Colby and I with matching watch birthday presents from our mom.
I’ve explained before how my sister and I have a shared birthday. She was born on my sixth birthday, to be exact, and every year we do something extra-special to celebrate – just me, Colby and my mom. My mom’s sobriety birthday is actually the day before our shared birthday (she went to rehab when I turned five), so it’s a special time for her as well. We’ve done memorable things in the past like traveling to New York and going to Disneyland. The last couple years, we’ve been all about seeing awesome shows like CATS and Cavalia.
This Year’s Shared Birthday
This year we took the boys and went to see Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon LIVE Spectacular. I loved the movie, but I’m really not sure what I was expecting from the show. I’ve had pretty bad experiences with movie-to-stage shows in the past, and I had visions of some sort of Chinese New Year puppet dragon weaving around the stage.
Obviously, I was way wrong. The show featured dozens of animatronic dragons that were larger than life. If I didn’t know better, I truly would have believed that dragons were taking over the Honda Center. Random, but I have to share this: when we arrived for the show, Colby asked if it was named “Honda Center” because this is where they keep all the Hondas. I don’t think she’ll ever live that one down.
There were screens all over the wall and floor that sucked viewers into this magical dragon world with amazing effects. Some Boy was a little freaked out by the fire-breathing dragons, and it took a bit of explaining to get him to understand that these creatures weren’t going to hop up into the audience and eat him alive. Once he settled down, he actually stayed alert and engaged with the whole show. He was fascinated by the cute story of Hiccup, the accidental dragon-whisperer. Even Sidekick stayed awake and smiled in the direction of the stage throughout the two-hour event, staring at all the lights and the dancing segments. If you haven’t seen it, you totally should.
My mom got me the most amazing chocolate raspberry cake from Whole Foods. I’ve been working my way through it for the last couple of days.
Now that I’m older and have my own family I make a point to do the shared birthday thing with my sister the day before our actual birthday, and then have a day to celebrate with Nate and the kids on my own. Nate asked what I wanted this year and I told him all I’ve been wishing for is a nice, low-key day. It’s been awhile since we’ve had one of those. So that’s exactly what I got! We visited a friend’s farm and Some Boy had a blast chasing her chickens around the coop. Then we met up with another friend in town for lunch and I got my favorite bacon tacos at Rubio’s.
Oma surprised me with a TON of gardening supplies! I’m getting ready to plant our spring garden and I’m so excited to start working the ground out back.
I ended the night with some baby-holding in my comfy couch spot by the fire after Nate tended to the kids for awhile so I could do some laundry and unpack a few more boxes. I know it sounds lame, but I really just wanted to get the house in order so I can finally start enjoying the space here and checking off some of the other things on my to-do list.
Do any of you have a shared birthday? How do you celebrate your special day?
This post is sponsored by Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon.
Chelsea
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Happy birthday! I love those shots from the Dragon show.
I don’t share a birthday, but I have twin sisters and my mother and uncle always shared their celebration growing up (they were less than a week apart). I once asked my sisters if it bothered them having to share their “special day”, and they said it honestly didn’t and opened up some cool possibilities.
Did you ever feel bothered having to “share” growing up?
I’ll admit that I wasn’t thrilled about it that first year when I was told that my birthday party was postponed because my baby sister was born! Haha. But after that, it was really fun. We’ve always been able to do something bigger and more special to celebrate the two of us than we would if we were just celebrating one at a time. It’s always been a blast having double slumber parties and coming up with game ideas that a big group of kids could participate in.