Thursday, December 20, 2012

Happy Birthday, Davan!


 Sunday was Davan's 15th birthday.  Prior to her birthday, when she realized she'd be performing on her birthday, she was supper excited.  As it got closer and we were trying to figure out birthday plans, she realized that a party was going to be difficult with all of her friends being so busy with the performances.  Finally, we decided that she'd invite some of her fellow performers (particularly close friends, as, really, they are all her friends) over for lunch in between the two Sunday shows and then go out to dinner at a place of her choice with her dad and I.

Livia, a friend and fellow performer, spent the night Saturday night, so she joined us for breakfast Sunday morning.


Davan chose lemon poppy seed muffins, pomegranate and hot chocolate mint soy milk for her birthday breakfast.

Prior to breakfast, Livia had a chance to sleep in while Davan opened presents and Skyped with Lena.  The above drawing was one of Davan's presents.  See, her present from her Dad and I for both birthday and Christmas is getting to go to Switzerland.  However, I did draw her a that picture and we did make a contribution to Do Jump, which we were going to do anyway, and put it in her name as a birthday gift.

She still had this to open, though.


She got an iPod touch!  She'd been using mine whenever she got the chance so, when my parents asked what she'd like, I was quick to suggest this gift and they generously came through.  As they had it shipped directly here, being in Germany currently, I did the wrapping for them.  I also spent a couple of hours one day setting it all up for her so she had email, music, a few contacts and some geography related apps all ready to go.  She was very pleased.

Lena gave her a combination birthday and Christmas gift.  It's really cool!  It's an advent calendar with chocolate, cookies, daily notes, little gifts, slightly bigger gifts each day.  It's been so much fun for Davan.  On her birthday, she got this cute snowman, whom she named Amy.


After breakfast, it wasn't long before the girls went to Do Jump for call.  I got to work making lunch and cupcakes for the hungry teens scheduled to descend upon the house between shows.  Ranger got busy stealing a cupcake off the table when Anthony was in the shower and I was changing.  I guess at least it was only one.

When the group arrived, I was surprised to see that it was larger by one person than expected.  As the group was heading our way, they passed by Gwen who was all by herself without lunch plans.  Davan quickly invited her to come along.  She likes Gwen, but doesn't know her all that well, and thus didn't invite her originally.  I was very happy she did end up inviting her, but we had a last minute scrambling for an extra chair and napkin.  I think we were able to be pretty smooth about it.


For the run of the show, the cast and techies are doing a secret pal thing.  Davan has yet to get anything from her pal, but many people made up for that on Sunday by flooding her with things from hand drawn cards to a box of cookies all day.  She had so much fun!


In fact, at the end of the show, each of the cast members shares a hope they have.  These vary from a little frivolous, hoping for snow this year, to pretty serious, hoping for gay marriage to be legalized everywhere because all love should be okay, but all are great.  Davan for the day, switched from one of the more serious hopes "I hope that it is possible to have a sustainable world in which extreme poverty is completely eliminated," to "I hope that everyone has a birthday as great as mine was today." 

Audience members are encouraged to write down their hopes to be added to the wall of hope in the lobby.  Here are Davan and Tanner checking out the wall after the shows on Sunday.


After this, the three of us went to VegiThai for dinner, where they gave us a free appetizer plus one free dish for Davan's birthday.  We do eat there pretty regularly, but this was particularly sweet of them.

Davan said that it ranks as one of her two all time favorite birthdays, the other one being last year's 24 hour bash.  I'm so pleased it was a good one for her.

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