Aaron's Birthday and Trip in In the Meadow

Aaron had his 13th birthday on Saturday, May 19th. That Friday night we had a special birthday dinner for him. He wanted French Toast and eggs(!!??) He opened his presents from our family. He received a new bike, outdoor summer games, and X-Box games.

The following night he had a sleepover party. We had three boys staying over. The twins stayed the night with my husband’s parents, so the boys had the full run of the place. They had pizza for dinner and then birthday cake. Aaron has become a Cleveland Cavaliers fan and had a basketball-themed cake.

The boys played a lot of X-Box games. We limit him to the ones that have the Teen ranking, so they were not too graphic. Lights out was at 11:00, otherwise they would have played most of the night. I still don’t think they got much sleep, ha ha. There was a lot of talking in the room late into the night.

At the end of May, Aaron went on a trip with the seventh grade to New York City. Aaron has been on camping trips with Boy Scouts, but this was his first trip where he stayed in a hotel without us. The hotel was close to Central Park. He went to the American Museum of Natural History. They saw the dinosaur bones. This was definitely Aaron’s favorite part. They also saw an IMAX movie. The kids went on a tour of the Statue of Liberty. They went to One World, which is built on the World Trade Center site. There were two dinners at restaurants in Manhattan and one on a dinner cruise. We bought Aaron some khaki pants and shirts with collars for the dinners. The kids were supposed to be somewhat dressy. Aaron is a casual guy except for church, so we bought him some dinner clothes.

I shared a story with Aaron regarding his love of french toast. When I was a kid my uncle was stationed at an Air Force base in Upstate New York. They were living in an off-base housing area where most of the families were Air Force. I remember one of the fathers was sent on a one-year unaccompanied assignment to France. I was eleven or twelve and this was the extreme late stages of the Cold War. I remember being very worried that this meant we were going to war with France, and that we wouldn’t be able to have french fries or french toast anymore. I remember being very glad that we never did go to war with France. I had never told the kids this story and I think Aaron liked hearing it before he saw the Statue of Liberty.