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.