Rowan in BosTEN

Roger and I decided to make turning ten an extra special occasion by taking the birthday kiddo on a special trip just the three of us. About 6 or so months ago, we asked Rowan to make a list of three places in the United States that he would like to visit. He chose Seattle, San Francisco and Boston. The second we saw Boston, both Roger and I agreed that was the spot. 

On 7/27, we woke up early! Grammy and Grampy were home with C & C and we were off to the airport with our birthday boy. 

We tried to keep the location a secret as long we could but as Rowan was helping us tag the luggage, he noticed BOS in big letter on the tags! He was really excited even though he had no idea what we were doing once we got there.

We checked into the Envoy Hotel near Boston Harbor. 

The hotel is kind of eclectic and Rowan loved the bean bag type thing in our room.

He also took a sweet birthday call from the O'Connor's who took time out of their vacation to wish him happy birthday! He felt so special! Thanks guys.

Row requested burgers for lunch so we went to Shake Shack.

We had a little time before our evening activity so we went exploring near the water.

Sweet boy.

We gave him this shirt to reveal the evening activity. He was over the moon excited. 

Fenway Park.. the nation's oldest ballpark!! So cool. 

The out side of the Green Monster!

For his souvenir of the trip, he chose a Boston Red Sox hat.

We arrived way early and got to watch batting practice.

I love this picture so much. This was such a special night with my boys. 

The Red Sox even pulled out a win over the Minnesota Twins. 

We spent Saturday exploring Boston and walking the Freedom Trail. We started in Boston Common which is thought to be the nations oldest urban park. 

The Massachusetts State House was right across from the park.

We stopped by the Granary Burying Ground where we got to see the burial place of John Hancock.

We learned about Peter Faneuil who was a wealthy colonist.

The cemetery was so old. 

Paul Revere's tomb.

Benjamin Franklin's parents are buried here.

Samuel Adams.

We visited several old churches along the route.  At Park Street Church, we got to sit in the box pews where the wealthy and influential people would sit.

Here at the Old South Meeting House, the colonists met to decide on what to do about the heavily taxed tea sent over by the British which ultimately resulted in what we know as the Boston Tea Party.

The Declaration of Independence was first read from this balcony.

Paul Revere's home.

The statue of Paul Revere reminds of his famous midnight ride to warn that the British soldiers were coming.

Old North Church

Rowan was about done with the tour at this point and we had almost finished so we stopped for some food. Roger and I had pizza, the birthday boy wanted gelato for lunch. He said it wasn't as good as Italy but still pretty good.

On our walk back we saw the bar that inspired the TV show Cheers.

Row picked up a few packs of cards.

We got dressed for Rowan's official birthday dinner at Mastro's Ocean Club.

He loved this pretzel bread and he also loved his steak.

Happy birthday Rowan Christian! 

On Sunday we made a little bit of a drive to Agawam, Massachusetts to go to Six Flags New England.

Rowan wanted to ride every single roller coaster, so we did! He was tall enough for everything. 

Back home after an amazing trip filled with special memories. Cruz is especially excited for his turn now. I really really hope the next twenty months go slowly. I don't think I'm ready for TWO ten year olds.

Cruz and Cora had such a special time with Grammy and Grampy. The loved that they each got a grandparent to themselves for playtime. They had a blast going to Chuck E Cheese, the Adventure Science Center, church, lots of restaurants and playing dollhouse, baseball, Wii and tons of other stuff.  I included a few random pics from their time together. 

Well that's a wrap on the big birthday celebration! It was so fun and special. I hope it meant as much to Rowan as it did too us. 

Rowan is TEN!!

Ten years old, double digits, two hands, whatever you want to call it, I can't believe that my little baby is TEN years old. We had the absolute best, over the top, full of fun birthday for our biggest guy. 

We did a good chunk of our birthday celebrating on 7/26, the day before Rowan's actual birthday.

Gee Gee sent Rowan twenty one dollar bills which he loved counting! 

Thank you Gee Gee!! 

He was so excited to find an item from his birthday list from the O'Connor's!

Plus a Target gift card and a sweet card handmade by his cousins! Thank you Uncle Nate, Aunt Amanda, Jade and Jemma!! 

Rowan got a fun box from Grammy & Grammy including some treats for his birthday trip, some Pokemon and baseball cards and.....

......

some cash!!! 

Rowan was super excited about this large sized gift from Aunty Jill and Uncle Jim.

And was even more thrilled to find it was the bat pack he'd requested. He has been using the same bat pack for baseball since he started t-ball at age 4! He was so very excited for this new, much larger bag. Thank you Aunty Jill and Uncle Jim.

Thank you so much for the card and the check, Linda! 

Leading up to his big birthday, Rowan made a birthday list and it had only three items on it. The first was a new bat pack for his baseball gear, the second was the game Bop It and the third was Under Armour catchers gear. The catchers gear is expensive and out the range of everyone's birthday budget so several family members sent Rowan cash to put towards the gear. Everyone was so generous that he ended up with enough left over for a new batting helmet and even some left after that. 

Thank you to Grandma, Grampy, Grammy, Gee Gee, Linda, Uncle Randy, Aunt Nicole for the cash to put towards this big gift and others too!

Rowan is especially excited because he just found out that he made a club/travel baseball team that he tried out for so he's excited to put this to extra good use! 

Rowan's gift from Rog and I was a special birthday trip, just the three of us (more coming in the next post) but I saw this MLB puzzle and couldn't resist picking it up for him. 

We've also had many occasions over the past year (and know there will be more to come this year) where we wished that Rowan had some way to get in contact with us. We are nowhere near ready to send him with a cell phone of any kind but I had heard about kid smart watches and we decided to get him one called the Gizmo Gadget designed for kids in his age group. Rowan is able to make calls to ten numbers (specified by us), he's able to text us (and specific numbers we allow) and it has a GPS tracker (so if he's out playing in the neighborhood, I can see where he is). As you can imagine, Rowan feels SO SO SO cool and SO old. It will be nice to be able to drop him at baseball practice knowing that if they end early or something happens, he has a way to reach us. 

Rowan picked Jason's Deli for his birthday dinner and was lucky enough to have some special guests join us....

Grampy and Grammy came to town to celebrate Rowan's birthday with us and also to take care of Cruz and Cora while we took Rowan on his special trip.

Rowan chose an amazing ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins with white cake and cookies and cream ice cream. It was yummy.

Happy happy TENTH birthday to our biggest boy. Rowan, you have such a sweet and caring heart. You love to be silly. You are helpful and dependable. You see tasks through to the end. You love Jesus, you love your family and you are so much fun. As you enter this next phase of growing up, I pray that you always know that you are created in the image of God, that following His Word is more important than following your friends and that working hard with a good attitude will get you far. We love you more than words, Row Bear!!!