Rowen Turns Six | Kemah Boardwalk | Houston, TX
We are currently in February 2022, so naturally I am just now getting to Rowen’s blog post that I meant to write LAST summer! Typical working-Mom life fashion. As Forest Gump said, “It happens.” (Will come back to him later.) Nevertheless, my son Rowen turned six this past August, and what a special birthday it was for him.
We decided to combine his birthday celebration with our first ever family vacation. Rowen is crazy nuts about all things space, so we were recommended to take him to the NASA Space Center in Houston and Kemah Boardwalk. We planned out three full days of family fun and adventure.
Day One: Kemah Boardwalk
After the five hour drive from DFW we arrived in Kemah, TX. We stopped for a bite to eat at Tookie’s, then went and explored the Kemah Boardwalk. There is something about a beach town that has carnival rides on a pier overlooking the ocean.. like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel. What a lovely area it was (despite loads of construction at the time.)
We walked around the boardwalk and I took Rowen’s annual birthday photos. My boy Rowen LOVES summer, so having his photos taken here near the beach only seemed fitting. There was even a sign outside a restaurant that read “Happy Birthday” on it that we HAD to document! After the photos we spent the rest of the evening riding the boardwalk rides.
Day Two: NASA
The second day was Rowen’s birthday, which meant it was NASA day! The kids got dressed in their matching t-shirts, and we headed to the space center for a full day of fun! When I say “full” I mean FULL! I think we were there for nearly seven hours! There was an insurmountable amount of things to see and do there! One of our favorite things was to ride the tram and go see the largest and most powerful rocket in the world! For reference, it was bigger than the Statue of Liberty, and took about five minutes to walk from one end of the rocket to the other.
We also got to see the building where astronauts train, and engineers build space equipment. Getting to witness machinery being built that will soon be launching into space was really neat! SpaceX even had a rocket on display that had been launched into space twice! How neat it was to stand underneath something like that!
After our busy day at the Space Center, we went to dinner at the Aquarium Restaurant. The kids enjoyed seeing the fish swim, and Rowen got to choose his own special dessert. He opted for the Rice Krispie treat that he got to paint himself. Once dinner was over we headed back to the Kemah Boardwalk and rode more rides.
Day Three: Galveston
Our final day of our trip we drove to Galveston, TX. What a beautiful day it was! The kids spent hours playing in the water, kicking the soccer ball, and managing to cover their entire selves with sand. (What a treat it was to clean that up!) We ended our fun-filled beach day at Bubba Gump for dinner. (Cue my creative segue circling back to Forest Gump here.)
A simple vacation, yet filled with so much fun and good times. Rowen had the best time of his life, and this is one of those moments that I hope he remembers forever. Getting to photograph him somewhere new and somewhere he loved was the perfect way to document him at his current age.
I always tell my parent friends how important it is to photograph your child at every age, because they grow up so dang fast! I knew this was going to be the last time I took photos of Rowen before he lost his first tooth, and his smile would change forever. As he continues to grow taller every year, and lose a little bit of baby fat, and grow into his own person, looking at these photos will always remind me what a precious soul he is.
-I will remember how much he loves summer, and being in the sunshine.
-How he ate nearly an entire watermelon at the beach.
-The huge smile on his face as his toes touched the sand.
-His anxiousness as we rode the swings up into the air, looking out into the dark ocean below us.
-How excited he was when he won a stuffed pineapple at the boardwalk.
-Dancing to “Footloose” with a cup of ice cream in his hand.
-My sweet, now six year old boy, who will forever have my heart.
Even though you are now halfway to seven, Happy sixth Birthday Rowen! Mommy, Daddy and Auden love you so much!
xoxo, Mommy
[…] near the ocean, which suited him well considering he LOVES the beach! You can see that blog post here. This year, since we don’t live next to the ocean, lakeside was our next best option. There is […]