dd turning 13 soon.

I had a swim party at the local pool.

There's probably something you could surprise her with within the context of her telling you what she wants to do.  She wants to go shopping, maybe you drive the extra hour to the bigger town with the cooler mall.  She wants to go to the spa, you surprise her by stopping at Sephora first to pick out a cool new nail color.  Just some little element within the overall bigger day, kwim?

Took her to Taylor Swift.

My boy turns 13 later this month. Not sure about him.

In New Zealand, kids are often classed as 12 and under so on the last day DD was 12, we had Mc Donald's Happy Meals for dinner. DD is 16 now and still plays with the toy that came with that meal. It was fun.

I took our dd and 5 of her friends to a hotel/waterpark that is about 2 hours away. We went for an overnight with late checkout. We had a hotel room where my room was a upstairs loft. The room had 2 double beds/2 bathrooms and a fold out couch.

They all loved it! I ordered pizza's in and brought a large brownie (instead of cake). At about 11:30 p.m. I took all of their phones. They were texting each other. It was making me nuts. After that they were giggly 12/13 yr olds that chatted until about 1:15 a.m.

The following morning we had breakfast, then the waterpark and ice cream cones before we got in the car.

My sister in law and I took our girls to the beach for the weekend. My DD and two of hers share a birthday. It was a way to get them all in at the same time.

This year we're going to get mani/pedis and eat at the Cheesecake Factory. Girls' choice of activity and restaurant.

It was my daughters very first concert, just a few days before her birthday. It will be memorable to her. I enjoyed it much more than the 1989 one this summer. 

We didn't do anything special, but my friend's husband took their son and his best friend to a hockey game and stayed in a hotel in the area to celebrate his 13th birthday. They had dinner in the city and had a great time!

I have heard a lot of "experience" type of gifts for boys and girls 13th birthdays. Your ideas sound fun!

My DD's birthday is the 17th, too!

On her 13th, we went to Merle Norman for a makeup lesson. She loved it - I don't wear much makeup and wouldn't have made a very good teacher.

I rented a cabin in the woods and took 5 of her friends. There was a stream, and a hiking trail and a hot tub.

They had a great time. We had taco's for dinner and cake and ice cream, lots of snacks.

We did an Instagram scavenger hunt.. they had to do things like find a heart in nature, spell something (can't remember what ) with their bodies. They had a blast.

When DD turned 14, we went to Charming Charlie's. I worked with the manager to set up two of her employees to give a "tour" of the store, emphasizing what would work for high school and how to take a few wardrobe pieces and switch them around with accessories to change out the look. One of the teens did pageants and one was a really great dresser. I bought 10 $20 gift cards and gave each girl a gift card to spend when they were done. The group spent about an hour going through the store and the girls asked a lot about high school, as they were taking their HS tour in a few weeks.

The employees also did a little demo about scarf tying and talked a bit about homecoming vs prom dresses (in our town, girls wear short dresses for homecoming vs longer, more glitzy dresses for prom.) They had a pair of jeans, a skirt, a dress, a top and a jacket that they mixed and matched with scarves, tights, hats, bags, necklaces, etc to create different looks. I ended up buying the dress and jacket for DD. 3 years later, she still has both.

It's not a normal thing the store does, but the manager said she was submitting the idea to her corporate manager and took some photos. We had to do it on a weekday afternoon at the shift change so that they still had coverage for the store. But I thought it was a nice introduction for DD into her teen years. They didn't require me to buy the gift cards, but I thought it would me mean to show the girls all the fun stuff in the store and then not let them buy anything. With $20, they all could buy something.