How we are overhauling our family culture with a year of FUN! || with Monica and Brad Packer

My husband and I share the major change we want to make within our family this year.

I can't imagine we are alone in feeling like after the last couple (very stressful) years, our family was in need of some healing. Even our young children were feeling the same increasing strain that we felt as individuals, and parents.

In this episode, my husband, Brad, details how schedules, bedtimes, and cleaning the house had taken precedence over enjoying one another's presence. And I share what came to me from the passenger's seat during our New Year's Day drive: this needed to be our year of FUN!

We want to encourage you to identify your family's values (with tips on how to do that!) so that you can change the culture in your home to be one that serves you, rather than scares you. From small steps, to the bigger picture we're getting personal in hopes of showing you what a similar overhaul may do for you, too.

About a few other things...

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica: Are we having fun yet? As adults with families, real responsibilities, real stress and lack of time. It's really easy to forget, to have some fun. If your family is suffering from a lack of fun, maybe you need to overhaul your family culture. Like we have. Today, we're going to share all about our year of fun.

Welcome to about progress. I'm Monica packer, a regular mom and recovering perfectionist. He went covered the truest model to dramatic, but lasting personal growth. It's. Meet practical, join us to leave the extremes behind and instead learn how to do something to grow in ways that stick. If you like this podcast, then you'll love my new course on habit formation.

Outside of perfectionism, it's called the sticky habit method. It's been a joy to see how many. RD in this course and what they're getting out of it, you can join us at about progress.com/sticky habit method.

I tend to get my best ideas while I'm driving around in the passenger seat of our car. And January 1st of this year was no different. We were driving around town as a family, just trying to get out of the house. Pretty sure it was a Sunday, right? Yep. I have my companion here already nodding, but yes, it was a Sunday.

We were driving around and I get to just sit and think in the passenger seat. And that's when I had an aha we needed to have more fun. In fact, I thought we should call our year, the year of fun. YOF for short. Now I want to back up a little bit. And even before I tell you more about what YOF is, how you can create your own.

I want to tell you the deeper reasoning behind why we needed to have more fun. And it's pretty simple. Actually, our family needed a dramatic overhaul of our family culture. So to help explain this and to share what we've been up to and how it's working the ups and downs. I invited my husband, Brad, on the show for us to have a more conversational style episode today.

And this is not to be a giant humblebrag. It's not like we're riding off into the sunset as a family, but this episode is just designed to be helpful. If your family is like ours and after a couple of really hard years, you're in need of some major changes, just like us.

Welcome Brad, back to the show.

Brad: Thank you very much. So happy to be here in your about progress studio. I feel like I'm the only like live guests. You actually.

Monica: I think you honestly are the only live guest I've ever had. It's honor. And a privilege. Well, it's my honor. So we are here together, to talk about our YOF year of fun, but let's go back to the beginning and let's talk about what was so bad about our family's culture.

So I thought I'd just pose that question to you first. What was so bad about it?

Brad: I just think that we focus or we, I I'm, I'm speaking mostly for me here. You can like you can speak for as, I just feel like the priorities and the focus of our family were so much on schedules and on bedtime routines and on keeping the house clean.

And so we were always so focused and wrapped up in those things that, that was like the vast majority of my interactions with the children away from work. Telling them what to do or trying to get them to complete a task. And, you know, we had a somewhat small home and six people living there. And so it's very easy for the house to get messy.

And I'm not a clean person, but I am a cleaner. And so I felt like whenever I was walking around, it was. This stuff's not put away, like, Hey kid, number three, come put away this mess that you made. Or if someone was dumping out blocks, like right away, we're like, oh no, like we just know that's going to be a mess for them to clean up later.

So I was always wrapped up in those things. And if we're trying to figure out what to do or where to go, if we want it to go on a little adventure, we would think, well, what about bedtime? Like, we can't go out and have fun right now because it's already six 30 and we shouldn't have them get in the shower.

And so we were. I was just always wrapped up in that routine. And so it just wasn't fun. It wasn't fun for me. It wasn't fun for the kids because that was what the priority and what the focus was. And I think that when Monica mentioned that, you know, we had this epiphany on January, first of like, we need to have more fun.

I think if we go back a little bit, I mean, we spent as, as some of your listeners may know, The, the bulk of COVID, you know, we had, we had left our home in California. We were so lucky and fortunate to be able to move in with Monica's family while we while we renovated a home. And we always looked ahead to that as like, Hey, when we finally get in our home, that's when we're going to have finally enough space for our family, big enough yard for a family, we're finally going to be able to just like live free and be ourselves.

And then the end of last year, we moved into home and we found that we still were having the same stress, the same stress and the same problems. And we, and it was almost like, Hey, like this isn't what we signed up for. This is what we were planning on getting when we realized, oh my goodness. Like the getting caught up in the routines remains, even though we're in this, we're in this home.

And we all saw that as the point when things would end. And so we almost realized like, Hey, you know, you know, the haunted house movies were. Is in a haunted house and then they move and then they think, okay, we're good. But then it's not that the house was haunted it's that they were haunted or being followed by a, by a demon or whatever.

We're like, okay. Our house isn't haunted. The parents are haunted. So we need to make a change to have fun. It's not a matter of just changing locations. It's we need to do something different.

Monica: Do something weekly. Yeah, it's really interesting to have your perspective because I do see it's almost like the cart got put before the horse in our family, in terms of just trying to always be on top of things was getting in the way of us actually having relationships and a sound family culture.

When I think culture, I just mean. Who we define ourselves to be as a family, the, the values that we live by that's not just like what we're taught, what we teach or what we talk about, but actually how we live. And it just seemed like, I mean, if we're going to talk about the factors of. I mean, it was just a really, really stressful time.

I don't think anyone lived outside of a shiz hit the fan lifestyle. Like we, we did too. We all experienced that in the world. And for us it definitely felt that way. And I think the stress of what we've just been through the past couple of years, in addition to having special needs kids and trying to homeschool in the basement while both working and all of our money going into

a kitchen renovation that just kept, or not kitchen that was, that was years ago, a house renovation that just kept spiraling. Thanks to COVID and the cost there. It was just, there were dark times. I mean, let's talk about the bigger factors too, because I think we can give ourselves more credit. Like they were hard dark times.

And like you said, when we moved into this new house, those times didn't disappear because our kids were living that way too. Kids were stressed our kids just were not living out the values that I think we'd want or to have to create the relationships and the memories with each other and with us that I wanted them to remember.

Brad: And I think because we, as parents were just stretched so thin, then we just did not have the, the, the energy or the enthusiasm or the desire to do fun things. So if the kids came to us and asked like about adventures we could have, or doing fun things, our first thought was like, we're so tired. We don't have the energy to do that.

And so we would, you know, deny them the opportunities to have fun because we were just barely keeping it together. And I think that we look back on our own childhoods and that, that was another thing that was kind of eyeopening. As I thought back I'm like was, did I see my parents, this stress all the time, where they was the vast majority of my interactions with them, them telling me like what to do and to do my chores and to clean up and to go to bed and to.

To go to sleep or I remember it being more fun. I remember there being more adventurous that we did or more positive interactions. And I, and we did not want our kids to look back and have those be their, their core memories is just stressful times that weren't very much fun. Yeah.

Monica: I see. I think a good way to, to sum up just this whole realization for us is it was time for some healing for our family.

And as a time for an overhaul of our family culture and to just really stand by the values that we have, which for me were about connection and joy and friendship instead of stress and limited time and anxiety. And I'm sure other things. So, you know, we have been, so January 1st, It was decided year of fun.

And I'm going to talk people through some of the steps we went through to create a year of fun, but essentially what it is is we're just trying to have more fun together. That's really as simple as it is. And that includes within our home and includes local adventures, simple ones, and includes more like outside of our local sphere too, but not as much of those.

We, I think it's, it's been going okay so far. So let's say this is we're at the beginning of our fifth month into it. How would you say it's going

Brad: Better, better? And I think it's because we made a determination that, Hey, this is what we want to do. And it's going to require us to do things differently.

We need to make a change. And so we need to go out of our way to try and have more fun. And part of that, Making sure we are getting out and doing things that were going on walks that were going on hikes that were having little adventures. Monica has been good about planning, like, you know, spring break, instead of us staying at home, making sure we can go somewhere that's different and expose the kids to other areas and, you know, may make the trip of, of focal fun point and.

And I think we've kind of taken a step back on, stressing out so much about the scheduling and bedtimes and routines and the cleanliness. Like, yeah, we, we still keep a clean house and they still are responsible for their chores and for picking up after themselves. But I'm not finding myself freaking out quite as much when I walk in a room that has recently had a tornado go through, it's like, okay, you know what?

Those Legos will get picked up at some point, I don't need to like go find where they are outside, get them to come back in and clean it up because they're having fun. And ultimately, not that big of a deal if there's a little bit of disarray. And so I think allowing ourselves that freedom to not be a hundred percent on top of things has been like step one in creating more fun, which seems like so basic and the bare minimum, but it's made a noticeable day.

Monica: I think so too. I think we'll share some more like actual ideas of what we've been up to, but just my general point of view of, you know, just our beginning of fifth month into this, I think that it is making a difference. And I think we noticed it pretty soon and that we could see our kids were beginning to be have more fun together, to giggle more, to have more patience, less frustration, although those are still totally there.

They have not gone away. But I have seen a difference. And to me, it's not just what I see. It's what I feel. And I think it's what our kids likely feel too. Things just don't feel as wound up tight around here, and I can begin to see some of those friendships forming better in ways that was so hopeful to see anything you would add to that before we share some ideas of what we've been doing, and then I'll share more of a process for them to use as well.

Well, I guess

Brad: that'd be kind of commenting on both on both of those things is I feel like part of it has just been saying yes, more. And what's funniest, the Johnson files are my favorite follow. Sean just interviewed his mom on Insta stories and posted it like a day or two ago and asked her for one of her parenting advices.

And she said one of the main things is just to say yes, more, which I thought was really interesting is that, you know, just part of it was giving kids freedom. And part of it is that, you know, when you're saying no less often, when you do say no, it is your kids will know it's for it's for a good reason.

And so like last night as an example are, is bedtime really hard for everyone else? Or is it just us? But we feel like everyone, each one of our kids go through phases where they just are, they just don't go to sleep right away. And they find reasons for getting out of bed, reference to the Johnson files again, for that video, where they show the kids coming up with all the reasons that they're not going to sleep yet.

And it's just, it's tough because Monica and I, you know, we do a lot of our work at night. And so we're. The bedtime routine is important so we can get some of our stuff done. And so last night, our youngest who is really bad right now about staying in

Monica: bed, that he's our worst

Brad: sleeper, but he's such a charmer that when he comes up with these dumb reasons you can't help, but kind of smile on and be like, oh, he's so cute.

Instead of like, oh buddy, just go to sleep. So he comes up last night, an hour after he had gotten in bed and he'd already come up a handful of times and he said, Hey dad, I'm scared. Will you come play the guitar? And I think that outside of the year of fun, I would've been like no way because bedtime was an hour ago, bud, and I know that this is going to keep you up, but year of fun.

And I just heard that video with the council to say yes. So I'm like, okay, fine. I will, I will go get my guitar. I will go downstairs. And this will be a fun experience. And I had been playing just for a minute. When, you know, I was playing for the room where our two youngest boys share and have a bunk bed and within a minute, or.

Oldest boy came from his room because he wanted to sit in and be a part of things and only played in saying like two or three songs for them. And, and they sang along. And our boy that plays drums was like drumming on the bed and on the, on the post. And as I was. Like everyone was happy. It was fun. It was a, it was a good experience.

I get upstairs. And our daughter who is on a whole different floor was telling me that she heard and that she was singing along to the songs that we were playing. And I just thought, wow, that is that's the year of fun. That's what saying yes does. But then the drawback is that it completely set this little dude off.

And he kept on coming up with reasons to come upstairs. It did not help him calm down and go to sleep. So

Monica: that's also because he'd actually taken an earlier nap. So that's what happens for that. So let's give ourselves grace. I feel like you know, speaking of grace let's just acknowledge, it was a, it was a couple of years of survival and.

We were ready to move past it into healing. And I will say, regardless of where your family is on that spectrum of survival slash healing or fun, whatever it is I hope this can just give you a little hope that the small things you do really do matter because we do see the difference. Next up we'll share some of our ideas and what we've been doing.

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Okay, we're back. So let's talk about just some general things we've been doing. Let's start small and kind of zoom out, and that will be relevant to the tips we give too. I think one of the things we first started to do was to just play, you know, just playing UNO most days, somehow some way. And Brad was really good about doing that.

We said maybe what was it called? Like after dinner fun? Family fun time. Yeah. Just

Brad: any sort of activity, which would get us together, doing something interacting after dinner,

Monica: after dinner, and they got ready for bed. So UNO, we bought other games. I went and bought a ton of cooperative games that our therapist recommended.

We, some of my kids see an amazing counselor. So we got some of her games that she uses with them, like gnomes at night. It's like a really cooperative came. So games what else? Let's start. Yeah.

Brad: Little things like, I mean, our kids love music and so they have been able to create their own Spotify playlist where we, you know, let them loose and they can pick the songs they want.

And then that's what we'll listen to in the car when we're going for a longer drive or heading up. The in-laws for dinner, they get to listen to their playlist and then, then they get excited when it's each kid, when the songs they've chosen have popped up and they're interested to see what everyone else has chosen, something really small, but it's been fun.

Monica: Also just little things like going on a walk each Sunday which has been nice. We already talked about a family fun time lipsync. For some reason our kids like that. We haven't done that one in a while though. Any other ideas kinda more like easy to low hanging fruit say yes.

Brad: Yeah. I mean, so yes.

I think just allowing ourselves to kind of be silly.

Monica: Family Friday movie night with popcorn. I mean, these are things like we had been doing here and there, but very inconsistently. So a lot of this was like bringing things back that we knew we liked as a family.

Brad: Th this is dumb, but lately Monica and I said each other Instagram reels or little videos that we find.

Yeah. And I noticed that. I mean, just one day I was looking through the messages of everything that I'd sent Monica. And then I think one of the kids like peered over my shoulder and then we basically learned that they just giggle nonstop. If we go through four or five of these videos, we've shared back and forth, various funny things.

And then, and so now one of the things they'll ask for is. Mom, dad pull up this particular video and we'll pull it up from the message stream of what we sent back and forth. And then they just giggle and cackle and thinks that think it's so funny. And it's just an enlightened or enlightening uplifting for them just to be able to laugh and see something like wholesome and funny.

And. But there's connectivity and that connectivity in that we all are watching and laughing at it together. And it almost becomes a little bit of an inside joke where we all know what that video is and we can reference it and they giggle.

Monica: And I think just overall, it's just trying to find the moments where we can just be more present and actually together, you know, phones are put away, books are put away.

We're just spending even just a few minutes with our full attention. One of our favorite traditions is that dinner. We do good thing, hard thing. And again, we did this before the pandemic slipped off while we were not living in our own home. And to bring that back and actually have dinner together on the table.

And then just hear one good thing that happened that day. And one hard thing has been really great too. So now zooming out to some other things. It's just like adventure. It's just still simple going to a park. What are the things that we've done? We've gone to the local rec center to swim on a Saturday, as a family.

What else can you remember?

Brad: I think, I think it's also what we're not doing and it's just trying not to stress over the little thing.

Monica: Yeah, picnics. We've gone up to the Capitol. We're trying to like do just more local things. Yeah. Well,

Brad: I mean, we're, we're, we're still relatively new to salt lake and such going on drives and.

One thing we like doing is like pointing out on a street, like which house we liked the most. And the kids will do that too. And even when we are like silently driving the four-year-old randomly, we'll say like, that's the house I like, or that's my house.

Monica: Yeah. And they usually have like an ice cream cone from McDonald's in hand too.

So yeah, local things like that. Just finding ways to, to get out there. One of our weird things on a year fund was actually doing more extracurricular activities, which actually doesn't sound fun, but it has been, our kids have been out of that world. So now we are in the busy season of, you know, even just two kids doing a couple sports, but I, we can see how.

For them to do, but also for us to be there as a family, supporting them has also helped with the culture part. Like we are people, we are, we are feeling who cheer each other on. We are there for each other, we support each other. And then we also have like bigger things. We went to St. George. And we have some other things on our list that we would like to do this year.

Like I dunno, one of the kids said they wanted to go to a national park by the way, which made me really happy. So stuff

Brad: like that slowly

Monica: brainwashed. Yeah. We're not doing too much out of town. I mean, we're still kind of recovering from this renovation, but they, I think this is probably the biggest takeaway is it really is small.

It can be affordable. Does it have to take too much time? Okay. Anything to add there in terms of ideas before I share some tips?

Brad: Nope,

Monica: not for me right now. Okay. We'll share some highs and lows too. And I'm moment, or like what's, what's one of your favorite things we've done. So keep that in mind while I kind of share some tips here and then we're going to hear some of Brad's highs and my highs as well.

Like what have been our favorite things we've done so far. Favorite?

okay. If you are ready to overhaul your family culture, you don't have to do a year of fun, but you can do these kinds of tips to help you create your own plan and path to overhaul your culture. And the first step is to get real. About where your culture is right now, get real about what happened. Why is that the case?

Like maybe you're in survival mode, like we were, maybe someone had health problems or mental health problems, or maybe just life got so busy or you kind of drifted away just to get real about that. Also to get real about what feelings are missing in your family right now? That was one sounded like I was getting emotional.

It was just more like I was having like an allergy attack. Like what feelings are you missing? That's a great place to start. We were pissing fun. That's why we decided the year fund, but maybe other years we'd be like missing. I don't know, like trying to think of what other things can go in there. Spirituality maybe, or.

Silliness you get to decide. So what kind of feelings are missing and then think about what kind of family culture do you want to have. And I shared a few times out to me that was pretty value centric. So you can get clear on that as a family. What kind of culture do we want to have? What values do we care about?

What do we want to be known for? But also how do we want to feel as a family. The next step I have for you after getting real is to decide on a sort of theme, whether it's for a summer or a fall or a few month period, or even for a whole year, you can do this midyear by the way, it doesn't have to be January.

You don't have to wait until January. What's a kind of theme you can have and decide as a family that is related to the get real. After that the next step I has for you. And then the next three are the only the class three also, but they also go back to some main tools I use in this community and in my coaching.

And this first tool is to cast a vision. And this is where I would advise you to conduct a shoot for the stars, kind of brainstorm with all the family members on what you can do to meet your theme and to rebuild your culture. And our brainstorm was pretty intense. I mean, we had things like Brad and I were going to go to New York.

We weren't going to go to Yellowstone. We were going to go to Disneyland. We were going to go all these big places. And most of those things are now off our lists, which is okay because we're having sprinklers put in instead, but there were, it was nice to shoot for the stars and, and doing that. And I just did it with my kids for the summer plans, as I was able to hear more of what they're intrigued by.

Small stuff we can do around here. Like whenever our kids wants to have a barbecue night with friends and thought that was awesome. While another kid wanted to go back and visit California. So it was just nice to see, to hear what was important to them. So you cast a vision with a shoot for the stars brainstorm.

Then after that, I want you to zoom out in terms of narrowing down a real plan. And, and this is still a bigger picture plan about. Big things that you would like to do some kind of bonding events, and this can still be local. Like maybe you want to go to a certain splash pad or maybe you want to attend a certain play.

Oh, that was one of the things we did. We went to like the family symphony day. That was so fun. At least it was for me. You know, so it can be things like that. What are some bonding events that you would like to put on a calendar? So after you, them out with some bigger bonding events, then zoom. To where you are as a family and how you can settle in on some realistic and regular rituals, habits, and traditions that you can install that will help that culture shift.

So I'm going to read. Get real, decide on a theme, cast a vision, zoom out with some big picture bombing events and then zoom in to see where some ways that you can start right here right now. And an easy, more regular way. That was a lot. So let's end on some highlights for them. Do you have any that come to mind?

I can see that you were writing a few things there. Well, a couple

Brad: of them, we already mentioned one was, you know, we were, we're not used to the winter being so cold. And so we went indoor swimming at the local rec center a couple of times. And that was unusual to say like, Hey, put on your swimsuits, it's 30 degrees, but we're going to go jumping up.

And, and the kids love that. And if someone were able to do only for like an hour or so, but they had fun

Monica: and there was nothing we have to go long. That's my thing. It's like an hour is awesome. We'll be happy with it. Now.

Brad: I think giving ourselves the grace to know that, yeah, the length doesn't make the event.

You do it as long as it is a productive and people are having fun. And then you pull the plug as soon as you're ready to move on. And so. That was not something we'd normally do. And it was fun for the kids. And then just anything that gets you out of the house, like they finished that. Installing a skate park, just a mile or so from us.

And so a handful of times I've grabbed the kids and we just drive and park there and watched all these young kids try skating. And it's been really fun for them to see that it's small. It's simple, but it's us getting out of the house. The kids have been talking about wanting to do a camp out and it still is.

Too cold to camp outside overnight for us right now, or not for normal people, but our kids get cold really easily. So we set up the tent in the basement and then. Pulled out a couple of sleeping bags and all four kids slept in there overnight and had a reading party and they loved that. And it was fun.

Monica: Three out of the four wet the sleeping bags, you win some, you lose some.

Brad: Small and simple. And then the last thing I'd add is we try and feed into whatever our kids are passionate about and. For our family, it star wars. And I guess really, where does that passion stem from it's us brainwashing them into,

Monica: I love it.

It's a

Brad: liking star wars. And so the book of Boba Fett was on Disney plus and episodes came out every week and the kids loved it. And so a lot of our fun was. Enveloped in watching the episodes together. And then we talk about it through the week and we'd guess what was going to happen next. And then they would get all excited when it was, Hey, new episode, let's watch bookable with it, something small, but it was something there.

They cared about something dad cares about. And so it became a fun family bonding experience. And there's gotta be things that your own kids, if you have them are passionate about that, you could feed into. I don't know, like when there was something I loved when I was a kid and my parents supported me in that, or they faked liking it as well.

It made me feel good.

Monica: I am really excited about this summer. And, you know, coincidentally, I mentioned this a little bit. I alluded to it that my kids and I took some time to brainstorm tonight. I let Brad hurry and sneak away to the gym so we could record. But he and I had already brainstormed a few things together too, is I'm excited for the summer because we were able to do that together.

We are able to do our shoot for the stars part and it is kind of a good way for me to recommit to the year of fun because even. Though, I think we were doing pretty well with being very intentional. We kind of drifted away from the intentionality piece. And I think we're ready to, to do that again. So I'm going to share a little, do something challenge for people today and it's to just do one small thing that you can start with their family like a small tradition for me, maybe I would suggest do UNO, like get some unicorn.

Or maybe a movie night on Fridays or popcorn and Saturdays or Sunday walk, one small tradition that you can put in place for your family and my own commitment. And I'm just going to report in here is to do more of the family funtime after dinner. Cause that's when I, I do need to work at night. And so I I'm tired already.

And I need to, I have that urgency of like, I have an hour to work and I need to get this stuff done after they go to bed. So there's kind of a little bit of that. Like let's, let's do this, let's get them into bed, but I would like to just spend even five minutes doing some family, family fun time. What about you, Brad?

Any one place you would suggest they start or one small tradition that you would advice?

Brad: I was going to say. Kind of what we had already mentioned earlier, like go back to your kids, go back to your spouse and find out what they enjoy doing, what they're passionate about, what they want to do, and then find ways to plan around that.

Find ways to incorporate that into, you know, big adventures and small adventures, nightly routines or bigger things, love

Monica: that advice. So that's it for our kind of accountability podcast episode on this, but also I hope what it can do is to help you feel like. Oh solo. If your family is struggling with how you're feeling, how you're functioning and to also give you.

A different sort of pathway to, to restore it and to heal it. And we're on our way. We still have work to do that's for sure. Maybe we'll do another kind of report in, I don't know, in the fall sometime to share how things are going that way, but I'm grateful that we've been able to have this healing so far and I'm excited for what can come and I'm excited that you were able to be part of this episode, Brad and along the right too.

So thanks for being here. No, of course. Thanks. All right. My friends, I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants that you need to grow. Just a few reminders for you. The progress pointers are going to be sent out via email to our go get our newsletter. You can get on that by going to about progress.com/go getter.

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