Happy Birthday Min!

After 29 wondrous years of living, I still cannot fathom how Min ( my sister) and I are SO different, but yet we came from the same womb. We even look different - so many friends and classmates who've met us in the streets and couldn't believe we're sister. It's funny that they think we're just friends. Even funnier when they find out we're sister and think she's the older one. Lol!

I'd say, if I could choose to start my life over again, I wouldn't change a single thing. There are truly times when I really wanted to rip Min's head off, like the many times in our childhood when she rattled to my grandmother of our plans to sneak out and play while she went to take her shower, or the times when she'd like to scream as if she got scalded by boiling water when anyone so much as accidentally bumped into her while playing (don't even remember Min screaming this loud when she got all four of her wisdom teeth extracted), or the times in our pre teens when we would fight over the phone, or fight over clothes, bags, shoes - anything we could think of to fight over, we did.

But all this is nothing compared to some of the funniest and most embarrassing moments we've been through together too. Creating our big playhouse with the sofa cushions and having tea inside, playing little mermaid with the patchwork blankets my grandmother made us which we still keep till today, how she almost ate a cockroach egg because she thought it was a chocolate that fell under the washing machine, how in most of my grandfathers birthday pictures everyone looks at the camera while she look at the cake (for her benefit, it really did look like a chocolate). When her lips shiver and her teeth chatter when she cries. The crazy confessions of our boyfriends (the most memorable being "Messiah boy") that we laugh over and poke fun at now, how the nicknames skitty and yeast were birthed, when we bugged my mother to take us for ear piercing but she chickened out after one ear was pierced and she didn't want to do the other cos it was too painful and the doctor ended up having to chase her round his desk. When she started on braces at 13 and had perfect teeth for a while until they went back to their original state because we didn't do the retainer program (never too late to start again btw!). So on and so forth. The list goes on!

I personally think it's a huge misunderstanding, but as we all got older, my parents probably thought that we like to spend our birthdays with our friends and boyfriends, so they stopped celebrating. Much to Min's disappointment of course. This year, I got news from the grapevine that she was going to just go out with my Mum for dinner if we all "forgot" her birthday again.

I love my family a lot even though we don't show it or express it that much to one another. We know we love one another and will be there for each other. I trust my sister. I know she will do her best for me in everything and vice versa. The proverb "Blood is thicker than water" is proven to me time and again in different seasons of my life. The latest being our wedding. So when I heard that she was prepared to be let down on her birthday, something stirred in my heart. I felt sad that she felt neglected, even forgotten and there was a part of me that really wanted to protect her from feeling that way. She is after all my younger sister. So I decided that this year would be a great birthday for her and I wanted her to feel special. She is anyway, to me.

We all started a string of emails discussing and deciding on what we should get her. We agreed on a big seafood dinner (suggestion from my dad), and a watch as her present. She's been wearing her current watch for over 10 years now, and it's all scratched. Yet she never thought to ask for a new one. This incident showed and taught me as well that everyone in my family's truly willing to drop everything we're doing to come to the "rescue" of one. And that's incredible! We arranged a time and place to meet up to buy her present together - Mum, Julien, Andy (Min's boyfriend) and I. It was a really good way to get to know each other better too. Andy's been pretty reserved usually, and he takes a longer time to warm up to someone new, but he's starting to be a little more chatty and more himself after that day. It was a really good day! We all even had dinner together after. This was the watch we bought for her. Without the diamonds of course.
The plan was to get Andy to take Min out for the day, and come evening to take her to the dinner place at east coast by the beach where we would all be, for her first surprise. What an event! The precious look on her face when she saw us all as we screamed "SURPRISE!" was priceless! The next surprise for her came when we presented her the box all nicely wrapped up for her. It was funny because when my aunt saw it, she thought it was make up products that we bought based on how it was wrapped. My dad thought it was the cake! Lol! When she finally unwrapped her box and saw the balmain logo, she didn't believe it. She thought we were playing a prank on her and that it was just chocolates in the box. Another big surprise for her when she saw the watch. So we had a great dinner as a big family, and towards the end, we came out with her cakes singing her the birthday song. I said cakes because, we bought 8 tiny cakes and put a candle in them each. We figured it's easier to have a small cake each after dinner then to buy a big cake and wonder what to do after with the leftovers. =) Overall, a huge success and one very happy little sister! It made me feel really good on the inside.

HAPPY 28th BIRTHDAY MIN! Hope you enjoyed your surprise birthday party we all put together for you to remind you how SPECIAL you are to all of us!