Hi. Welcome to cheers. I'm your host, Avery Woods. Hi, guys. Welcome to episode one of Cheers. I'm your host, Avery Woods. I'm so excited that you're here. I'm so excited that we're doing this. I needed my first guest to be my comfort person. You are my comfort person.

That's sweet of you.

So my best friend in the whole world, my husband, David Christopher Woods.

Oh, my God. Now people know my middle name.

Oh. What's wrong with that?

There's nothing wrong with that.

Not me fucking up our last name because I was so nervous. David Christopher Woods. David Christopher Woods. Welcome to the Cheers podcast.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be in my casita, outside of my house, in his own home, but I'm happy to be here.

Okay. So I want to start because I feel like not a lot of people know your background or much about you. You're kind of like a mystery man. You're just married to me, and people don't really know about your upbringing, where you're from. So let's talk about it.

Yeah. Like, how far back do you want to go? Where do you want to start?

From where I was born, or like yeah, you're 35.

Oh, my God. Why do you have to date me?

You're my old man.

Yes, I am your old man. I'm graying out. I'm turning into am I allowed to call myself a silver fox, or is.

That you're getting there? That's like talking a compliment. No, people do call you my George Clooney. And your eyes and your eyes are, like, crystal clear blue from all the gray you're getting. I love it.

Oh, that's nice. I'm growing the beard out right now.

Only because you're going to summer it to a stash.

Summer is ending, and I do this periodically throughout the year. I feel like I'm always changing my facial hair.

Oh, my God.

So I'll go clean shaven, I'll go full beard. When Top Gun was out, I was trying to pull the whole what's his name?

Maverick.

Yeah. I was trying to pull the Maverick look mustache, which is kind of what I'm thinking about going to next.

Back in the day. Well, not really. Like, probably five or six years ago, he had the most giant handlebar mustache that he would, like, curl the ends and he would smoke his cigars and pipes.

Oh, my gosh.

And everyone thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Did they, though?

Everyone would compliment you. We were in public, even at a restaurant, we were like, Dude, I love all the guys, bro.

It's kind of like getting big in the gym. You're doing it to get compliments from ladies, and the only people complimenting you are dudes. Yeah, that's true. But I guess that's not a bad thing.

Hon. I forgot to cheers.

Oh, yeah. Cheers.

Cheers. Episode one.

What's in the glass? What are we drinking?

Sauvignon Blanc. I think it's are you doing ASMR you cannot do that. You give me so much shit.

I did a little swirl of the wine.

I think it's Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, which if you know me, you know that's my favorite. Okay, so you're born in La Jolla?

Yeah. So I'm from San Diego. Originally born in La Jolla, southern California. I can't say born and raised because we came to Arizona when I was six years old. So I feel like I'm 35. So I've been in Arizona pretty much 29 years now. So I'm going to call myself a native Arizona, but there's still part of me that is sentimental towards Southern California. But yeah. So I'm from Southern California. All my family was previous Navy, which is why we were obviously in SoCal San Diego area. My mom and my biological father divorced when I was very young. There was substance abuse and stuff going on in their relationship, some domestic violence related stuff. And so they divorced. And then my mom met my stepfather, who they're still married and gosh, they've been married now for almost 30 years, and he was in the Navy. And so when he retired from the Navy, when I was six years old, we moved to Arizona. And I come from a blended family, so my mom and my stepdad my stepdad had three children that he brought into the family, two girls and one boy. And when they were six years or when I was six years old I'm sorry.

We moved to Snowflake, Arizona. Very small rural community. And my childhood upbringing is from a very small town, so I'm not a city boy.

Originally. He literally grew up in the woods, like sleeping in a I want to.

Hear what you think my upbringing was.

Well, I know because you'll tell me you would sleep in, like, a sleeping bag, literally on the ground and look at the stars, like, sleep out at night by yourself. You've told me that before. Yeah, camping, like, don't you think a bear is going to eat you?

Well, that was when I was a teenager and we moved, so I didn't grow up sleeping, like, under the stars. We did have a home. We had four walls and a roof over. I don't want people thinking that, like some Tom Sawyer shit's going on. And I grew up in a tent out in the middle of nowhere.

No, but we had a house, everyone.

Yeah, well, it was a double wide mean we're calling those homes. It was still a my stepfather retired from the Navy, and San Diego, obviously is an awesome city, a large city on the coast with the ocean and there's so much culture there, and there's so much stuff going on. And my parents basically packed us up and moved us to Snowflake. And my stepdad bought a tomato farm and from six years until 14 lived in Snowflake while my dad was a hydroponic tomato farmer. And it was a total different change of life, culture, everything. It was kind of like a shock. One thing that just popped in my mind kind of funny about when we moved to Arizona, so to make it quick, my mom had a small SUV and it was me, my two stepsiblings, two stepsisters and stepbrother were all in this SUV. And for some reason, I don't know why my parents had it, but we had pet cockatoos. Do you know what those are? I don't know if I've ever told you this.

Oh, the birds. Yeah, I think you told me about.

Big ass white birds with like the yellow mug that are super loud. Yeah, crazy birds. So we had two of those. We had two dogs. I think we had one or two cats as well.

Fucking farm over here, a bunch of animals.

But we were moving from San Diego. This is before we even got most of the animals that we had from my childhood. And we're driving across the desert and we get pulled over and this cop pulls us over and I remember it vividly. For some reason the birds are squawking, the dogs are barking. I'm pretty sure either one of the kids or one of the dogs had puked in the car. So it wreaked a vomit. And the cop comes up and my poor mom probably looks like she's about to lose her mind. And the cop comes up because she was speeding, she hauling ass across the desert like, get me out of here. And I remember the cop comes up, he looks in the back, he looks at us, and I look at him, he goes up, he looks at my mob and says, have a better day, ma'am, and just turns around and goes back to his car. So he wasn't going to have nothing to do with it. But I guess that's kind of a good image of my childhood. A complete chaos. Yeah, that was pretty wild.

And we don't have to get into too many details, but if you guys don't know, we don't have a relationship with David's parents. I've kind of talked about that on social media a little bit, but David is kind of an anomaly. No, he actually is an anomaly because both of his parents struggle with major substance abuse issues. And David obviously has been in law enforcement for almost twelve years now, right?

Yeah.

And his dad has been a heroin addict since before he was even born, so almost 40 years. And his mom's struggled with alcoholism pretty much his entire life. And David also came from a very conservative, almost legalistic religious background. And we're not very religious people, so he has really just come into his own and like my parents talk about all the time, and I talk about all the time how we're just in awe of him because you just have broken the tradition of your family and just are such an amazing human. You always put your family first. You didn't cave into the substance abuse that your parents had experienced and gone through. And our heart's always with them and we think about them often, but there comes a time when, like we've talked about before, where when we had Ziggy, because your parents have never met our kids, that we kind of just were like, we would rather not have that toxicity in their life. For them to be disappointed like you've gone through that disappointment and that heartbreak than for them to just not know them at all because they've never even asked about them.

And they will in the future, but.

It may come up at some point, but they're surrounded by so many loving people that totally at their age now.

It's not yeah, and we just want to protect them as much as possible. But there just comes a point where you have to make that hard decision in order to protect your kids and protect yourself. And we had given a lot of chances and helped as much as we could, and it just kept getting worse and worse. And so that decision was hard, especially because your mom's only child.

Yeah, I'm an only child. So there is that difficulty in knowing that separating yourself from basically all your blood family is definitely difficult. And you're exactly right. There was a lot of substance abuse that is generationally in my family. Alcoholism specifically. I can was traced back to my grandparents or outside grandparents on my mother's side. But unfortunately, my biological father has dealt with substance abuse and addictions to heroin and methamphetamines and stuff like that. And I think that's always been a fear of mine. As I got older, I recognized that I do have a very addictive personality. So I think it is a genetic, maybe related thing. But recognizing kind of the difficulties and the struggles that my dad has had and my mom has had has kept me from traveling down a path. I mean, there was a period of time where I didn't drink any alcohol at all. I've never done any type of recreational drugs or anything. But part of the reason why I tried to limit any of that kind of stuff is because there's a fear of, hey, there's a pattern in my family of if I start drinking too much, am I going to become an alcoholic?

I think all things in moderation are good, but I just have to recognize for myself that there's a possibility that if I were to start consuming alcohol or anything in large quantities that it could become potentially problematic. And my priority is you and my children and my family and my career. And so those things far outweigh my desires for having a drink or whatnot.

Yeah.

As I've gotten older too, I think it's easier for me to be able to be able to limit yourself. To limit myself.

And we have a drink and we enjoy a drink, but we're yeah, absolutely.

And I enjoy getting a buzz and.

Having a good time, for sure. But for both of us, we've talked about this. Neither one of us have been blackout drunk. I've definitely been drunk and sick, but I've never not and I've never put myself in a situation where I just don't remember what's going on. So I think we just are kind of cautious about that. I also think just with both of our careers, we've just seen the worst in so many things. I think that just automatically scares us. And then coming from the background that you came from, you're even more so cautious.

I feel like I had such a Jerry Springer upbringing. I don't know, maybe that's the wrong terminology.

No, he has really been through a lot. Like his mom went to jail.

Yeah. I remember my mom waking up and my mom well, gosh, my poor mother. I love her to death. And I don't ever want this to seem like I'm talking down about her, but these are just things that I remember that are experiences for me as well as I'm sure they were experiences for her. But I can remember back before we moved to Arizona, I woke up in the middle of the night. I think I was five or six years old, and this may be one of my earliest memories. And I had a bad dream. I couldn't find my mom anywhere in the house. And we were in an apartment complex at this time. And I remember looking around the apartment complex for her. I couldn't find her or around the apartment. So I left the apartment and I was walking around, like, a common area of the apartment complex, and some of the neighbors came out and they saw me. And I'm, of course, upset because I can't find my mom. And my dad and my mom were already divorced at this time, and so they brought me in. Long story short, unfortunately, my mom had gone out drinking and gotten in a collision while she was intoxicated and was in the hospital.

And so it's kind of like I reflect on these memories going back to when I was a child, and it's unfortunate that how old were you? I can't say for certain, but I was six years old when my mom and my stepfather got married. And I know it was prior to this, so I think I was probably around the five year marks, maybe four going on five, like Ziggy's age now. So somewhere around like Ziggy's age that this happened, this kind of traumatic experience. And I look back and reflecting on memories going back to this earliest memory that I have, and there are good memories, but a lot of core memories that I have are kind of these negative things that have happened, which I think they kind of shaped me for who I am or whatnot. I'm not saying that woe is me, poor me. I've had such a traumatic upbringing or whatnot? Because I do have there's a lot of great things that have happened in my upbringing. I'm so thankful, which we'll probably get into here in a little bit, about my grandparents and what they imparted on me and the effect that they had on my life.

But that instance happened. And then like you mentioned just a minute ago about my mom getting incarcerated and taken to jail, I think I was eight or nine years old, and I remember having to call my grandparents and ask them to bail my mom out of jail. I don't know, that's the kind of stuff that no child should ever have to deal with.

I just think about our own kids and I just cannot even imagine. But like you said, thank God for your grandparents, who we just love. I mean, you obviously grew up with them your whole life. But even for me, I just cherish those people so much. And they passed when they were the night before Grandpa turned 98. So he was 97 and she was 94 when she passed. So they lived a very long, amazing, incredible life and really took David under their wing as their grandson and just taught you so much in life and gave you that normalcy of childhood.

For people that I'm sure there's people that are listening to this that have been probably following you since you were 10,000 followers on Instagram or something, and TikTok wasn't even invented yet. So people that have been around a long time know that my grandparents, specifically my grandpa, Grandpa Woods, had a major impact not only on my life, but I think your life and our life. He's like just a person that I strive to be like. This man who he was and what he provided for his family. And the legacy that he left is just he changed our life in ways that we can't even begin to explain. Like inheriting a home and being able to be debt free and just really setting us on a path and a trajectory that has been awesome for our family. But I don't know, where do you want to we we got from when I was in San Diego and to.

Snowflake as a graduated high school up in Round Valley High School, which is yeah.

So for the Arizona natives. Eastern Arizona. Springerville eager is where I ended up going for my junior high and my high school. So my parents, when we came to Arizona, my dad obviously had the hydroponic tomato farm, and we did that as a farm, his business, and to take care of us for many years. But during that period of time, our family kind of began transitioning to transitioning.

It's a tequila shot. He took a tequila shot before this because he was nervous.

Oh, yeah. I get very nervous. I am not a public speaker. I'm not a public speaker.

I'm not someone who you're doing great, hon.

That's because I'm talking to you.

That makes it easy because we're best friends.

We are best friends without a then.

So you graduated high school there in Arizona, and then you went to San Diego to go to community college. You live with Grandma and Grandpa, which you lived with them every summer your whole childhood?

Yeah. Yeah, I spent every summer from basically adolescence until I was an adult in California with my grandparents. It was pretty much I'd go to school throughout the school year in Arizona. Once summer break hit, my grandparents would either come and pick me up or fly me to San Diego. And I would spend all summer in San Diego. And since I can remember, I had always said, hey, when I turn 18 years old, I'm going to move back to San Diego. But I don't know, to kind of set the stage for that portion of my life of when I left Arizona, went to San Diego. I think it's also, like a big portion of my childhood and upbringing was the transition of my parents being secular to becoming religious, because that definitely consumed my adolescence. Like hardcore religion, Christianity, non denominational, Christian.

Upbringing and all consuming. Well, whenever David explains it and is like, yeah, non denominational, I have to chime in and explain the fact that it was so legalistic. Like, they were in church multiple days a week. They would, like, court when they were going to get married, so they would have, like, chaperone dates in that world and first kiss on the altar. Just stuff that you don't even hear about anymore, you don't even think is real or happening. Like some of the stuff I hear about your childhood, and I'm like, holy shit, because I grew up not religious at all.

Right.

So that was David's upbringing and it's.

Still alive and well today?

Oh, yeah.

It's definitely all over the place. I think my childhood is not all that obscure than from a lot of people in our country are aware of. My dad became an assistant pastor once we were born again. So we all basically became Christian and started going to church and exactly, like you said, multiple days a week. So from when I was a kid until I graduated high school, basically, I was in church from Sunday morning before church for Bible study. Then I was in church for the Sunday service. Then I would come back for Sunday night Bible study. I would come to Tuesday night prayer, wednesday night service, thursday night youth group, and then depending if there was anything special going on on a Saturday, I would also attend that. So from eight years old until I was 18, for a good, better part of a decade, my entire life revolved around going to church. And my dad basically poured himself into it and became a pastor, began teaching kind of theology and biblical related stuff. My mom was a pastor's wife and they would call me like a PK, a pastor's kid.

I'm going to call you that from now on, PK. Hey, PK.

Hey, PK. So the pastor's always expected that I was always going to be at church and that I was supposed to be like a role model for the other youth that were in the church and whatnot. And so of course that meant like, taking leadership positions in the youth group. And that's when I started learning how to play guitar and was leading worship and all this kind of stuff. So my dad sold the hydroponic tomato farm when I was in 7th grade. It was like right after 911, after September 11, when it happened the summer following. So sold the tomato farm and we moved up to a camp called Montlore. It's still up there in Greer, Arizona. It's owned by the Presbyterians and he was the manager of the camp, which would basically all the youth kids that are here in the Valley. So like Tucson, Maricopa County area, phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, whatever, all the Presbyterian kids would come up to camp during the summer and my dad managed the camp, took care of everything. And that's where I lived from 8th grade until I graduated high.

So and after high school, you did one semester at community college in San Diego and then you moved to Sydney, Australia to go to.

Went to I decided that I wanted to leave Round Valley because I felt like that area was like a black hole. And a good friend of mine and I always talked about how if we don't get out of this town, we're going to end up here forever. And we never wanted to be in Round Valley forever. So I talked to my grandparents and they said, well, you should come to college in California. And of course they had a college fund set up for me and everything. And I said, okay, that sounds great. Yeah, I would love to. So I moved to San Diego and I started going to community college and I'd either wanted to become an architect or a pharmacist, and so I'm just doing general prerequisite college classes or whatnot. And a friend of mine, Lucas, who I went to church with, we went to a comedy night in downtown San Diego and we ran into a group of kids who were from Australia, sydney, Australia. We started chatting with them and we found out that, hey, they were religious like we were, and they said we should look into a school called Hillsong, which is a leadership music college that's based in Christianity, that was in Australia.

So, long story short, I look into it a little bit. I went to their website and I looked at Australia and Lucas and I had been surfing non stop in California. That's like basically what we would do. We would go surf in the mornings, go to school, I'd go pick him up and we'd surf in the evenings. So I thought to myself, oh, well, if I could live in Australia, and Mask going to Australia to go to school, in quotes, but really I want to go to Australia because I want to surf and I want to hang out with Lucas and have all this fun time, maybe my grandparents would buy off on it. And they did. So I told them about the school and I lied to them, unfortunately, and I told them, hey, this is an accredited college, the credits are going to transfer back to my degree or whatnot? And they agreed to pay for me to go to Australia. So for anyone that's kind of in the religious world, Hillsong, you would know what Hillsong is. Yeah.

Especially now with the documentary and everything that's come out since then, which didn't that happen while you were there?

Yeah, there's actually clips. So for people who don't know, Hillsong is a Christian college and it's probably the largest Christian church in Australia. Don't quote me on that. That's just what I'm going to say. They're huge.

And also they're all around the world. Anyone that's Christian knows their music, at.

Least that's what they're known for, is their music, which they actually have great.

Music, like Dave and I have listened to it before.

Touching quickly on the documentary that you said. Yeah, there's clips from the documentary when all that was going on of when I was actually there. So I went to the City campus, which is in Sydney, in downtown Sydney, and I was studying pastoral leadership. I originally went there to study music, but the music program was a bit more in depth and time consuming, and my focus at the time or reason for being there was because I wanted to go surfing a bunch. And so I switched to pastoral leadership so I could go surfing more. But I was there for six months. But I had been registered to attend for three years for their complete degree program that they had, and I came home for winter break. And that's kind of what caused the next chapter.

Changed your entire life?

Oh, yeah. Everything after that definitely changed my life, for sure.

Because he got married. Not to me.

Got married. Let's go.

So, like I said, David's upbringing was very conservative Christian, to the point where they would court or have chaperone dates. And I'll kind of let you take it over from here, but yeah, you.

Ended up yeah, like what the general public would think is dating. So you see a girl you're interested in, so I'm just speaking on a man's on my behalf. I would see a girl, if I'm interested in that woman, in kind of the normal world, I would ask her on a date. We would go on a date and let our relationship evolve from there. If we're compatible, we continue dating. If we're not, we don't date or whatever happens, happens. But basically it would be something between myself and this other person. But from the way I was raised was before I can even express direct interest to this person, to this girl, I first have to go to her father and I have to tell her father, hey, I'm interested in courting your daughter. Courting is like a fancy dating, I guess, I don't know. It's a serious form of dating.

It means, like, you don't start dating unless, you know, you want to get married and all of your dates are chaperoned.

Yeah. The only purpose really for dating in the way I was brought up was to find a suitor for marriage, to find your spouse. Which I guess in a roundabout way that may still be like if you're dating someone, at least for me, and just kind of my core beliefs if I'm dating someone, that's someone, like, I'm potentially looking at being in a relationship with. So I came back from Australia, this was over winter break, and this person I had shown interest in and she had shown interest in me. And so I had to then sit down with her father to potentially court her. And I remember it very vividly. It was kind of a very interesting at the time. It's funny now, like, being outside of religion and no longer being in that world. When I look back on this experience that I had, it's embarrassing in a sense. I'm kind of like, oh my gosh, this is like I can't imagine the other people that were in the restaurant looking over at and if they were privy or they had heard what was being said and saw what's going on, they'd be thinking, what the hell is happening over there?

That is some weird shit going on. It looks like a cult.

I also just think about sorry to interrupt you, but I also just think about you as a father and what an involved, incredible father you are and so protective of your girls that, just like, you would never do this to someone wanting to be with your daughters.

There'll be conversations, but I think it's going to be in a much different capacity. And also at the same time, I hope that as my daughters get older and enter that world of dating, that I've imparted on them some sense of self worth, independence. Independence. That they're going to pick good spouses.

And also good partners and also not choose them because they need them to survive or to lean on them or count on them. Which is why I'm so adamant about their independence and education. Or not. I mean, you don't always need an education to have a successful career.

No, not at all.

I have my nursing degree, but I don't use it anymore. But I always wanted something to fall back on. God forbid. It's not like you predict to marry. Someone and get divorced. But what if you die? What if you are in an accident? What if you're disabled? You have to be able to take care of yourself and your family.

Yeah, so to go back, I asked her father if we could meet up to talk about potentially the prospect of me courting his daughter. And so he took me to breakfast, and we sat down at breakfast, and he had a notebook with he opened it up, and he had a bunch of questions outlined in the notebook. And I don't even remember what all the questions were at this time, but they were questions I think probably any father may have for their daughter. What are your intentions for my daughter? How are you going to provide for your family? What's kind of your short term and long term plan for what you're going to do in your career? And there were things that were more religiously driven as far as what has God told you is the plan for you and potentially my daughter if you were to get married? And stuff like that. And so we sat down and we ordered food, and we went through these questions, and of course, I'm basically shitting bricks, and I feel nauseous, and so I don't eat any of my food, and he eats his. And what's kind of funny, what stuck out to me is at some point during the mill or at the conclusion of the mill or whatever, the watch on his battery died, and cool.

The watch on your battery died. I guess what would a normal person think when the watch on your battery dies?

My battery needs to be replaced.

Yeah, okay, my battery died or whatever, but not from the way I was brought up.

Oh, no.

The battery died and the time stopped because God intended for it to stop at that moment in time at the conclusion of our breakfast, when I so thank you. Whatever. Shitty battery, because I guess that's what allowed me to get married, because he agreed he consented for me to court his daughter.

That is so months. So you decided to stay in Arizona. You did not go back to Hillsong, and you were married to her six months later.

Yep.

And all of your dates were chaperone, so you couldn't be alone together, and your first kiss was on the.

Yeah. So over the next six months or once, once you've kind of entered into that courting world, it's, hey, the only reason we're even basically hanging out together is getting ready to get married.

Were you allowed to hold hands?

No, we never held hands. It wasn't like, here's the rules of court or anything, but there was no physical intimacy. There was no hands holding. I think we may have held hands a couple times when we were praying. We would pray together, a.

Intimate and then Scotty's laughing in the background because I said his word, sleigh and then you got married. First kiss on the altar, obviously. Lost your Virginia on your honeymoon, and you got pregnant pretty much like right away.

Yeah. So obviously the belief is that you're not having any type of intimacy until you're married.

Yeah.

So being a young male individual, a young buck, a young man, it's like, well, let's not prolong this shit because I'm trying to get it down. I'm dead.

Because you got married at 20.

Yes, 20 years old. Got married, had my first kiss on the altar, and then transitioned into obviously I was a virgin and stuff, so don't have to jump into the nitty.

Gritty, but oh, yeah, we all knew that.

Yeah. And then in the same sense is the belief is that, hey, God's intention is for you to have children. That's an important thing. It's a blessing to have kids. And so there was never discussion that was had. We were both young.

Well, it was both very young.

There was no discussion that was had about planning for children or condoms or birth control or anything like that. It's like, no, if God wants you to have a kid, you're going to have a kid. If God doesn't want you to have a child, you're not going to have a child. But biology says otherwise.

I also think it's important to pregnant to explain, too, that from her world as well. She was homeschooled until she was like a teenager. She never got a GED high school diploma. She wasn't expected to get any sort of education because she was raised to be a housewife, which is zero insult to anyone that chooses to stay home or was raised in that way or to her at all. That's just how she was raised. Because in that world up there, it's just so common. That's just what's expected. And you knew that, too, when her dad took you to dinner. You knew when you married her she would never work. It was her job to birth children, raise the kids, take care of the home, and you and you and I.

Had no problem with that. No, I believed that.

Absolutely.

I was fully committed to that at that time in my life. So it wasn't like it was anything that I was saying, like, oh my gosh, I don't agree with this, but because I want to be with this person, I'll allow it to happen. It was just part of my belief system and how I was raised, so it was very normal. And she came from an even more conservative background than I did. Like incredibly more conservative background than I did. So we're all the product of our upbringing, and so I can't fault her for how she was brought up because that's what she imparted on our children. Just like I feel confident that I could manipulate and instill belief systems in our children if I chose to do so, which is a huge burden that now I look at and be like. The way we raise our children is so incredibly important because from adolescence until full maturity as an adult, whatever we tell them is truth. They will take it as truth. And that was our truth. That was our truth to no fault of hers or mine. That was simply the truth that we were given.

And we wanted to please our parents just like any kid wants to please their parents. And we did that.

So you had two amazing girls 22 months apart, which we always talk about, like, David has zero regrets. I have zero resentment of your past because I've been in their lives since they were just turned two and four.

In diapers, and they might even remember life without you.

Yeah, they're my first kids. They taught me how to be a mom. So there's never resentment against you being married or having kids before. And same with you. You have no regrets because we wouldn't have the girls if you did.

I wouldn't change one thing. No, there is a lot of trauma that I have caused that other people have put on me in my life. But if I had to go back and I would do it all over, I would do it all over in a heartbeat for my kids, and I would change nothing. I would change absolutely nothing. Because everything led to where we are now.

And we would have never met if you weren't married before and you didn't live in Phoenix, and if you stayed at Hillsong, I would have never met you.

Yeah, life is a crazy journey. Who knows? If I stayed at Hillsong, I might be some skinny, jean, hippie Christian dude playing my acoustic guitar on the beach in Australia.

Right, but you got into law enforcement when you were married to your ex wife, and then you got divorced after about four years, married together. And I think everyone hearing your religious background and stuff, I think we should probably talk about the reason why we aren't religious or maybe what shifted your mindset a little.

As when I left home and I went to Australia. That was even the beginning of when I started looking at religion, or at least organized religion a little bit differently, because I started to recognize that the most religious people in an organized religious setting were the ones that weren't really living up to the values of Christianity. And by those values, I mean giving to others, like doing unto others as you would want done to you, helping your neighbor, everything kind of I began to see that everything, or the people that were claimed to be the most religious were the most selfish. And what's kind of one thing that I even noticed I talk about a lot with your family and your parents, is that in our most difficult times, when you and I were a couple financially and your parents aren't religious, individuals at all. We would reach out to them and say, hey, we need some help financially.

Like, when I was in nursing school.

And we're having difficulty paying our bills, groceries, whatever, we were poor.

Like, poor.

Oh, poor, poor. And there wasn't even a question. It was said, okay, yeah, how much money would you like? Here's how much what we can give you, or whatever. And they would pour out to us, and they would give to us. And that's one thing I've always admired about your parents is their willingness to help other people that are in need, and they're not religious. But in my experiences with people who claim to be very religious is when those same requests were made of, hey, can I have some help? I'm going through this really difficult time. The response was, we'll pray about it, or we need to seek God's guidance first. And then it was never addressed. It was never like, okay, God told me to help you. And I'm kind of like, I feel like I know the Bible pretty well. I went to a college for theology. I spent the better part of all my childhood in church. I've read the Bible front to back. God, who knows how many times. At least a dozen different times in King James version, new contemporary version, new English version, all these different translations of the Bible.

And the biggest thing I found, at least from reading the Bible and trying to live a life like Jesus lived, was just like, do good to people.

Do the right thing, be a good person. We talk about that all the time. Just be a good human being.

If someone says, like, hey, I need the shirt off my back, well, God damn it, sorry for my language. Give them the shirt off your back.

We can say fuck around here. Yeah.

And I saw that the people inside the church, they weren't living that way. And not only were they not living that way, it wasn't, what can I do for people who are in need? It's what can you do for me?

Yeah.

Every time I went to church, it's, hey, pull out your wallet.

It's more money. But we've experienced that, like, in the beginning of David and I's marriage, especially.

When we after Ziggy was born.

Yeah. When we moved to San Diego, because this is, like, a whole thing that we haven't even talked about yet. But David left his career in law enforcement for two years to move to San Diego to take care of his grandfather full time while he was on hospice. We found out his caregiver was abusing him, was doing meth in the house, taking money from the family trust. So David quit his job and moved to San Diego while I was in Arizona, finishing nursing school to be his full time caregiver, which is just the most selfless thing you could have ever um wait, where was I?

Going with this? I think we were talking about you were talking about how we started going to church or we tried to church.

Okay. So when we were in San Diego, we were so lonely because I'm from California, but I'm from more central coast San Luis Obispo area, so I didn't have any family, any friends in San Diego, completely alone. I was struggling for a connection. I knew I wasn't, like, a very religious person, but I just had a baby. I was going through postpartum. I was working full time night shift as a like, I was so lonely. That was probably the lowest I've ever been in my david went after his grandfather passed, he went to a police agency in California, and so because he was brand new and still in training, he only got three days from maternity leave. So I was completely alone. So I was up all night with the baby, and it was just so hard, and I was just, like, dying for friends. I needed a mom friend or I needed anything. And I didn't have a big social media following, so I didn't know how to meet people in different states. It also wasn't like, a big thing.

Back then, me coming from the church. Back then, I'm like, well, you're like.

Let'S find a church.

If you want to meet people, the easiest way to meet people and get included pretty quickly is to go to a church.

Yes.

Especially a family with a child.

Yes.

We should pretty easily be able to make connections.

Yeah. So we took the girls ANZ to a local nondenominational Christian right down the hill from us. And I remember the pastor coming up to us because he knew that we were new faces.

This church had a congregation of maybe like a hundred people.

Yeah.

It was a very small church.

And he asked where we lived, and we told him. And we were living in David's grandfather's house, which was a very wealthy area. And when he heard that's where we lived, he immediately asked for money. That was the first conversation we ever had with him. And I just remember looking at David, I don't even think we stayed the entire service. I think we left because I was just so turned off. I was like, why can't I come and try to open my eyes to something that I'm not against? I've just never been a part of. I'm trying. I just want to be a part of a community. And the first thing you talked to me about within five minutes of meeting me is, you think we have money because of the home that we live in, which was your grandfather's, because we were dirt fucking poor. We didn't have money to give. So broke, and you want my money? It was so disappointing. I just remember feeling, like, so sad.

And it was the combination of what can you give to us and how you can serve our church.

Yes.

Like, oh, yeah, we have these areas where we need helpers.

Yes.

We need people to help out these days. We would love for you to come volunteer and all this stuff. And it was just such a disappointment. It was so disappointing for me and embarrassing for me. It was embarrassing for me, coming from a religious background to bring my wife and my child. Of course Iggy didn't know anything that was going on. But more importantly, to bring my wife, who is so she was so guarded against religion, into this vulnerable position where she made herself vulnerable to come into a church to experience this, because in her lowest point of postpartum depression, everything that was going on that you were dealing with. And I said, hey, there's this place where I think we could maybe build some community and build something for us to go in there and then get shit on, like, hey, give me your debit card number. Oh, my God. That literally was the end. When we left that and we were driving back up the hill to the house, I said, I apologize, and I said, I will never take you to church again. I'm so sorry that this had happened to you.

You were so upset, which I was so strategic in how I did it, too, because I knew from my experience, at least in my experience, the larger the church, the more it was geared towards, how can you serve the church? And it was more of a production and what money you can bring in, or passing around the tithing and all that kind of stuff. So I thought to myself, well, if I take us to, like, a small family church, that probably is a lower priority for them, finances. I was a dumb ass Southern California. Only thing anyone thinks about down there is money.

Well, you were just trying to help me, which I, of course, appreciated, but it didn't work out, and that's okay. But I also think when you became a police officer, you kind of saw the way of the world a little bit because you had grown up in such a small town, and then you moved to a big city of the Phoenix area.

Millions of people.

Millions of people. You see these horrible things.

Horrible things.

And you were married very young. You had two tiny kids back to back. You were so stressed financially. You bought your first house, but you were just so broke, so stressed, and then you kind of had a different outlook on religion.

Yeah. Once I became a police officer, which really the only reason I even fell into that career was I needed medical insurance and a decent paying salary yeah.

For your family.

To provide for my family. And I became a police officer, and I've loved my career, and I've loved everything I've done in it, but it definitely opened my eyes to the world that we live in and everything that is out there, maybe even so, has jaded me a little bit because oh, me too. We both are deal with the small 1% of population that caused the majority of crime, but it definitely has changed my perspective on the world as a whole. But, yeah, my ex wife and I, we just fundamentally grew apart in that regard. As I got older and as she got older and as we both matured and became adults because we got married so young, we just weren't compatible. We were two different people. We were going down two different paths. I definitely had a fundamental different belief system than what she had, and she's retained a lot of the same beliefs that she's had her entire life, and good for her for that. But for me, it's just not something that I could be behind, and it wasn't true to who I am. And we ended up getting divorced.

So you were separated for was it, like a year? I don't know how long you were separated for.

You know, me and my memory can't even remember what we had for dinner last night.

But they were separated for a while, and then their divorce was finalized in October, and then the next February, we met at Starbucks.

Is that what it was? Perfect. Like I said, my memory I have a memory and a timeline in my head, but I've come to find whenever I talk about timeline, your memory is shot. It's all messed up.

So now to the good stuff. So I was 18, I worked at.

You'Re almost 19, though, right?

You always say that like it matters. I was 18.

It just matters in my mind. I don't know.

It doesn't matter. We're almost seven years apart. Big deal. Everyone thinks that's, like, the world is ending, and I'm like, no, I think that's okay.

No way anymore. Not nowadays. Yeah, no, you're still more mature than me. And I'm fucking pushing 40 at this point. I'm all grayed out and old as shit.

Stop. So I worked at Starbucks from the day I turned 16 until I was in nursing school, but I was 18 years old. I worked at Starbucks right by the community college I went to. I was doing my prerequisites for nursing school.

Good old MCC.

Good old MCC. Mesa Community College. I had a full ride scholarship for academics because I was a little smarty pants and I didn't want student loans, so I didn't want to go to a university and pay for student loans to live in the dorms.

And I was a beat cop in that same area.

Yeah. So David's Squad and some of his friends would come in all the time on duty, and I would always give them free stuff from Starbucks, which, I'm really sorry, Starbucks, I'll pay you.

Why was that? What reason did you give free stuff to cops?

Honestly, it was such a ghetto area.

True.

I worked in a really bad area. That store is actually closed now because it was so bad. They opened a drive thru down the road because it was a cafe store where you could only come in and I mean, just nasty things. Like David can attest. I would have men sit in front of me in the lobby and cover their pants with a jacket while they would masturbate to me when I was 18.

True story.

And I would have to call the cops, and they would literally come fleeing to me. So I would always call non emergency. I was like a young, pretty 18 year old girl, and it was me and one other person in there. And so I just was always very respectful of the police officers, and I was very thankful because they were always there to save me. Where once a week, some shit would happen. I would have to call. But I was doing full time prerequisites. I was going to school all day long. I was prepping for a nursing school, which you have to have like a 3.8 to a 4.0 to get a nursing school. So I was getting really good grades. All I did was study. I would literally go to school from like 07:00 A.m. To 03:00 P.m.. I would park my little PT Cruiser in the parking lot, take a little nap, study, and then close the Starbucks store like four days a week. Because I was raised.

You're a badass woman.

Yeah.

Hard worker.

Well, I was raised, and I don't think a lot of people realize this, but when I turned 16 and I worked at Starbucks, and my parents found out starbucks covers medical insurance if you work 20 hours a week. I was paying for my own medical insurance when I was in high school. I bought my own car in cash. I filled my own gas tank. I paid for my own phone bill, and I paid for my own car insurance. I also was a varsity athlete. I got a full rate scholarship to college. I was in multiple AP classes. Like, I worked my ass off. And so I'm 18.

I graduated with a 3.2 Sleigh. Took the basic of the most basic.

Anyways, I was 18, and all these cops would come in all the time, and David would never come into Starbucks. He went to Dutch Bros.

When I would get a coffee. When you go I was not a coffee drinker.

Yeah, I converted to but one of our great, longest friends, Elsie Kim, which we love you so much, Elsie. She was a police officer on patrol then, and she told David, like, hey, there's this barista in here I think you'd really like. You should go introduce yourself. And that's when you came.

Switched. We had a brand new subdivision, so we were working out of a really shitty building that had cockroaches. It was really bad. And we had just gotten this brand new facility, and across the street was a Dutch Bros. So on the rare occasion that I would get a coffee, I would go to Dutch Bros. But most of the time I was cheap as shit. So I would go to Quick Trip and get a free fountain beverage. That was my thing. I get like the 44 ounce or.

The Circle K coffee.

Well, that's what I would get. Before I would come in to write paper, I would get a Circle K coffee and mini donuts every night.

The way that this man would eat 6000 calories a day and not gain a pound.

Well, yes. So Elsie, she would always go get, like some black fucking.

Oh, my God. No.

She would make me she drank fucking oil.

She would make me do a pour over every time. Yes. And I only did it because I loved her, but if you've ever been a Starbucks barista, you know what a bitch that is.

So Elsie came in and she told me, hey, there's this girl in Starbucks you should definitely go meet. And I was post divorce. I was still in my hot girl summer era. Like, I was just trying to have a lot of fun.

Not hot girl summer era. You act like a millennial, you old man. You can't say that.

It was my hot girl summer. I was doing the best that I.

Could, but basically all these other cops that he worked with were like, do not waste your time with a girl.

Do not be in a serious relationship.

You need to be in your hookup phase. You just got divorced like, six months ago. You need to be hooking up.

Yeah. So I go into Starbucks and I see Avery Ross. Avery Ross. I see the Avery standing there behind the counter in her green little Starbucks apron and had her hair pulled back and just you weren't wearing glasses, I don't think, at the time.

Yeah, I was wearing glasses.

Were you wearing glasses when we first met? Yeah. I like that. And I was smitten. I was smitten. And I got the courage up to try to have more than just, can I have a train to coffee? Or whatever order? And we chitchatted and it was very natural. And and oh, we more than that.

I had a line out the door. I moved away from the cash register because I was a shift supervisor. So I'm really sorry, Starbucks. I feel really bad telling the story now because you're like so you stole from us and you ignored your customers. Nice.

I mean, it's west. Mesa, though. What customers were you ignoring?

Seriously? So I moved over to the side and we sat there and talked. And mind you, this six foot five, he was 250 pounds at this point.

I was like, 230.

Okay, well, he was going to the gym like two to three times a day. He was massive. I remember looking up at him, and he was in uniform, and I was like, I'm going to get wrecked by you. And we talked about this before, but when we were in mid conversation and locked eyes, everything around us disappeared. I just remember that specifically. I remember looking up and like, oh, fuck. There's, like, ten people that I'm ignoring right now. And then you came back. I worked one four hour shift, and you came back three different times before.

You asked for my number because I was a pussy.

No, you were so nervous. I remember you being so nervous. And the second time you came in because I told my barista the first time you came in, I was like, he is gorgeous. Like, I need his information. And he's like, you have to tell him. And I was like, no way. Because I was 18. Like, I had had one boyfriend.

Did I ask you when we first met how old I thought you were?

Or was that oh, yeah, the first time he came in, he was like, what are you, like, 26? And I was like, yeah. My barista looked at me, he was like, you're 18. And I was like, Fuck you. Why'd you give me away?

Not like it kept me from coming back.

Yeah, so anyways, he came back a second time, and I was like, hey, this is my and he was walking out the door, and so he's leaving, and the door is a self closed door. It's about to close. And my barista his name was Chris, I remember he was like, Tell him. And was like, you're cute. And you didn't even turn back. You did that exact fucking wave. It pissed me off.

Put his raised up my hand, two fingers in the air. I didn't look back. And he goes I said, thanks.

Thanks. And the door closes. He gets in his car and he leaves. And I was like I literally looked at the barista and I was like I just got rejected. I was like, what the fuck?

You weren't rejected. The thing is, I was basically freaking out. I was like, internally, like, if you've seen those, like, on the outside, you're stoic inside. Complete chaos. Really losing my mind, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what next step I should have taken. Getting in the car and being like, should I have turned around and said something? Should I have kept walking? Why did I put my hand in the air? It's like Will Ferrell on talladega Nights where he's like, I don't know what to do with my hands. That was me. It was literally a straight, unsolicited response that I put my hand in the air. Like I was tossing a cigarette out the window and said, thanks. But then all I could think about after that was like, okay, all right. How do I go back. Like, what do I do now? And I was convinced. I was convinced because remember, you called Non Emergency that day?

Yeah, because, oh, that guy took his penis out in front.

No, it was the kid. The kid that stole the tip jar.

No, that was in the daytime. I know for facts. I chased him outside the it wasn't.

The penis whacker because we were together at that point, because I was driving home from work on that. For some reason. There may have been a transient loitering.

I had to call non Emergency again.

I think it was a transient that was loitering outside, probably. And so you called to deal with it because this person was being a disturbance or whatnot. And I remember where her cafe was was not even my area of responsibility.

Really? No, I didn't know. I wasn't in your beat.

Yeah. So I wouldn't even get dispatched to calls within where she was. But when that location got kicked out by our dispatcher, I would literally clear the other officers off the call so I could take that call for service. And that call kicked out, and that was the sit when I came back, and I was like, hey, no. I don't remember what my call sign was at that time, but I was like, hey, dispatch, I'll take this call. And I showed back up, and I still didn't have the balls to ask you out. Then I remember, because when I came back, whoever it was, that the person you called on wasn't there. And I remember saying something like, oh, is someone really here? What's going on?

Yeah, you were like, oh, so you just want to see me again? And I was like, no, I literally just had a call.

Yeah, not me.

And that but I remember when you showed up, and I was like, yes. It worked.

He came secretly. You probably wanted me to show up.

But anyways, I was closing the store. We literally were closing, like, five minutes, and I was cleaning out the pastry case, and you go look around, and then you come in and your radio kept going off to another call. And you kept putting it off, but you responded. And then you were going to go and you were like, okay, well, I.

Literally the dispatcher was like, hello, dipshit, I'm sending you a call. You need to go to. I know where you are. I can see you.

So then go. He was like, okay, I really got to get to this call, but do you remember when you go to dinner with me? And I had a boyfriend at the time, but I knew I was going to break up with him because he was toxic. And I was like, Dinner is kind of serious. That's what I said.

You wanted to live your hot girl summer.

And then you were like, okay, how about we get a cup of coffee? I was like, I work at a coffee shop. I don't want to get coffee. And you're like, okay, we really got to give this call, but do you think maybe I can have your number? And I was like as I was printing out receipt paper, david always makes fun of me because I pushed a button.

It was like as she hadn't answered yet, she's like, I see the receipt paper dispensers just shooting out paper. And anyways, so I wrote my number.

Down and gave it to him when he left. And then he texted me, like, literally within 5 seconds.

Is that not what you're supposed to do?

No, it is.

Okay, good. All right, cool.

And the rest is history.

Except I slay.

I did break up with you because.

We'Ve been talking for a good while. I think that's a good transition into the next episode.

The next episode?

Yeah.

You think you're going to be invited back? I have to say one more thing about because for my ladies, if he wanted to or she wanted to, they would. Because as a quick explanation, basically we were in our hookup phase.

And David well, I was calling it.

Not david was not being the kindest.

I was being a fuck boy.

He was being a fuckboy. And he had told me before I gave him anything, he's like, I'll be the best boyfriend you ever had. I'm like, okay, great. We're going to be boyfriend girlfriend. Then we hook up. And then he's like, Actually, yeah, I want nothing to do with dating at all. And I was like, okay, slay. So after you led me on for a bit, I was like, Fuck you. I cut him off. I blocked his number. I blocked him on social media. He literally could not get in contact with me. He would come in the store when I was working because he would see my PT Cruiser in the parking lot. I would go to the back room and hide in the freezer area where the pastries were and watch the security cameras until I knew he left.

And I text you. I say, I know you're back there.

No, I had your number blocked. You went to Verizon. You got a new phone number so you could text me.

Yeah, and then this was like pre Google voice and whatever other crap there is out there.

One night and I was closing, and he's like, please just give me another chance. I promise I won't let you down. I was like, okay, fine. So he went on one date, and he explained his whole past with his ex wife, the fact that he had kids. And I was like, okay. And that was almost ten years ago.

The rest is history.

The rest is history.

Here we are now.

You still love me.

I love you more now than I loved you than the day we met. It's true. It's true. Love you more every single day.

That word again, but I feel like we could definitely do a part two maybe in, like, season two. Season two, episode one, like the first episode of every season needs to be you.

Well, I feel like we've talked about I mean, gosh, there's so much stuff that I'm just reflecting right now that we didn't even really touch base on, like, grandpa and all that kind of stuff. So I feel like there's things we definitely want to talk about more that is the next part of from when we started our relationship to what transpired to now. That's like, the next thing. You know a little bit about me now and where I came from. But I think people still want to know. They probably give a shit about my upbringing. They want to know about us. They want to know about the history of us, what happened.

Well, and that's like, how we met. But then we have ten more years of catching up of our relationship that we can do. So season two, episode one, you think, Scotty? Yeah, for sure. Okay.

I think that'll be good.

Well, thanks for being on.

It's been a pleasure.

I love you.

I love you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so proud of you.

Oh, thank you.

Keep kicking ass.

Thanks.

You've been doing great.

I do it for you and I.

Guess the kids, too, for the haters out there. You don't know how much my wife works at what she does and how much she pours into everything and also and how appreciative and loving she is, really, of everyone. You're a good person. The person that they see online is the person that you really are face to face, and anybody who's met you can attest to that. So for the people who've seen you out there, and they're like, oh, my God, it's Avery Woods. Oh, what was it when we were in San Diego? That person was like, I recognize that big head talking about me. And then I was like, okay, yeah, there's my wife. She's over there. They're like, oh, my God, there she is. But those people can even attest you're a true human being. You're a true, caring person. Don't make me cry.

That makes me want to cry.

Yeah. You're so nice. Thanks, baby. You're the real deal, and I'm so proud of you.

I love you.

Just keep being you keep being true to yourself. I'll think about it all the way.

I'll think about it.

I'll keep supporting you all the way.

Scott's crying too.

We're all going to cry here.

Okay, well, on that note, thank you guys so much for tuning in to season one, episode one. I'm trying not to fuck my makeup up because my husband just made me all emotional, but I love you guys so much. I'm so happy to be here. We're so happy to be here. This is going to be such a fun adventure. And that's it. Cheers.

Yeah? Stay tuned. Cheers.

Love you. Wait, did we already do that? We already did. Cheers. We'll do cheers, like, five more times.

Chairs all the way through.