First off… I misnumbered yesterday’s post – so today is 50 – the 1/2 way point.

Today also happens to be my son Peter’s 18th Birthday and I’m truly a lucky guy to have him as my son. He’s everything I would want a son of mine to be if I were writing out my goals as a parent. I mentioned my family in Day One, but they each deserve their own day of me explaining exactly WHY I’m grateful to have them in my life.

Just yesterday Peter won the Skills USA contest in Technical Drafting for the State of Texas. Or as he puts it “I’m the best technical drafting high school student in Texas!”. I like the sound of that. He’s looking at a career in Mechanical Engineering and he truly has both a gift and a passion for the engineering field. I’m happy that he’s found something he loves to do and I know that no matter what he does, he’ll be great at it.

His High School Marching Band (Cedar Park High School) won third place in Texas and 10th in the Country this year with an absolutely amazing marching show. He was a “Drill Instructor” in the band’s leadership structure. Nationals took place in Indianapolis.

He’s applied to three colleges and got into all three. Southern Methodist University (SMU), Texas A&M, and The University of Texas at Austin. SMU is his first choice and so far he’s gotten over $100,000 in scholarship money, and we’re hoping for another $50,000. He’s busting his butt filling out scholarship applications so he can go to his first choice school, which is 10 times more expensive than the other schools which we’d prepared to pay for. We have great confidence that he’ll attain his goals – he usually does when it’s something he really wants.

He works part-time at H.E.B. (a large grocery store chain here in Texas) as a checker and as his very competitive nature would have it, he has one of the fastest scan rates in the store. Whatever he does, he tries like hell to do it better than anyone else.

Peter is fun, funny, handsome (looks just like me at his age – so I’m biased), compassionate and a very, very intelligent kid. As with all three of my boys, I would like him, even if he wasn’t mine.

Today is for you, Peter. I love you with all my heart and I’m proud of the young man you’ve grown into and can’t wait to see all of the successes that come your way as an adult.