THINGS TO DO BEFORE I GO

Eve

Knit a sweater | Be conversational in 3 languages: 1. English, 2. Spanish, 3. Sign Language? | Walk on the Great Wall of China | Grow berries for my little boy | Learn to throw a pot | Adopt a shelter dog | Live car free for one year | Have a roadside stand | Teach yoga | Grow a fruit tree and make pie from the fruit | Have a family portrait taken | Teach Cheeks to read | Hike the Continental Divide Trail with Cody | Have a big wedding anniversary party | Drink a glass of local wine in each of the World’s top 10 wine producing countries: 1. United States (Monterrey, CA) | Live in a foreign country for one year | Ride The Orient Express | See all of the U.S. National Parks: Arches, Biscayne, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Cuyahoga Valley, Dry Tortugas, Everglades, Grand Canyon, Great Sand Dunes, Haleakala, Hawaii Volcanoes, Mesa Verde, Petrified Forest, Shenandoah, Theodore Roosevelt, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion | Learn to bake bread | Drink a Guinness at the brewery in Dublin | Visit all 50 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming | Do 10 consecutive pull-ups | Go on a safari | Become an early riser | Take riding lessons | Run a 5k and a 10k | Hike the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim | Live in a little house by the ocean | Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower | Make my own wine | Grow my hair long and donate it (again) when I cut it off | Learn to play an instrument | Go barefoot for one week | Travel through the Panama Canal | Kiss the Blarney Stone | Travel through the Australian bush country | Sew a pair of pedal pushers for Cheeks | Learn to can veggies and fruits | Potty train Cheeks | Get my health issues in hand | Throw a surprise party | Feel like I have a “home town” | Make a snowman with Cheeks | Pick wildflowers for our table | See a lion in the wild | Watch Cheeks play in the ocean | Have an ink and paper pen-pal | Teach Cheeks to ride a bike | Sing karaoke with friends in a bar | See 25 of the World’s most awesome archeological sites: 1. Chaco Canyon (New Mexico), 2. Mesa Verde (Colorado) | Eat a curry in India | Make our home beautiful | Sew a shirt I’ll wear out in public | Participate in a flash mob | Have an outdoor shower | Do one thing from Cody’s Life List (that isn’t on my Life List) with him | See the North East U.S. in the fall | Summit 5 fourteeners: Pikes Peak, Mt. Evans| Take Cheeks canoeing | Crochet an afghan | Have a fireplace/woodstove | Decorate our home with our own art and photos | Institute a monthly “date night” | Make a terrarium | Ride a cable car in San Francisco | Subscribe to a newspaper | Cherry blossoms in D.C | Have great posture | Ride in a hot air balloon | Take a train to Canada | Be debt-free | Ride a camel | Sponsor a child | Attend a party where there is a bowl of punch | Go to a Pittsburgh Steelers Superbowl | Research and put together a family tree | Skinny-dip | Follow a band through an entire tour | Keep a photo journal for one year | Throw a dart at a map and go there | Have a family caricature done | Blow glass | Read all 100 books on the Modern Library’s Greatest Books List: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, 1984 by George Orwell, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Animal Farm by George Orwell, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Call of the Wild by Jack London, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy | Send a message in a bottle | Order “the usual” in a neighborhood restaurant | Lie on the ground in a grove of giant sequoias and look up | Go to a World Cup game | Bike the Underground Railroad Trail | Go on a Jane Austin tour |

Cody

Visit all 50 U.S. States, 10 Canadian Provinces, and 3 Canadian Territories | Throw a boomerang and have it return | Go inside Dick Proenneke’s Cabin | See all of the U.S. National Parks: Arches, Biscayne, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Cuyahoga Valley, Dry Tortugas, Everglades, Great Sand Dunes, Haleakala, Hawaii Volcanoes, Mesa Verde, Theordore Roosevelt, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion | Be debt-free | Spend a spring and summer in a lake house with a dock | Restore an automobile | Become a proficient speed driver | Become a proficient off road driver | Be comfortable riding a motorcycle | Be conversational in a language other than English | Learn to wrench my own ride | Know how to cook and host 3 meals/dinner parties (soup to nuts) | Be holistically fit | Play campfire guitar | Learn to saber open a champagne bottle | Know and use three good magic tricks | Volunteer after a disaster | Take Elliott some where his friends will probably never go | Get lost with Eve in a hut on a beach | Take a picture of each of the 7 summits | Learn to punch a speed bag | Earn a blue belt in Jiu Jitsu | Eat only food I’ve grown or scavenged for one month | Have six pack abs for one summer | Build a building from scratch | Build Elliott a go-kart that requires welding | Find a way to live without spending more time in a cubicle | Navigate an off trail, multi-day hike with only a map and a compass | Compete in a Foosball tournament | Speak at a major conference | Create a mini-library for Elliott | Make a mixed tape for Elliott | Visit all 7 continents: North America, Australia, Antarctica | Visit all the world’s major mountain ranges | Build a snow fort with Elliott | Teach Elliott to drive a stick | Live in the city | Live in another country (not Canada) | Learn to surf | Ride a wave on a skim board | Attend the biggest parties I can think of: Burning Man, Mardi Gra, Carnival, Ocktoberfest, Running of the Bulls, Holi, New Years Eve in Times Square | Cross the Prime Meridian (preferably where it meets the equator) in a boat | Run a marathon | Become a ham radio operator | Learn to fly | Rappel (outside) | Zip line | Take a raft/camping trip | Hike the Arizona Trail | Get a beach tan (not farmers) | Go on an off road expedition | Visit the highest point and the lowest point in the continental U.S.| Read: 10 books written more than 100 years ago, 10 modern classics, 10 non-fiction, 10 current best sellers | Ride a Japanese bullet train | Visit the new 7 Wonders of the World | Get something named after me | Finally get my planned tattoos | Rock a mohawk | Have a dog for a pet | Take a good time lapse picture | Snowshoe | See New England in the fall | Know one band inside and out |Make a good large-batch drink | Start a fire without matches | Learn and remember 5 good literary quotes | Point out constellations and tell their stories | Warm a bunch of cold campers | Learn 5 useful knots | Know the neighborhood birds and trees | Learn CPR (child and adult) | Cut down my own Christmas tree | Build a makeshift wilderness shelter with Elliott | Understand hockey and soccer | Go to a New York Football Giants Superbowl | Protest or take action on something I’m passionate about | Do a hand stand for 15 seconds | Publish something I’ve written (magazine, newspaper, or journal) | Give Granite Peak Enterprises an image makeover | Win a halloween costume contest | Teach something | Be a mentor to someone | Hang a world map, pin all of the places I’ve been and places I want to go | Host a haunted house for the neighborhood kids | Freelance | Go on unemployment | Be semi-retired by age 50 | Go on a motorcycle trek | Go on a safari | Skydive | Run for an office | Fund raise for something I believe in | Put on the at-home Fourth of July firework display of the century | Visit the fire station where Jack Kerouc wrote Darma Bums | Eat Indian food in India | Learn to make the Nepalese Lady’s soy chai | Buy something at auction | Be a VIP at a concert | Organize an event | Have a house built, exactly how we want it | Drive a super car(Lamborghini Murcielago)