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Married Life
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🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re taking you back in time as Jenni and Max look back on their life together as a married couple of over 30 years! They talk about what their youth was like, and what life looks like now as they enter an older age.
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
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Website: McKennaPropertyManagement.com
Phone: 702-434-HOME (4663)
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Thoughts for Rent'
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the week. It's Realtors keeping it real on Thoughts for Rent with Max Zerfloo and Jenny McKenna.
Life Stages: Youth to Grandparenthood
00:00:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that is us. And we are keeping it real today. This fine, beautiful day in Henderson, Nevada. We're keeping it real by talking about life. That's a very heavy topic.
00:00:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
But we wanted to tackle it and go over some of the stages of life that we go through as young people to then in a relationship, into marriage, into having kids, into kids moving out, into becoming grandparents.
00:00:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
What do you think about that? Well, I think you let the cat out of the bag on the last part. What's that last part? What did you just say? We're going to be what? Well, the last stage was becoming grandparents.
00:01:09
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's not the last stage, but it's... yeah It's a stage towards the end, and we are becoming
Anticipation of Grandparenthood
00:01:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
grandparents. Yes, we are. In the next couple days. Yes. So our oldest daughter is living in Alabama, and she is going to be induced for her first pregnancy, our first grandchild, on Sunday. So we are very excited. We're going fly out there, and we're going to embark on our next pregnancy.
00:01:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
part of our life, which is grandparents. e jole Are we that old? i my yeah Let's not go into that part of it. Let's talk about all the fun stuff, not the old stuff. think I'm a pretty old first-time grandfather, I think, if you think about it. um I'll be 60 next year.
00:01:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, your kids didn't get married very quick. And you only have one out of three that's actually married. so at this point At this point. Yes. But having that experience and coming up on this grandparenthood has made me and Jenny and us discuss a lot about all the different stages of life that we've gone through and the experiences we've had And we thought it'd be a great topic to go over today.
00:02:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
Before we start though, I'm going to be called Grandpa Max because I want to be a grandpa. What have you chosen for your... Not grandma. You're not grandma? I'm not grandma. I would like to be Oma.
00:02:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
And the reason for Oma, it's German for grandma. so Is it? Yeah, it is. Sehr gut. Yes. And there was a very significant individual in our lives when we were having our children.
00:02:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
Max was working nights. I was working all day for the real estate part of it with my dad. And there was this woman, Teresa Hamelman, and she was ah godsend and an angel.
00:02:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
And she would, when Max would go to work at like 12 o'clock in the afternoon, she would take care of the kids until I got out of work at around five or six o'clock. yep And she was known as Oma and I am paying tribute to her.
Reflecting on Marriage and Proposals
00:03:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
Wow. She's going to be Oma Jenny, huh Oma Jenny. How about that? That's exciting. Or just Oma because I'm probably the only Oma in her life. So they could just say Oma's on the phone. Yeah. bro Oma's on Marco Polo. I don't know what the other. Oma bought me another gift. i but Yeah. I don't know what the other grandma's going to be called.
00:03:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
so I don't know either. But then you look back, flashback. you know, 30, geez, 34 years. We met 34 years ago. yeah And initially you get in a relationship.
00:03:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
We were on the road with Disney on ice. That was crazy. We didn't have a house payment. We didn't pay rent. We didn't have a car. We didn't have car insurance, but we had money coming in, which was really fun. So that was, we were living large. then That was exciting.
00:03:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
Then we got off the road and now our the next stage was marriage. Yes. You know, I asked you to marry me. like in September of 93. And obviously my proposal wasn't all that great.
00:04:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
His proposal was in the upstairs bathroom. I was getting my hair done and he came in and proposed while I was in the bathroom. Not doing anything in the bathroom other than my hair. More details, but probably not the best location. And lately I've been looking at proposals on movies and guys being all romantic. And I'm like, man, I really, can't go back and do it over, but I think I missed the photo. I do think that that
Marriage Advice: Real Estate vs. Weddings
00:04:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
has changed a little bit. That's evolved because when we were, and I'm sure of our age group, the fifties,
00:04:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
50, not 1950s, but in the age group of 50s, when you would ask somebody to marry you, you would get down on one knee, you'd have that neat proposal, maybe at a restaurant or whatever, but it wouldn't be as grand as it is right now. Yeah, big event.
00:04:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
Everything's a big event now. And you know what I look at? I look at that as money they're wasting that they could be investing in real estate. Yeah, yeah. that's what The bachelor parties, the bachelorette parties, the ah what's the way okay the engagement party, sure then there's the actual wedding, and then there's the big honeymoon. Oh my goodness, some of those could all just go into a house fund, even if it's just...
00:05:11
Irelynn Zurflueh
half of what they have spent. Are you just trying to sell real estate here? Is that what's going on? No, but you know what That's part of step
Transitioning to Parenthood: Challenges and Joys
00:05:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
one. After you get married, it would be great to get some real estate. Well, sure. And they're there, I've heard of parents who, instead of having a big wedding, they say, here's this amount of money.
00:05:28
Irelynn Zurflueh
you want to have a ceremony and spend it on that fine. If you want to do something small and keep that for a down payment, that's fine too. So that's interesting. Interesting approach. yeah That's a great approach. I like that approach. So once we got married, it was just the two of us for a couple, two, three years.
00:05:42
Irelynn Zurflueh
And again, when you're first married, you don't really have a sense of what's about to happen in your life when you have kids. Because you had a job, I had a job, we were both working. you know We could go out to movies.
00:05:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
We were free to do whatever we wanted. We had weren't tied down to anything. And that was an interesting time in our lives. you know um But then once kids come in, everything changed.
00:06:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
hu Changed everything. And we had our first child. And then the doctor said that was basically a miracle. I probably was not going to be able to have any other children.
00:06:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then nine months later, i was pregnant again. up jumped the devil. And here we go. So the two girls are called, what are they called? whenyear one They're not officially Irish twins. But they're one year apart in school.
00:06:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's great. Isn't that Irish twins? Within 12 months, I believe is the official term for Irish twins. I always used Irish twins because I thought one, I'm Irish. So that's fun. And two, because they were just one year apart. in the school Yeah.
00:06:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
There's only 16 months apart. So that's pretty, pretty quickie dickie. They were close for sure. But well so when you have kids now, now your, your entertainment schedule changes, your leisure time changes, your travel changes, money changes.
00:06:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
What do you mean? Kids are expensive. Kids are expensive. And so we got, when you first when we when you had kids, we kind of stopped traveling. We didn't travel a lot. We did trips every once in a while, probably at least twice a year with the kids to kind of get them in the travel mode.
00:07:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
But you and I didn't go on trips. We got, you know, people are going to hear this at Noah's and go, what are these two talking about? They were going on trips, but it wasn't anything like we're doing now. It was like a trip to California or a trip to Oregon. Yeah.
00:07:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
And a lot of, lot of weekends were spent once the kids got older on soccer tournaments and other events that, so you took away from, i mean, I know people who have been in sports their whole lives and their kids were in sports and they didn't go on vacations. They just played in tournaments every weekend. That was their travel. yeah Yeah. When I was training as a figure skater, all of my quote unquote vacations were competitions, whether it be California or Arizona or whatever, that was our vacation because it's cost money to go on those kinds of competition trips.
Balancing Business and Family Life
00:07:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
True.
00:07:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
And while we had babies, because then our son was, he's about three years behind our, our daughter, but As long as you have a baby, it's difficult to go on some trips because you can't always take your babies with you.
00:08:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
I know a certain somebody who's planning to take a kid a baby to Japan next year. So that should be interesting. That's a long trip. Our first grandbaby. That's a 12-hour flight. Our first grandbaby will be six months old and will be taking a trip to Japan.
00:08:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
So I guess their thought is bring them. Well, I guess so. I can't imagine you and I. When we were freshly married and our first daughter was six months old saying, let's pick her up and go across the Pacific.
00:08:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
But hey, hey, more power to them. Absolutely. And they'll have some help, obviously, with Oma and Grandpa. But not on the flight because they're on a different flight. That's true. only when they get to the beloved land of Japan, then we can be helpful.
00:08:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
The land of the rising sun, if you will. Absolutely. So when the kids are younger, the travel kind of changes. you're ah you' What you're focused on changes, putting them to bed, feeding them and helping them with schoolwork and all that stuff.
00:09:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
um but I guess, is that fun? Did you find that period of time enjoyable? or No. yeah Do want to think about it for a second? I found it tasking. I found it like a checkbox. I had to go through and make sure they went to school, make sure they got this, make sure lunch was made. make sure It was just like just checking all these off.
00:09:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it never really ended. and Did I enjoy the time while they were growing up? Yes. But you also have to remember that at the same time we were building a business. Mm-hmm.
00:09:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we were building McKenna Property Management as of 2005. And Kai, our youngest, was born in 2001. So you can imagine there was a lot going on.
00:09:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's true. true I think the only way I could have functioned and that I did function was just to make sure that everything was put in its proper box. And then I made sure I took care of it.
00:09:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's a good idea. I don't think I would have the energy to do it again. Where I'm at right now, if somebody came to me and said, hey, we've got three kids. These are the age groups and you're going to be able to start a new company and you have to do all of this. I would be like, no, thank you. I don't want to do that. That's too hard.
00:10:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, that's true. And then, so again, a lot of the travel though, we did start traveling once a year. Wait, you asked me if I enjoyed it.
Parenting Dynamics and Children's Independence
00:10:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
oh I want to ask you, did you enjoy it?
00:10:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, i guess so. I enjoy everything, I guess. I mean, I i wouldn't say i didn't enjoy it. I loved doing stuff with him and playing stuff, playing games and sports and swimming in pools and all that good stuff. So I enjoyed it.
00:10:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
He was also a stay-at-home dad for a few of those years, which was great. Like one, one and a half. One and a half. But that was, it's fun because, well, I think it's funny, that all of the kids' parents never actually called me to find out if there was like,
00:10:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
an opportunity to do a play date or spend the night or go somewhere, they would always call Max. So I, I love that part of it, by the way. I thought that was great. Let Max organize it all.
00:11:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. I was the guy. You were the guy i still are the guy. I was the guy going help in the classroom and all that stuff. Anyway, that was great. But then one of them got a driver's license.
00:11:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's kind of the next stage that I noticed. If any of you have kids, you know, when they get a driver's license, they kind of disappear. yeah they do Right. But they also have a driver's license, so they might be able to haul their siblings around little bit. That did help, yes.
00:11:32
Irelynn Zurflueh
And they might get old enough to watch their siblings while we go out of town. So I think when when China got to be about 17 and was a senior in high school, Ireland was a junior.
00:11:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
Kai was – he in middle school yet? Yeah, he was. Maybe started. But that's when our – I think our ah traveling got kicked back up into high gear a little bit. I also like when kids turn 16 because then I could bring them into the office and make them work.
00:12:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
Because the summers, I mean, they had some extra time. So I would bring them all in and I would have them file or I would have them do updates. And they were really great with tech work as far as computer stuff. So I used all of my kids during their summers. Child labor abuse. Well, they got paid, you know.
00:12:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Hey, it's good for them. Exactly. Having a job is important. Right? I think so. They say. So that happened. We started going on a lot more trips. We started to travel a lot more, you and i still making sure we travel with the kids once or twice a year.
00:12:36
Irelynn Zurflueh
As you may have noticed, a lot of our life revolves around travel. But it also meant that our the stage of our life changed a little bit. One daughter went to college. One was finishing up high school. ah Son was in middle school or he was starting high school. And the second daughter left.
00:12:52
Irelynn Zurflueh
And now we're getting to a place called Empty Nestor pretty soon here. No, no. We have been Empty Nestor. saying in our conversation here. Oh, okay. We're approaching the stage of yeah becoming Empty Nestors.
00:13:03
Irelynn Zurflueh
Which is my favorite stage. It is? It is. Oh, my God. I'm going to tell you why. I like a neat, organized house. And when you have children, i love them dearly, but they are not always clean and they don't always keep things organized. oh that's true. So when the last child moved out on his own, which I always encouraged our children, get out, be free. You can use the word encourage as you like. 18, be free, go out. In fact, I always find them a place to go live too because being in property management, I have that ability to find some really great places.
00:13:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
And spread your wings. And then when they spread their wings, they walk out the door. And then my house got to stay nice and organized, which I really like. You still get mad at me, though, when the Tupperware drawer is not organized properly to your specifications. There are ladies out there that completely understand what I'm talking about.
00:13:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
Why's it got to a lady? Because most of the time, and I could be wrong on this, most of the time... We, ladies, go in and organize our kitchen cabinets, and then the man comes along and just throws all the Tupperware. I mean, Tupperware is impossible with the different lids, the different sizes. It doesn't all stack up. I organized it, so it should be easy.
00:14:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay. Empty nesting has been my favorite part of our life. How your children they're gonna hear this? they're go What are they going to think? They love it. We have them come over all the time. We go on great vacations together.
00:14:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
um They can, you know, they can say something that kind of pisses me off and I don't have to resolve it or fix it because it's their life. It's their thing. And then. they're not under the same roof. So it's like, okay. Yeah. And it's wonderful.
00:14:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
We become, it's a dynamic between your children when they're not in your home anymore. ends up being more of like an adult-adult relationship and a friend. I would say that I'm friends with all of my kids, more so now than I ever was when I had to play model. Well, yeah, there disciplining involved yeah certain things.
00:14:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
Now, when a husband and a wife become empty nesters, is there more pressure on the husband, you think? Yes. What I'm thinking, what I'm getting at is there's no children they're...
00:15:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
Issues to look at. Maybe there's a stronger eye on the husband. is that possible? think it absolutely. It could go the other way too, um obviously. Well, no, because i don't have any issues that you need. Oh, no, in our case, it's only me. i know No, I agree with you. I think that you're so used to living a certain ah part of your life with a lot of activity and keeping an eye on something and doing this and doing that. and then all of a sudden that's gone.
00:15:40
Irelynn Zurflueh
um Your spouse or the person you're living with It kind of is laser focused on everything that they're doing. So there's an adjustment. There's a little adjustment. When being laser focused, there might be a few complaints along the way or things they observe, right?
00:15:54
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yes. Yes. It's two-way street. Probably. Because you do have issues. i can't oh yeah I can't accept or deny. i can neither confirm nor deny that you have issues. That's I meant to ah cannot confirm it' One of those issues. ah But yeah I think empty nesting is pretty nice, actually.
00:16:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
Saturdays when the children were younger was 6 a.m. Get up, get their crap ready for a soccer tournament or a dance to competition or something. The whole day you'd come home, you'd be like, oh, you'd be dead.
00:16:24
Irelynn Zurflueh
Now we can actually wake up and if we don't have anything scheduled, which is fine, just relax. I know. And chill. And for any of those that are listening to this and you are in that stage of life where you have whatever's going on 6, 7 a.m. on a Saturday and it takes you all day long, whether be soccer tournament, figure skating, baseball, softball, volleyball, whatever, it will end.
00:16:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
So my advice is it does It's kind of a pain in the boat while you're living it, but then you look back on it and you'll be like, those were good times. But you got to get them out. You got to get them out.
00:17:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I think there's a lot of situations now where maybe adult children are sticking around a little longer. Are you going to give your opinion on that? Oh, I think it's horrible. Wow. Okay, Max, tell us more.
00:17:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
What the heck? I just know that when I was 19, I got a job. I left living with my parents and I never, to never return.
Parenting Reflections and Choices
00:17:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
When I was 18, my mom and dad made it very clear that that is when you get out of the house. Now you can always come back if there's a problem, right? You could always pop in to get, you know, your bearings of something went wrong, but the idea is you need to go start living your life. No, yeah. I don't judge or, you know,
00:17:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
Look at anybody who's an adult and still living with their parents. That's fine. That's the decision that's made. I personally think that you got to go out and live your life, live your life, right?
00:17:56
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think you and I as parents, we have conversations a lot about did we do right by them? Did we, you know, the the way we raised them, did it affect how they are now? Yada, yada. but daily yeah i daily think you do daily ah daily on the daily yeah was i too strict was i not strict enough did i let him watch too much tv was it music they listened to was it too much vulgarity yeah i think about that about once every eight months i guess you think about it more often than i do and i think it's the mom plague it just happens with moms the point is though what we had to do our responsibility was to
00:18:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
birth them. You did that. Thank you.
Excitement for Grandparenthood
00:18:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then we had to feed them and give them shelter and do that until they were at a point where they could do that for themselves.
00:18:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I believe that's just so important in life to say you're an adult now. Go out, build your own home, your own household, your own family. That's on you now. And it's not because we don't love them. Obviously, we love our kids very much, but we want them to create their own world that they're going to exist in And I think the important thing is to always be, ah you know, the support system. If they need something, you're there to not completely give everything, but you're there to support them. And so that might be financial, it could be emotional, it could be a roof over their head for a little while, but whatever it is,
00:19:18
Irelynn Zurflueh
That's kind of where I figure, that that's what I think a parent is for the whole rest of my life. That's a good way to be. yeah And also, but you also don't want them to riot rely on that. you know You don't want't want to take it too far.
00:19:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
You don't want to help the people too much because they got to figure it out. Well, let them live their life. The more you help people, the more you help people, the more they expect it. Now we are going to Alabama and we are going to become the next stage of our life, which to me might be empty nesting.
00:19:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
it might It might top it, eh? It might top it it because I didn't think I was going to be as excited as I am. I love the fact that I'm going to be promoted from parent to grandparent. That's what our daughter called us.
00:20:00
Irelynn Zurflueh
When she gave us the information or the announcement, we were promoted from parent to grandparent, which is so cool. I was super excited at the time I found out, but now that it's been growing and it's here,
00:20:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
I cannot hold it in. I am like just bubbling over with excitement. I am stopping people in the street that I have absolutely no idea who they are. i know And I'm telling them I can't wait till next week when I'm a grandma.
00:20:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
You're like that one commercial. They don't need to know that. They don't need to know that. You're acting like your parents. I am so excited though. So the grandparent stage will be, we're empty nesters with the opportunity to have a visit from our little grandbaby or maybe go out to where she is and visit her at our own time.
00:20:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then when she's cranky or poopy or whatever, we can go here, here's your child back. See you soon. I do like that. I like that one. I can't wait. I think it's going to be i've had a lot of people say that the best thing their kids ever did for them was give them grandkids.
00:20:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I can't wait to find out. So that's going to be what we are going into, but we don't know if we
Friendly Grandparent Rivalry
00:21:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
love it yet not. It's the unknown. we're going it's unknown. We're going love I think so too. It's going be good.
00:21:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
But we're going have to do another podcast after we're a grandma, grandpa for a little while and then talk a little bit about what we've experienced. Stay tuned for that episode.
00:21:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
So those are the some of the stages we've lived in. That's our life. That's kind of breaks it down for people. People all have a different experience, but they all go through those stages. If they've had kids, they know kind of what we're talking about here.
00:21:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
ah So good luck on being a grandma. I hope ah hope you have fun with that. Hope you enjoy it Good luck on being Grandpa Max. Well, I worry that they're going love me more than they love you. so Don't worry about that. Oh, you don't think so? I don't think so. I don't know.
00:21:46
Irelynn Zurflueh
Grandpas are pretty cool.
Closing Thoughts: Embrace Life Stages
00:21:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
Hold on. I'm going to say this. oh Challenge accepted. Oh, it's not a competition. You just threw it out there. It's just natural for them. what it is? love their grandfathers. i gotcha Folks, have a great week. We'll see you next time on Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. That's Oma, Jenny McKenna, and I'm Grandpa Max.
00:22:07
Irelynn Zurflueh
And we we hope you have a great time in your life and enjoy your families. Talk to you soon.