Creative Comfortable Dad on the Street: Matt Eppright
You can find him around town coaching youth soccer and creating beautiful smiles as an orthodontist. Everyday Creative Comfortable Dad on the Street Matt Eppright is passionate about being active, family fun, and creating his own comfortable brand of living.
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Meet Matt
I spent the first 22 years of my life in eastern Pennsylvania with the final four of those years at Haverford College where I played Division 3 soccer and first got interested in dentistry through a good friend’s father. After Haverford, I went on to NYU College of Dentistry where I met my wife, Patti.
I continued my education at VCU orthodontic program After returning to eastern Pennsylvania to work as an orthodontist for 3 years, Dr. Wendell invited Patti and I to join his Williamsburg Orthodontics as partners. The first time we visited Williamsburg over 6 years ago, we stayed at a bed and breakfast near William and Mary and Patti told me she knew this was the perfect place for our family.
Since arriving in Williamsburg, we’ve been able to do so many things that fuel us. We’ve met many amazing lifelong friends. Our daughter, Quinn, has loved all the activities that the area provides such as soccer, dance, and swimming.
I’ve been fortunate to coach youth soccer for the last 5 years which was one of my main dreams when we settled down in this area. My parents have even followed us down here so we get to spend a ton of quality time with them. We’ve been blessed to find an amazing community that we love to serve and we are truly grateful for that opportunity.
Creative Comfortable Style
Which three words best describe your style? Comfortable, fitted, undefined (create your own brand)
Where are your favorite places to shop? Comfort is my top priority. Bella + Canvas shirts and Next Level shirts may be the most comfortable shirts of all time. Another plus…they are super affordable if you order them from a wholesaler. When we get shirts made for our practice, I always ask Jared from Parkway Printshop to get me a few extra colors without printing on them. This allows me to be versatile with color choices while having multiple comfortable, fitted, and unbranded shirt options. For comfortable shoes, I love allbirds.
What’s your best style advice? Unless you’re really proud of the message or what the brand stands for, let your own personal energy and vibe shine through with clothes that are more simple. If you feel really passionately about a message of your own, work with your local print shop to make shirts that have a message you are proud of.
What trend did you love at the time, but now cringe when you see old photos? When I worked at Abercrombie in high school and college, I wore so many pairs of jeans with holes in them. Nowadays, our business partner always asks kids, “did you pay for those holes?” He would have had a field day with me back in the day.
Facial hair or clean-shaven? Stubble
Creative Comfortable Parenting
What’s your dad superpower? I asked my daughter, Quinn, and she said, “Not giving up.” That was the nicest thing she’s said to me in her 5 years of life …so I may pretend that I’m doing a questionnaire like this every day to trick her into saying nice things to me!
Best parenting advice: It takes a village. If you put the right people in your child’s life who encourage hard work, love, and kindness, they will hopefully take the best of all of those people.
Parenting true confession: If I’m grabbing one cookie for each member of the family, I eat one when I first open the box and one when I’m putting the box away. Add that to the one I ate with the family and I have a 3:1 cookie intake ratio compared to everyone else…please don’t tell Quinn.
Creative Comfortable Family
What’s your favorite way to spend time with your family? Our goal is to get outside for an activity every day so hikes, tennis, or kicking the soccer ball fill a lot of our family time. If we’re inside, there’s a good bet that a family dance party will break out.
What’s been your best family vacation? For the past 2 years, we’ve taken the exact same family vacation during the winter and it was awesome…our goal is to make it an annual event. A driving trip through Savannah, Disney, and Sanibel Island, Florida. The beauty of Savannah followed by the magic of Disney followed by the serenity of Sanibel Island makes for a perfect Eppright family vacation.
What’s your favorite family activity? We play a lot of card games together. We started with more simple games like Go Fish and Old Maid and have worked in some different ones as Quinn has gotten older. My friends have mentioned that their kids don’t enjoy card games since their hands aren’t big enough to hold all the cards.The Original Little Hands Card Holder has been super helpful for Quinn.
What’s your favorite family dance party song? The Hamilton soundtrack has been a favorite request from Alexa. It provides some upbeat dance party songs and some very dramatic slow songs for Quinn to bring out her ballet skills. Quinn’s choreography is questionable as she’s found a way to work in a minimum of 73 dance lifts into a 4-minute song…I usually wake up with sore shoulders the day after a long family dance party.
Family Meals
What’s your go-to family dinner? We have become pretty consistent in celebrating Taco Tuesday. We try to change up the type of taco each week but it’s generally a simple meal that Quinn can help us cook which makes the cooking experience more fun for everyone.
What’s your favorite family restaurant? Aticha Thai Cuisine is our go-to restaurant. The food is always fresh, their team is always kind, and the family that owns the restaurant are fantastic people. The restaurant is named after their daughter and she will usually come to our table to color with Quinn…just a really cool experience.
Creative Comfortable Life
What’s your favorite show to binge-watch? When watching as a family, we love “Once Upon a Time.” When I get time to myself, a classic comedy like “Parks and Rec” is usually what I’m looking for to relax.
What’s your favorite sport and why? Our family loves soccer and still plays quite a bit. I play in some adult leagues and coach youth travel soccer. Quinn will probably be starting rec soccer in the next year as well. Patti has even joined some of our co-ed adult teams and had a blast. The sport just always brings us joy in so many ways…from playing the game itself to the people we’ve met because of the sport.
If you could hang out with anyone from history, living or deceased, who would it be? I would love to hang out more with my grandmother, Lois, who passed away 3 years ago. I was her only grandchild so we spent a ton of time together in my childhood and young adulthood.
At the last wedding, Patti and I went to, my really good friend’s grandmother did a reading during the ceremony. It reminded me of my Grammom Lois and made me want to ask her more questions about her life now that I’m an adult and can relate a bit more. Even though she wasn’t always happy in her older age due to limited mobility, she always found a way to tell jokes and laugh when Patti, Quinn, and I came around.
Relaxed Life
What’s at the top of your travel bucket list? We have some really good friends who live in the Pacific Northwest and we’ve never been out to visit them. When the time is right, we are planning a visit to see them that includes renting a camper van and driving up the coast to Vancouver.
What’s your favorite way to unwind at the end of a long day? The recent slowdown of life has shown us how important having dinner together is and how much we want to protect family dinner time when things start to get busy again. After we put Quinn to bed, I always find a few minutes to read in bed which takes my mind off of the day’s obstacles to get some solid sleep.
Your Creative Comfortable Life
We love Matt’s energy and passion for serving his family and the community! His gratitude for the life he lives shows in both his work and relationships. You can follow Matt on Instagram at home @matt.eppright and his super fun orthodontist practice @williamsburgorthodonist.
And for more fun and interesting dads, be sure to check out FamilyApp’s Dad on the Street!
