Adventures with Grammy

Welcome to Episode 93 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. Today’s guest, Tom Long, began performing as the Singing Santa in 1985 when he was 21 years old. He knew that first Christmas he had chosen the right avocation when a curly headed lad with big brown eyes said he wanted to hear Santa say, “Ho. Ho. Ho.”

Throughout the years the Magic of Christmas and watching parents light up when their children sit in Santa’s lap have fueled Tom’s passion for performing as The Singing Santa. An invitation to work with Marie Osmond and an appearance on America...

Founded in 2011 by Aaron Larsen as a way to honor his grandparents, GrandparentsAcademy.com is the world’s first and only online academy dedicated to helping grandparents grow meaningful relationships and rich legacies with their loved ones. Our resources, which include guides, videos and social posts, have reached millions of grandparents. Thousands have enrolled as students from all over the globe. To learn more, visit https://www.grandparentsacademy.com/

To register for the 2023 Grandparents Week, visit https://grandparentsacademy.mykajabi.com/grandparents-week-2022-post

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this lin...

Mrs. Claus has a busy schedule, but she stopped by the Adventures with Grammy Podcast to let you know she is ready to bake cookies with your grandchildren, tuck them in with bedtime stories, and gather around the family room to tell stories and sing songs.

We know Mrs. Claus as Debra Weller, our guest on Episode 54, who talked with us about the art of storytelling. Today she will help us count down the days to Christmas … less than 90 days away … and share with us a special story.

Before we hear the story, Debra will give...

Welcome to Episode 90 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. Today’s guest is Paul Entrekin.

For most of his adult life, Paul’s feet have been off the ground and in the air flying from one destination to another — sometimes upside down — sometimes at warp speed.

A retired US Marine, naval aviator and Delta Airline captain, Paul primarily is known today as an acrobatic pilot who owns and flies a Russian MIG 15 fighter jet in airshows across North America.

The role he cherishes is grandpa. Today we will discuss his first children’s book, Jasp...

Focusing on early childhood development is vital for children and for our society. Research has demonstrated facilitating low-stress/high-engagement environments at the earliest ages builds strong, confident learners, who as adults, make up the backbone of a successful society. America’s failure to make early childhood development one of our highest priorities is the reason our nation has shown a steady decline in numerous important areas relative to other countries. Today’s guest, Dr. Rick Allen, has written Great by Eight, a bold call-to-action that demands intense emphasis on the development of young children, in particular from birth to age...

Michelle Booth is the founder and CEO of Make Momentos, LLC, a tech startup whose mission is to offer adults an easy-to-use platform to create keepsake e-books for the children in their lives.

Booth has been helping people tell their stories for more than 25 years. She has experience ghostwriting nonfiction manuscripts for a variety of clients including a former White House staffer in the Nixon and Ford administrations, prominent businesspeople and retirees wanting to preserve their stories for future generations.

Booth was selected to edit the memoir of a former NBA basketball player. She has...

Russ Wrightson is a homeschooling dad of two boys ages 12 and 14. He says his boys are excited to learn from anything that crosses their paths, including videos, board games and a math book or two.

To help facilitate a homeschooling atmosphere Russ considers healthy, he organized a local secular homeschool group he describes as a club. He also serves on the Board of Directors for VAhomeschoolers.org, an inclusive statewide organization that advocates and supports at the state level.

https://www.facebook.com/VaHomeschoolers

https://www.fahahome.com/

Russwrightson@gmail.com<...

Our guest today is Eddy Smits, a former professional clown, who hails from Belgium. He says authentic communication with children would heal society’s woes and enable children to grow into adults who could face any challenge and be effective world leaders. That statement reminded me of advice I received when my oldest child, Craig, was a toddler. A very wise person told me the qualities we admire in adults are not qualities we admire when children exhibit those same behaviors. That statement stopped me cold and helped shape my philosophy of raising children. Please join me as Eddy an...

Welcome to Episode 85 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry. Today’s guest is Jasmine Jimenez, the author of a new collection of children’s books based on true stories of her grandmother. Her first book, Eugenia Hunts for Gemstones, is available, and her second book, Eugenia and the Christmas Dress, is part of a Kickstarter program that needs to be funded by September 4.

Carl Landau, the co-author of Pickleball for Dummies, says the sport has a world-wide, multigenerational following, with more than 5 million players and counting.

Playing pickleball is fun way to meet fun-loving people and put an extra pep in your step … all in the name of having more energy for your grandchildren and even playing a game or two with them.

What is pickleball? Carl says it looks a lot like tennis on a miniature court with much less running, which is great if your knees don’t like that sort of thing. Playing pickleball is a sa...

There were about 3.7 million homeschool students in 2020-2021 in grades K-12 in the United States (roughly 6% to 7% of school-age children). There were about 2.5 million homeschool students in spring 2019 (or 3% to 4% of school-age children) [note 1]. The homeschool population had been growing at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past several years, but it grew drastically from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021. The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. (The public school average is the 50th percentile; scores range from 1 to 99.) A 2015 study found Black homeschool students to be scoring 23 to 42 percentile points above Black pu...

Welcome to Episode 82 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry.

Today’s episode is all about breastfeeding. Our guest is Dr. Amaka Nnamani, a pediatrician and the author of the children’s picture book titled Ziora’s Quest: Mommy’s Milk Rocks about breastfeeding written from the perspective of a 6-year-old little girl.

Dr. Nnamani practices medicine in Hershey, PA. She is a passionate breastfeeding
advocate. She is the Chapter Breastfeeding Coordinator for the PA American Academy of Pediatrics and the moderator for the DR. MILK Facebook group — an exclusive...

Welcome to Episode 81 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry.

Today’s episode is all about bees — honey bees and how to keep them. Whether you live in the city or the country, beekeeping is an activity that many grandparents and grandchildren enjoy. Our guest today, Covey McConnell, will share information about why beekeeping is important, how to get started and how to stay safe.

I have known Covey for many years. She went to school with my older son and his wife, and Covey and I taught at the same...

Welcome to Episode 80 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry.

Sarah Beth Goncarova is today’s guest. She is an American writer, composer and visual artist known for poetry, children’s adventure novels, and writing for film and television.

Her company, CLAY GROUSE KIDS, is a groundbreaking indie press and animation studio that specializes in creating books, read-aloud videos, and audiobooks that inspire creativity and curiosity.

Its mission is to help all children, including emerging and reluctant readers, become better readers by creating books that kids want to read, s...

Visit https://adventureswithgrammypodcast.com to learn more about the podcast and how to be a guest.

Join our newsletter mailing list by texting GRAMMY to 22828 to get started, or visit https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/ih6vkmJ/grammy

To learn about Carolyn’s books, visit https://adventureswithgrammy.com/

To learn more about today’s guest, visit https://www.shirleyshowalter.com/

Born into a plain-dressing, plain-speaking Mennonite farm family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, today’s guest, Shirley Showalter, grew up to become a college president, a foundation executive, the author of two books...

Welcome to Episode 78 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. Today’s guest is Dr. Abigail Stephan. She earned her doctorate a few months ago from Clemson University after successfully defending her dissertation, Examining Intergenerational Relationships in the Family. I along with other listeners of this podcast contributed to her research.

Abby will give us insight as to why the grandparent-grandchild must be intentional and have space to be spontaneous; why parents must provide opportunities for grandparents and grandkids to interact; and why bidirectional learning creates strong memories for grandchildren. She also gives us insight into the complexities of...

John Zeno Louizes is a third generation candymaker and the Head Honcho at Zeno’s Boardwalk Sweet Shop. He took over the family business in 2003 and has grown it to include four candy retail shops and three ice cream shops. The brick-and-mortar stores are in Florida, but a bustling online candy store means the confections are available nationwide. John, who began working at the store when he was 11, says, “My goal is to make sure we do the best candy making in the world and have fun doing so.”  John and I chat about the candy business and why candy and ice...

Connie Inukai has reinvented herself three times. Act One was teaching technical writing at the University of Maryland and at Johns Hopkins University for almost four decades. Act Two found her writing books, caring for two young grandchildren, and inventing a product specifically for retirees. Currently in Act Three, Connie has created Write Your Selfie, a program to help people write their life stories with pictures.

She says passion has no expiration date! And she is living proof that second-act entrepreneurs can succeed. The key is to be passionate about what matters most to you.

...

When grandchildren are young, a sweet treat or new toy is enough to inspire their unconditional love. And then they become teenagers. Suddenly it’s not so easy anymore, for you or for them. Where Two Worlds Meet: A Guide to Connecting with Your Teenage Grandchildren is a new book that gives grandparents a roadmap to stay connected and deepen their relationships with their grandchildren. It is an action-focused guide to help grandparents understand life through their teenage grandchildren’s eyes. The authors, Jerry Witkovsky and Deanna Shoss, are joining me today to discuss their new book.

Mr. Wi...

Welcome to Episode 74 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry.

Today’s podcast is a different format from the usual guest interview. I, alone, will be speaking, and the topic is my views about gun control, specifically the guns used during school shootings.

If you are a hard-right, gun-toting person who believes high-velocity guns and ammunition designed to inflict mass carnage on people should continue to be legal, this episode is not for you. Sadly, if the riddled bodies of little children don’t change your mind, I know nothing I sa...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Welcome to the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry.

My guest for Episode 73 is Greg Payne, the host of the Cool-Grandpa podcast. At 48, Greg learned he soon would bec...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Welcome to the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. I am your host, Carolyn Berry.

Episode 72 features Lily, a 13-year-old student who has dyslexia, and her mother, Alexandra. Alexandra posted a poem in a Facebook group fo...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Episode 71 is a rebroadcast of the January 12, 2022, episode of The Grand Life in which the host, Emily Morgan, interviewed me. There are not many podcasts for grandparents, and I have enjoyed The Gran...

Please take this survey! https://surveys.blubrry.com/adventureswithgrammy

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Episode 70 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast is a rebroadcast of Episode 1, which features my sister discussing the skip-gen cross-country trip she and her husband and...

Please take this survey! https://surveys.blubrry.com/adventureswithgrammy

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Episode 69 is a rebroadcast of Episode 32 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. This episode features Amy Tilk, an engineer and the host...

Please take this survey! https://surveys.blubrry.com/adventureswithgrammy

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Episode 68 is a rebroadcast of Episode 12 of the Adventures with Grammy Podcast. This episode features Mehreen Tenvir, who is known as Mom at the Museum on...

Please take this survey! https://surveys.blubrry.com/adventureswithgrammy

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by clicking this link or by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Today’s guest is Denise Gruzensky, the author of Not Like the Others: Harley’s Story, the first book in her series “Life Lessons...

Click here to preorder/order Grad to Grown-up:

68 Tips to Excel in Your Personal and Professional Life

Please take this survey! https://surveys.blubrry.com/adventureswithgrammy

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Our guest this week is Gene Rice, one of...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

Newsletter subscribers are eligible to win the next book giveaway: April 7. Grad to Grown-up by Gene Rice

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

Newsletter subscribers are eligible to win the next book giveaway: April 7. Grad to Grown-up by Gene Rice

To learn more about Adventures with Grammy and books by Carolyn Berry, visit

https://adventureswithgrammy.com

To leave feedback about the podcast and to suggest guests and topics, send an e-mail to carolyn@adventureswithgrammy.com

Our guest today is Dr. Judith Van Hoorn, a grandmother, educator and expert on young children’s play. In addition to nu...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

Newsletter subscribers are eligible to win the next book giveaway: April 7. Grad to Grown-up by Gene Rice

My guest today is Anieke Lamars, the co-founder & CEO of Peekabond — an app that helps families across the world build bonds with young children at a distance. The app combines asynchronous video connections, with playful, science-based inspiration, including games, stories and songs to help long-distance grandparents connect with their grandchildren. I like the app because I can record a video my grand...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

Newsletter subscribers are eligible to win the next book giveaway: April 7. Grad to Grown-up by Gene Rice

Rob Gorski’s three sons are on the Autism Spectrum. When he first learned about autism, he was angry, bewildered and often felt alone. He poured his thoughts and feelings into a blog he never imagined anyone would read, but they did. In 2020, he launched his podcast … the Autism Dad. Rob is with us today to share his journey, to introduce us to his...

Sign up for the Adventures with Grammy newsletter by texting Grammy to 22828 to get started!

Two hundred years ago Harriet Tubman was born enslaved on a farm on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the United States. The exact date of her birth is unknown, but consensus is sometime between 1820 and 1822. She died March 10, 1913, at about age 90, in Auburn, New York. 

Kicking off today and throughout 2022 events in Maryland will trace Harriet Tubman’s footsteps and highlight her fight for freedom.

Today we are talking with Sarah Jackson, the mom behind the...

Hart County, Ky, is a fascinating destination for grandparents and their grandchildren to spend time. Located in south central Kentucky, you’ll find gently rolling hillsides, underground rivers, caves, ziplines and covered wagons in which to rest your head. It’s a grandparent’s dream come true … a place to make memories with your grandchildren.

Joining me today to share the fun families can expect once they hop off the interstate is Sandra Wilson, the executive director at Hart County Tourist Commission.

Home – Hart County Tourism (kygetaway.com)

To learn more about this p...

Spring Break is fast approaching, and many families plan to head to Disney. Listen to Nikki Hendrix and her father, Manny Oliverez (Episode 52), talk about everything Disney. Their tips will help your family make the most of your Disney vacation. Let the Magic Begin!

Be sure to stay to the end to learn who will win a copy of his new book, 100 Things I Love about Grandpa.

Nikki Hendricks @ Favorite Grampy Travels

https://facebook.com/group/disneyfriendsandfamily

https://favoritegrampytravels.com

#snacklist

Manny Oliverez, also known a...

Ivy Butler loves to snap photographs. He’s done so since his children were little, and he is continuing that tradition with his grandchildren. You can view those images on his Instagram site @thegrandfatherdiary. He and his wife were foster parents to numerous children and adopted the last five, which makes him and his wife the parents of seven children and the grandparents of 13.

The Butler Family is of mixed race and experiences challenges many grandparents face: lack of contact with children and grandchildren, long-distance grandparenting, and grandchildren living with grandparents.

Ivy cherishes his...

Episode 57. Traveling with Children

Episode 57 of the Adventures with Grammy podcase is an edited version of Episode 8 that features Kaitlyn Jain, author of Passports and Pacifiers Traveling the World One Tantrum at a Time.

I am putting that interview on replay because I am caring for four of my grandchildren while their parents are away. I chose playing with my grandchildren instead of creating a new episode. This interview was popular last year, and I think new listeners will like it, too.

Before we listen to my interview with Kaitlyn, I have three...

Alejandro is a young entrepreneur from the Washington D.C. metro area. He’s the founder of Smell of Love Candles, a company that specializes in creating natural, hand-poured vegan candles that are good for you, good for the environment and are socially responsible. He started Smell of Love Candles to buy more books, save money for college and to help those in need.

Alejandro believes that we are stronger when we take care of each other, so his company donates a portion of each month’s profits to charity.

Alejandro is the found...

My guest for Episode 55 is author/illustrator Dori Durbin.  Her book series is titles Little Cat Feelings. She has published two picture books in that series: “Little Cat Needs Space” and “Little Cat Feels Left Out.” She will release her third book, a chapter book titled, “Little Cat & Dog’s Birthday Bake: A Recipe in Caring,” February 2, 2022.

The former teacher and fitness instructor lives in Michigan with her husband, son, daughter, three pampered indoor cats, and her old Great Dane.

A few days before our conversation, the Durbins were in Florida for her daughter’...

The Adventures with Grammy Podcast is pleased to welcome Storyteller Debra Weller, a creative performance artist using oral tradition storytelling, puppets and music to engage her audiences and students.

Debra began her career as a Storyteller more than forty years ago in New Jersey as part of the Annie Lynn Storytellers. They performed in schools, libraries, festivals and the Philadelphia Folk Festival. After a move to California, she helped to form the non-profit, South Coast Storytellers Guild. In California, she led storytelling camps, after school storytelling clubs, performed at schools, libraries and festivals as well a...