And I get out and I hop out and I come to them and they’re like that was awesome. I was like, oh my God.
Merit Kahn: That’s great.
Andrea Marie: So I was like, okay. They were, they loved it. So I was like, oh man. I was scared, but okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all right. But anyway.
Stephanie McHugh: Sugar nuts, took the girls to Disneyland right after we had split two. And you said the Himalayan.
Andrea Marie: Or Mount Everest, I think it was Mount Everest. It would do up, it would go up and back in a loop. You would go backwards.
Stephanie McHugh: Was there like the snowman?
Andrea Marie: Yes, the abominable snowman. Yeah.
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah. Yes, so he took the girls on that and Julie did have a visceral reaction to that. She was just screaming and it was Sugar Nuts and Julie, and then Rachel’s in the back with sitting next to someone who didn’t speak English. You know, she was next to, so we didn’t speak English, so they got ice cream after that. Like anytime they knew like if anything bad happens, at least we know we’d get ice cream afterwards.
Merit Kahn: Jake was little on that same, probably on that same trip where the playground at the airport was memorable. We were in, I think it’s Tomorrowland, and you know how all the garbage cans are like in theme with whatever that, whatever land you’re in. Well, in Tomorrowland there’s garbage cans that talk and move with you.
And so, I go to throw something out and Jake’s standing there with me and the garbage can says, you know, thank you. And Jake is just mesmerized. Well, then he starts having an entire conversation with the garbage can and the garbage can’s name by the way is Push. ’cause that’s what it says on the front. Push
Andrea Marie: Uh huh.
Merit Kahn: And Push like challenges Jake to like a little race and they go over to this. I mean, it was the most hilarious thing. I should, I should write a standup bit about it because I have never laughed so hard in my life, but he, I think still thinks that that was real. I have no idea. But that
Andrea Marie: Oh my God. So, the big highlights were the airport and the garbage can.
Merit Kahn: And the airport. Airport playground. I could have saved a fortune like going to the you know, playground down the road. And I had a whole collection of garbage cans. I mean, yeah. Those were the days.
Andrea Marie: Oh.
Stephanie McHugh: Was there someone in the garbage can? Like how did they do that? Or is there a remote magic?
Merit Kahn: Who knows how these things happen.
Andrea Marie: I know.
Merit Kahn: It’s like it had to be remote control, like somebody was watching because they were like, they knew, you know, who they were talking to and they, you know, it’s like, I’ll come over here and we’ll do a race. And literally my kid is like racing with this garbage can on wheels. It was hilarious.
Andrea Marie: Oh, that’s so funny. That’s so cute.
Merit Kahn: Yeah, so I don’t recommend spending a lot of money on vacations.
Andrea Marie: No.
Stephanie McHugh: I mean, I feel like we could make a lot of money Moms Unhinged garbage cans.
Yeah, just to a vacant warehouse.
The pressure to create magical experiences
Andrea Marie: Is, It is always funny what is fascinating to them and we, you know, I think the hard thing is we feel this pressure to create this magical experience and do what other people are doing and people are taking their kids to Disney and say, oh, we gotta do that, or else they’re gonna feel deprived, or something like that.
Meanwhile, you know, the garbage can is the highlight, you know.
Merit Kahn: Yeah, yeah, we have to it’s important to keep that in mind. You know, the experience isn’t, it isn’t really about, you know, where you go and certainly not about how much money you spend, but it’s being present with them.
Andrea Marie: Yeah,
Merit Kahn: It goes so quickly.
Andrea Marie: Yeah, I know. Were your kids good travelers or did they, was it hard traveling?
Merit Kahn: I would say Jake is a, Jake’s a good traveler. Especially now, you know, he just did that semester at sea as a junior in college.
Andrea Marie: Oh, right.
Merit Kahn: So now he’s a world traveler and we actually, this was another good one. Here’s a Moms Unhinged tip for all you traveling moms out there with your adult children. When in Amsterdam you might skip the sex museum with your adult child. That was really uncomfortable.
But at the time it seemed fun.
Andrea Marie: I went with my boss.
I went with my boss to that sex in Amsterdam. Talk about uncomfortable.
Merit Kahn: That work either. That doesn’t work
Stephanie McHugh: Wow.
Merit Kahn: But yeah, no, Jake’s a good traveler now. And I you know, teah he is a good traveler now. I mean now he is. That was a whole trip of sightseeing. So he comes back from that and I’m like, okay, so you saw a bunch of sight. You’re alive. Like, can we still? Can we do that now on a trip together? ’cause that would be fun for me. I don’t know.
Andrea Marie: Yeah.
Merit Kahn: How about your girls?
Stephanie McHugh: Oh gosh. I am just in baby mode right now. And so we went in the, Rachel, my daughter, went in to get something out of a store and I’m in the backseat with a little peanut in a car seat and she was getting a little fussy and man, they are locked and loaded now.
There’s no, ’cause I used to be able to like jiggle the car seat just a little bit, even, you know, I felt like it was secure and stuff like that, but it wasn’t moving at all. I remember when we went to Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
Merit Kahn: Favorite vacation.
Andrea Marie: Every woman’s favorite spring break.
Stephanie McHugh: You know, when you’re talking about that, my daughters did think that was like the, because the next door neighbor to my dad had like a rope, a big rope swing so they could hang out at grandpa’s house and do the rope swing. So mom and, I’m in the back seat with Julie in the car seat, and I just wanna get home, you know, like, Rachel’s like two or three.
Two. And so you could, I just was breastfeeding, so I just got the boob out and I could take the car seat and lift it up and I just fed her secure in the car seat. ’cause I’m like, we are not stopping, we are getting home right now. We’re just gonna keep this going. So that seat, car seat’s got a little give, you know.
Merit Kahn: Yeah.
Stephanie McHugh: Right. I know I was checking little Peanut’s this isn’t gonna, she’s gonna have to stop and feed her. Can’t do the keep driving.
Andrea Marie: Oh my gosh, that’s so funny.
Stephanie McHugh: That was plus.
What kids actually remember
Merit Kahn: What do your kids remember about spring breaks or any vacations?
Andrea Marie: You know, that’s a good question. I It’s be interesting to get their take. Sometimes I feel like I ask them questions like that. Like hey, do you remember? Like, you know, we did this thing where I was in part of this mom’s group and we were all really tight with money and we just didn’t have a lot.
And so the kids are young, and so we just did our own preschool. And we would, it was like two moms would get the day, the afternoon off and two or three moms would stay with the kids and do zone defense and preschool activities. You know, so we didn’t have to pay for preschool. We got like, it was this like little package stuff that you would get and there were, there was like little crafts and little things that you could, you know, to keep ’em occupied.
And you would just say, how many kids are, you know, you want to do this for, and little, like a little tiny lesson plan, you know? And so it was kind of a way for us to do preschool. And two moms would, you know, get an hour and a half or something, two hours. It was glorious. It felt like, it felt like a week’s vacation, you know, when you’re two hours to myself.
Stephanie McHugh: It’s almost too much pressure. Like, what do I do? I have to do something great.
Merit Kahn: You did their laundry.
Andrea Marie: Relax, relax. Self care.
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah, what a great idea.
Andrea Marie: I asked my kids if they remember that time ’cause we did it for a good amount of time and they’re like nope, nope, I don’t. And they barely even remember like our playgroup things. We had all kinds of things we did during playgroup.
So it would be curious to ask them what they remember about spring break times.
Merit Kahn: Wow. Or you could use that as an opportunity to implant memories about things you did that never happened.
Andrea Marie: Right.
Merit Kahn: We took you to all kinds of amazing places.
Andrea Marie: We went to Europe. You were two.
Merit Kahn: I don’t know where all those pictures went. Oops.
Andrea Marie: Oh, I did have a bad, a hard travel time one time. Well, it was kind of, it was kind of crazy. It was like.
You know, the plane’s delayed, things are stressful. Get on the plane. And Henry who’s two, we didn’t realize he was motion sick or whatever. You know, would get car sick and stuff like that until later when I was like, huh, he’s not, you know, I just thought like, oh, he has this upset stomach every time we get in the car or whatever. I like, didn’t even, didn’t even think occur to me that it was car sickness. But so he was on, we were on a plane trip and he just threw up all over steve, like just, and it was, I think it was take takeoff. So, you know, he’s got two and a half hours sitting there and trying to clean him up as best as possible.
But yeah, so that was a rough one.
Stephanie McHugh: God yeah. Yeah, even I can’t even remember spring break that much.
Andrea Marie: Yeah. It is funny. Like it is funny now. I mean, we ask our kids what they remember.
Like what do we remember actually?
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah, yeah.
Merit Kahn: Oh man. I do remember that spring break that I had in that, in South Padre, and you know why I remember that? Because I was still
scrapbooking at that point in my life. and so I have printed pictures in a scrapbook with lots of writing around it, and I spent a lot of time on those pages. So they are in here, but now it just, you know.
I take a million and a half pictures
on my phone. Like we went to, we did an African safari a couple years ago.
Andrea Marie: Oh that’s right.
Merit Kahn: Last year, a couple years ago when, Jake was on Semester at Sea, we, you know, flew out to South Africa to meet him, me and my dad, and we had this like three generations on Safari. I have posted no pictures. I have
Andrea Marie: Oh my God.
Merit Kahn: The
album yet. I’m so lazy. I just, but there’s so many of them. It’s overwhelming. You take all these pictures.
Andrea Marie: Yeah, just even remembering, I mean, that is, it’s very true. Just the trying to keep the, keep The memories together. Well, I don’t know what the solution is. I think the solution is just take ’em to the airport playground. done.
Merit Kahn: Yes, done. That’s done. Yeah.
Andrea Marie: Exactly. The trash can thing too. Sounds great.
Merit Kahn: Right. And there’s trash at the airport.
Andrea Marie: Yeah.
Merit Kahn: So that’s it. Zip zap.
Stephanie McHugh: Yeah.
Andrea Marie: Yeah, ice cream. That’s it.
That’s all we need. Well, this has been super
fun. I loved, maybe we’ll do more of these, sessions where we talk about a topic and if you guys, anyone listening has a topic, you wanna talk about us to talk about some unhinged moments during whatever, whatever period of time or whatever thing you’re around.
And if you are going on spring break, we wish you well. Good luck.
Stephanie McHugh: Yes, good luck. Share your story. Share your spring break.
Andrea Marie: Horror stories. Bring them over. Yeah, share ’em in the comments. All right. Thank you Stephanie and Merit.
Merit Kahn: Bye.
Andrea Marie: Thanks for listening and make sure you subscribe, share, and follow us on the socials to get more comedy clips.
Founder and Comedian
Andrea Marie is an international speaker and comedian. She has performed at venues such as Comedy Works, The Denver Improv, Comedy Festivals in Boston, Chicago, World Series of Comedy in Las Vegas and produces her own show called Moms Unhinged. She wrote a book about Facebook and is a mother of 2 boys giving her an endless source of material. Follow her on Instagram @AndreaMarieComedy
Merit Kahn is the playwright, producer, and star of the one-woman inspiring comedy show Optimistic Personality Disorder, currently touring the U.S. If a TED Talk and a tequila shot had a baby, it would be Merit’s show- bold, unfiltered, and completely relatable, covering all the chaos we’re managing with coffee and comedy. A Moms Unhinged original since the very first tour stop, Merit delivers the kind of set that makes you laugh, exhale, and say, “Oh thank God, it’s not just me.” Follow her on Instagram @meritkahn
Headliner
Stephanie McHugh brings wit and charm to the Denver comedy scene, where she has been a regular for over 15 years. She was on Nick at Nite’s TV Show “America’s Funniest Mom” which won her praise from celebrity judge Rosanne Barr. Stephanie is currently part of the comedic trio MentalPause! that has performed at Comedy Works while laughing off the middle ages! Follow her on Instagram @stephcomedy
Catch These Ladies In An Upcoming Show
April 2026
Hosted by Merit Kahn, featuring Tara Check and headlining Stephanie McHugh