Tracey

Tracey Anderson, Mrs. Anderson, Mom, Miss Lees, Trace, Stace, Momma, and many more names come to mind when I think of my wife. She knows how I feel about her already, but I don't think I've ever publicly elaborated on all the reasons that I'm glad she's my wife, best friend and the wonderful mom to my children. This will be stream of consciousness and in no particular order. Generally speaking, she's the same funny woman I met in 1994, I think it was 1994, I have early onset dementia so it could have been 1995. I'm just kidding, I know it was 1994. I'm not quite sure if I'm joking about the early onset dementia though. I have some serious problems with my memory. Usually, my comprehensive recall is really good, the last couple of years it's been a little sketchy at times. I still have a lot of info in my head, but I'm concerned that remembering the content I'm teaching will be lost, and I'll have to start re-reading content the day before I cover a topic in my classrooms. Oh wait, this is supposed to be about my wife. I can't believe I'm typing this fast right now. It's crazy what two to four fingers can type when you don't worry about spelling and can just spell check later. :) Okay, back to Tracey. Not only is she the same funny person I met almost 20 years ago, but she is more beautiful, caring, intelligent and a better worrier than ever before. Seriously, I'm still attracted to my 42 year old wife. She still does it for me. Same old crackers, but I REALLY like those crackers. Even when she's not interested. Now, she can't read that at my eulogy. You can just skip that part hon.

I love that she always wants to plan fun stuff for the family. For example, we just got back from Vegas with the girls and she wanted to take them to the movies the next day. Since we are on vacation she wants to have fun with the family. The Vegas trip was fun, and very out of the ordinary. I would not normally want to take the girls there at such a young age but we planned the trip with ideas for them in mind. The highlight comment of the trip was Grace telling me "The casino is like Chuck E. Cheese's for adults." So true. Oh wait this is about Tracey. Did I mention the stream of consciousness? Welcome to tangent 101.

I love that Tracey and I can just hang and be content. We are like the old couple sitting at Coco's eating dinner in peace and quiet, not speaking to each other for the majority of the meal, because it's about the food not the conversation. There are only so many things you can talk about when you've been with someone for nearly two decades. I say that with teaching schedules in mind. We are currently on Christmas vacation. We still have things to talk about, but during Summer vacation we can go through stretches where there isn't anything new to talk about during a day. It's not like I'm coming home from work and can tell Tracey about how Brian walked into class and said "Okay, class let's get started, Mr. Anderson wants your attention, it's time to learn 'WHHOOOOH'" Life just plugs along on a daily basis and there isn't always something exciting to talk about.   If you can't hang with your wife in silence and be okay with that, then you should never be married. I'm not saying we just sit and stare at each other all the time. Half the time we are yelling at a kid to clean something up or planning something fun to do with the family.  This is another reason why I love Tracey, she is a planner of things. We can't just sit around the house watching the boob tube all day long. We have to get some fresh air and be active. I really appreciate that quality in my wife. This is one of the things that makes her such a great mom. The testament to this fact, is Grace always asking "what are we going to do today." As if it's a given that we will be doing something. Sarah on the other hand likes to be a home body.  I can relate. Some days, I just need to stay home and decompress. Tracey has this balance too, and I like that we usually balance out the doing of stuff with the hanging out and doing nothing. As a married couple we also have a good understanding of having personal time.  It's important to maintain that balance too. For example, she let's me play poker or hang with my friends and it's not a big deal. Unfortunately, I've witnessed couples that always have to do things together. I appreciate the fact that Tracey can go workout or get a massage or go to dinner with her friends to get some time for just her. That feeling is reciprocated in our relationship.

I also love her intelligence. Genetics speaks volumes in this regard. We have some really smart kids. This is a combination of good genes and good parenting. That's right, I'm bragging. We've done a good job of encouraging our kids to be readers. Tracey has been great about buying books, reading to the kids, checking homework, and staying on top of all the things that the girls need to be successful in school. She has also been great about making sure that they do other things too, such as enrolling them in dance and soccer. Tracey is intelligent enough to know that these foundational aspects that we pour into our kids is preparing them for a bright future.  When we met over 18 years ago I was attracted to Tracey physically, intellectually, and to her overall personality.  I was also attracted to her because I knew she was going to be a teacher and that spoke volumes about her character.

Now that she is teaching at Acacia, she is finally getting the positive parental feedback that she's deserved for the years of hard work she's invested in her students.  She worries about doing a good job, challenging her students, making sure she's using technology effectively, and reaching each kid. I'm proud to be married to a woman that strives for perfection in her job. I'm proud to know that she is doing such an amazing job in such a challenging environment, where everything is new. New Principal, new expectations, new socio-economic environment and new challenges.

As I tell Tracey all the time, I wouldn't change a thing about our relationship. I love her goofy personality and her serious personality.  I love her tiredness at 8:30 at night and her early morning workout regimen.  I love the lounging on the couch and the  5-day long camping trips. I love her worried personality (because it means she cares) and her carefree ability to ignore a mess until she can't take it anymore (and then finally starts ordering everyone around to clean up). I love that we have rubbed off on each other so much that we start acting and saying the same kinds of things.  Exhibit A would be her aggressive driving. Exhibit B would be Melissa Hypolite telling me how much Tracey reminds her of me. Hopefully, someday we will be that old couple that eats queitly together in peace, only it wont be Coco's, it'll probably be at Red Robin. I love my wife. I love Mrs. Anderson. And I love "Momma" and all the complex facets that make her who she is.

Almost T-boned

It's been awhile since I felt like I had a brush with tragedy. Today was the day that reminded me of how blessed I am to live the life that I live, and to have the people in my life that I have. I have an amazing wife and wonderful children. I have a great family and great friends. I've got a great job that drives me crazy, but I wouldn't change where I work or what I do. Even though this school year has probably been one of the most difficult years of teaching in awhile.

Now, let me paint the picture of my brush with potential death and a certain hospital visit for me and my girls. I was stopped at a red light. I had just finished yelling at Grace and Mia for fighting with each other in the car. If you are a parent of three kids or more, you know how sitting lined up in a row in the backseat can set the kids off. My girls get along most of the time, but 70% of the time that I drive them in my Camry someone will be annoyed by someone else because "she's singing, she's touching me, she won't let me use her iPod, I don't want to sit in the middle, she's looking at me, she won't let me use the crayons, I don't have enough room fro my legs, her breath stinks, she's bothering me, she just kicked me...." You get the idea? I can't take it. I have a confession. I'm not patient. The squabbling in the backseat drives me CRAZY! Tracey has this amazing ability to tune it out. I think it's because she works with elementary aged kids all day long. Because I teach high schoolers, I don't have the same level of patience for conflict resolution. If there's a conflict I want it resolved. Now. End of discussion. But, in the reality of "elbow touching" seven and ten year olds, they just fight. It's annoying to say the least, and infuriating when I'm cranky, tired, or just trying to get home so I can make dinner, check homework, and get children ready for bed. The other issue is, it's distracting.

So, I had just gotten finished explaining, in a rather loud tone that Grace and Mia needed to "knock it off" and be quiet while I drove, because I need to be focused while I was driving. Then, the light turns green and I glance to the left and see the car in the far right lane slow down, and then I start to drive through the intersection.  As I start to look forward, I can see in my peripheral vision to the left that there is a car in the left lane that is barreling down on me. When I turned my head I was looking staright at an older lady with giant dark sunglasses, blowing right through the red light. I instantly punched my accelerator, and she barely missed my car. I would estimate that she missed my car by about a half a car length. She never slowed down.  That stretch of road is 50 MPH and she was speeding through the red light. If I didn't notice her she would have T-boned my car right where Mia was sitting. In the split second after I accelerated, I double checked the light to see that it was green.  It was green as a Sprite can. Somehow, the car behind me hadn't started driving forward. I saw them brake right as they saw the Oldsmobile flying through the intersection.  As soon as I hit the railroad tracks I could feel the adrenaline running through my body. I said a quick "Thank you God for protecting me" and then proceeded to think about how thankful I am that my girls and I were alive and not heading to the hospital.  I then yelled at them again. :) "This is why you can't fight in the car. If I were distracted and looking back at them we would have definitely been in a major accident."

So, after this post I'm going to tell you why I'm thankful for my wife and family. That way if I die anytime soon there's a record of it. The twins are half way to 20. Mia is halfway to 14. Time is flying by, and you really don't know when some 65 year old will be running a red light (so she's not late for church) and killing you in the process.  This doesn't even bring up the lock down we had at Diamond Ranch last Friday because of a phone threat. Nothing quite like hearing the helicopters and SWAT team landing on your roof when your locked in a dark classroom with 30 teenagers sitting quietly and praying that it's just an idiotic prank.

I'm glad I'm alive. If I die I hope my wife, children, family and friends know how much I love them and want the best for them in life.

Bike riding on the Horsetrail

I occasionaly think to myself I really need to blog...then I don't.  Then when I sit down to type something up I'm not sure where to start.  It doesn't help that I chicken peck, because then I can't type as fast as I think. Right now I'm cruising because I'm not worrying about typos and will spell check in a minute.  So here are my initial thoughts for blogging.  I need to write about Mia, her artistic abilities, the fun we've been having with biking etc., and Donuts for Dads.  I need to write about the girls past soccer season and the playoff game that I'll never forget. I need to back track and write about this past school year.  Inclusion and the presentations should be at the top of the list.  Gilberto and Deanna's presentation was awesome, and so was Briana and Herlyn's.  Okay now I need to reread that mess for fluency.

Alright I guess I'll start with Mia.  She is amazing. She drives me crazy. She's a little mini-me. Mia has to be a perfectionist and in control.  If she can't do it right she gets frustrated and doesn't want to do it at all.  Once it clicks, she really wants to focus on that one thing until she gets better at it.  Riding bikes is a perfect example.  Last week we went riding after she was done with school.  We rode along the Yorba Linda horsetrail.  We rode for miles.  I was on my skateboard and she was tooling along on her bike.  She had a couple of minor crashes but brushed them off and popped right back on.  She's improved a ton and she has asked to go biking every day since the day we started on the horsetrail.  She loves it.  When I tucked her into bed that night she said "I had a really fun day with you dad."  I had a really fun day too.  It was great having that one on one time.

The second day she rode her bike she said "I can't wait to go to Yosemite!  Maybe I will be good enough to ride my bike the whole time."  At her current level of obsession I think she will be. The only issues will be how tired she gets and how many people she runs over. The whole family is really looking forward to camping.  It comes up almost daily.  As in "how many more days before we go to Yosemite?"

Bucket List

These are things I would like to experience or witness before I die. This list is not in any particular order.

1. Travel to Hawaii with the family.

2. Travel to Europe with the family.

3. Watch the girls graduate from high school and hopefully watch them graduate from college.

4. Walk Grace, Sarah and Mia down the aisle on their wedding day. Hopefully this will be on different days because I'm pretty sure my heart wouldn't be able to take it all in the same day. I suppose I should preface this wish with the idea that my girls marry someone that has their lives figured out and that the girls have grown into young ladies that are already living fulfilled lives.

5. Attend Aryel's graduation from college.

6. That Aryel will someday meet the guy that she is meant to marry and that I can be there when she gets married.

7. See Dave Matthews, or U2, or Coldplay perform at Red Rocks.

8. Go to the Grand Canyon with the family.

9. Visit Elizabeth in New Jersey.

10. Win a poker tournament at a Casino.

11. Travel to the Rain Forest.

12. Go to Australia.

13. Camp in Yellowstone with the family.

14. Visit Uncle Tim in Louisiana.

15. Play Poker in Atlantic City.

16. Watch the Angels win another World Series and attend one of the games.

17. Travel to Alaska.

18. Travel to Canada.

19. Play in a World Series of Poker event.

20. Go River Rafting again.

I'm sure there is more that I have thought about in the past, so I will have to add to this list later. Apparently, I really want to travel.

My Bucket List post-completion.

John Dutton read a wish list that Lucy had written out on yellow legal paper. It included some memorable items. Some of the things I can remember: family trip to Hawaii, car for Liana and Mark, new car for Melissa, T.V. room in the garage, outdoor carpet around the pool, new mattress, nose job, and a trip to Scotland. John was hysterical as he went through the list, gesturing check marks in the air when the wishes had been met, and shaking his head "no" when they weren't. Gary cracked everybody up, on the mattress wish, as he bellowed out "Cuz' they wore that thing out!!"

It was a great list and it got me thinking that I should do the same thing. With the added wrinkle of listing my currently completed wishes. So here goes, in no particular order, but still numbered for simplicity's sake.

Post-completion list with commentary:

1. Fly an airplane. My parents paid for me to fly a Cessna when I was 15. I even got to take-it off which was pretty cool.

2. Sky dive. Tracey wasn't too keen on this idea, but I explained that I was going to do this at some point in my life. I went sky diving as part of my Bachelor Party. My comment to Trace was you can either have a dead fiancee or a dead husband.

3. Run a marathon. In 1995 I ran the Disneyland Marathon and finished in 3:10 or 3:11. I was running 6:45 pace for the first 22 miles. The my left calf muscle cramped up and I was a mess after that.

4. Get married. 1999

5. Buy a house. 2001

6. Have kids. March 26, 2002 Grace and Sarah. October 25, 2005 Mia. I often get asked if I wished I had a boy. It's not really something I even think about. The only weird deal is that I wished that the Anderson name would get passed down. Hopefully, one of my siblings can make that happen.

7. Stay married to the same woman. So far so good. Read the last post. I do feel like we have a great relationship.

8. Be a supportive father. You'll have to ask the girls this question later in life.

9. Become a teacher and coach. Sixteen years and counting, although I stopped coaching once Mia was born. Now I'm coaching girls soccer. I got a terrific compliment last weekend from Butch Cheliah. He said that I made a big difference in Payton last season. I helped instill confidence in her ability. She went on to score three goals in a game last week. As far as teaching is concerned, I was Teacher of the Year at Diamond Ranch in 2009. I now have a handful of students that are teachers and even some former students that are Doctors.

10. At one point in coaching, my goal was to win League in Cross-Country and Track. It took a little while for this to happen at Wilson, but when the Boys team won League in 2000 it was the first time in over 25 years, and that team went on to CIF Finals. My coaching goals changed as time went on. They went from wanting to be League champs, to CIF Champs, to State Champs. The best Cross Country finish was 3rd in CIF and 9th in State. My last year coaching Track we were 2nd in CIF. We had individual CIF and State Champions on more than one occasion. There are times I miss coaching, but I don't miss the countless hours that it took to compete at such a high level. At this stage, I would rather watch my kids play soccer on a Saturday afternoon.

11. Graduate from College.

12. Earn my Master's Degree.

13. Travel in Europe. I took a year off of school in 1994 and back packed around Europe on my own for three months. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I traveled to England, Wales, Ireland, North Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Spain, Monaco, France, and Belgium.

As I sit here and ponder my previous goals I can't really think of anything else major that I wanted to accomplish and have completed. I'm sure there were some other things that I had hoped for and then accomplished, but maybe not. This makes creating a future Bucket List all that more exciting. Hopefully, I'll type that up later today.

John and Lucy Dutton

Lucy Dutton passed away last week at the ripe old age of 81 years old. She was an amazing woman that brought joy to many different people. She was a wonderful wife, mom, friend and teacher. Her funeral was yesterday and the outpouring of love was perfect for someone so deserving. I probably first met Lucy and John the summer I first started dating Tracey in 1994. The Duttons had the kind of love for each other that someone like me strives for. As Melissa, Liana, and Mark eulogized Lucy yesterday it confirmed everything that I felt about this family already. Loving parents that wanted the best for their kids, and a couple that liked to have a good time. The kids talked about summers at the beach, parties in the backyard, and a mom that always went to their "gigs" even if they didn't want their mom there. Lucy was the life of the party. She had a way of making everyone feel welcome and a way of ensuring that everyone had a good time. I remember that same vivaciousness and in many ways it reminds me of Tracey. Tracey has a way of letting loose when it's time to have a good time. Which is pretty impressive for someone that is usually in bed by 9:00 most nights.

After the graveside service I had a chance to briefly talk with John. I waited awhile before I bothered him, but I had to tell him "thank you for setting such a wonderful example of a loving marriage." He had what I'm shooting for, I want to be married to Tracey in a loving relationship where we both grow old together and raise happy kids. He said "so far, it looks like you are heading in the right direction....people today forget that it takes compromise to make it work, they just give up when it gets too hard." Read that again in case you missed it. That's right, it turns out that sometimes relationships involve work...compromise. Today in church the message was about putting others needs before your own. People don't live that way today. I know...that's a total generalization, but seriously, if we thought about others before ourselves wouldn't that change our general perspective?

I've often said successful relationships aren't about finding the right person, but being the right person. In my life, my parents have been married seven times between the two of them. For me, that meant, a long time ago, that I had to figure out how to make it work in my relationships. "Picking the right person" is only a part of the equation. No one can fix you. I don't care what Coldplay says. There are people I wish I could fix, but my wife isn't one of them. I need to fix myself. I need to truly love others, put others first, think about how I can treat other people before being selfish. On a day to day basis, that means being there for my immediate family first. Then my students and coworkers. I need to be mindful of their needs. Obviously, I need to get my stuff together first, but I can't be so selfish that I don't think about what Tracey, Grace, Sarah, Mia, my mom, dad, etc. actually need. I can't fix anybody. But I can be that listening ear. The sounding board. Husband. Dad. Son. Teacher. Friend. The person that I need to be, depending on the situation.

I thank God, for the "Duttons" in my life. Even if they are few and far between. Thank you John and Lucy for setting the example of a truly meaningful realtionship. I can only pray that when I've been married to Tracey after 57 years I can crawl into her hospital gurney and envelope her with my love. Okay, I'll be honest, I hope it's me in the hospital bed first and Tracey is spooning my nearly lifeless body. And if it is, Tracey, can you please live for our kids and (future) grandkids. I'll see you soon enough. They still need you.