Birthdays, Birthdays, and more Birthdays and 4th of July

Good Evening!

This past weekend was full PACKED with fun activites, family, and friends! Since it was a three day weekend (yay for 4th of July!) we were able to do much more than on a normal weekend!

Last Monday, Cam turned 21 FINALLY! We celebrated that night with some good old fashioned pizza, beer, and red velvet cake..Cam's fave. He opened my gifts (a money clip, cologne, and DIY bottled candy) and enjoyed a relaxing evening together! This night was pretty low key because we were planning the big celebration for Friday when we went to...

...the casino! We started off the night with a gormet buffet dinner (buy one get one free, compliments of Kauffman Stadium) in which Mark and Michelle, (Cam's dad and step-mom) met my parents! It went to well and everyone got along just great, which means all engines are officially a go for our future plans :)

Some of Cam's good friends from High School, and some friends from college were also able to join us for the actual gambling part of the night, which was so exciting to see everyone there to celebrate!

We went in and it was like a foreign land to me! Granted, I have never been to Vegas or any place even close to it, but Harrah's in KC was huge in my eyes! There were two levels of different gambling machines, and I was overwhelmed with where to even begin! By the end of the night, I broke even and even made $2, however the story was not the same for poor Cameron, who lost a total of $60! :( It was a fun night though and he got to enjoy it with great company!

YAYAY, Happy 21st Bub!! :)

On Saturday, we made our way to Manhattan to celebrate Shelbi's 21st! But first, we made a stop in Topeka at Cam's parents house to celebrate his birthday, his sister's birthday (July 4th is her b-day) and his sister, Carmen's graduation party! It was great to see his family and bond in their FABULOUS backyard (sorry I don't have pictures, words just doesn't do this place justice, you just have to see it, they have done so much work on it and it's awesome!) I didn't take any pictures, but I do have this one..

 Jill is SUCH a teacher, is she not? We had a lot of fun seeing his family and bonding over birthdays and graduation!

We then headed to Manhattan. As you all know, we have been working hard to get our house in Manhattan decorated and ready for the school year to begin! However, we had enough stuff in there to cost a party on Saturday night to celebrate! We started the night off at Houlihans with all these wonderful people...

...and it was here where Shelbi got to see her infamous shot book!

...which she loved! After Houlihans we went back to our house for a relaxing evening of hanging out with friends and celebrating Shelbi's 21st!!!! On Sunday morning Shelbi and Ethan bought donuts for everyone and we bonded over breakfast and how much fun we are going to have this next year!!!

4th of July finally rolled around and we had plans to hang out at the pool and barbecue with my extended family. I decided to make some festive choclate dipped strawberries for the occasion!

Mmmmmm, they were delicious if I do say so myself!

For fireworks, we met up with D and AJ and watched them from the JCCC parking lot!

Kimmy joined too!

Cuties :) :)

It was a great night with great family and friends and there is just something so romantic about fireworks :)

WHOOOOOOOAAAA, what a jam packed post!! I hope you all enjoyed it and you have such a wonderful work week!

Until then,

Brittany

PS: I forgot to update you on the most important portion of the weekend...

...I purchased a new phone! It's a white Blackberry Torch and so far so good with it! I really like it, but I'm sure there will come a point in time that I hate it, and when it comes, I will certainly let you know!

High School Memories

So after a friend texting me about a show we did in high school (which prompted all of this foolishness I am getting ready to say) I decided it would be interesting to watch some cast interviews from numerous shows I was in. I look back on it and laugh at a few things that I will share with you.

1. I cannot believe I was so heavily involved in productions. This is no longer a part of my life, and it is crazy to look back and think that all of my high school years were spent living and breathing theatre. I know my high school experience would not have been the same without theatre, but it seems so weird to me know what an important part of my life it was!

2. When in high school, I remember looking back on home videos of my junior high self and I CRINGED because of how immature I was at age 14. Well now, I look back on my high school years and CRINGE because of how immature I was then! I remember thinking I was HOT STUFF in high school, but in reality,  I was still annoying and immature. Hopefully five years from now I won't look back on my 21, almost 22 year old self and think the same things!

I also got to looking through some old pictures, and although I know posting these pictures of me in shows will be humiliating for me, I will take one for the team so you can all get a good laugh. The red lipstick is atrocious, the costumes are hideous, the hairstyles are out of control, and I was SOOO SKINNY it's disgusting! But alas, here are the much anticipated pictures. Enjoy!

Hopefully your laughter is now under control...great memories in these pictures, but I would not want to go back to those years! Have a wonderful 4th and there will be an upcoming post of my birthday weekend festivities!

Until then,

Brittany

I Can Hear the Bells and Boyers Tradition

Good Evening Friends!

What a weekend! I hope you survived the 95 degree weather today and that you have cooled off since mid-afternoon! I had a weekend full of wonderfullness, the biggest news being one of my absolute best friends in the whole entire world is ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although I knew it was coming, when I saw her the same excitement and emotions overwhelmed me and I couldn't help but scream like a little girl and give her the hugest hug in the world! I was soooo proud of Ethan (her now fiance, that still sounds so weird!) for pulling everything off. He had every detail planned and he fooled her GOOD! (She thought they were spending the weekend in KC, but instead he made a pit-stop in Manhattan to propose first :) As I watched them this weekend, I saw their love illuminating. They have always been a fabulous couple, don't get my wrong, but this weekend there was something different. There was a twinkle in her eye, and he looked at her adoringly. It was so cute for me to watch them together and I can only hope that I have that same look someday :)

ENGAGED WITH A RING AND ALL!!!!!!

See, isn't she just glowing?!?!?! I'm so lucky to call her a best friend :) :) :)

Since I have a recent obsession with blogging, I have found tons of great blogs to follow and gain ideas from. I follow a blog called "Your Cup of Cake" and it is full of fabulous cupcake recipes! I was just yearning to make cupcakes for something, so Shelbi and Ethan's engagement was the perfect opportunity! When they got into town, I greeted them with...

...chocolate banana cupcakes with a peanut butter icing! They were mighty good if you ask me, but I cannot take credit for the recipe. (At this point, if I was a tech savvy girl I would post a link to the blog where I got this recipe, but my name is Brittany Boyers, so I will just reference the site and you can go to it if you so desire :) Your Cup of Cake is the name of the blog!

Shelbi has also never bought a wedding magazine (...I wish I could say the same for myself, whoops!) so of course I had to purchase a few wedding magazines for her to get started with this fun process that is ahead!

^^^^^^Pretty artsy right? RIGHT.^^^^^^

We spent most of Friday and Saturday morning catching up and talking about the proposal, and then went to an authentic KC barbecue place for lunch, and then off we headed to a Royals game Saturday night!

We met up with Allison and her brother, Will, when we got to the game! We were definitely enjoying some sun rays at this time, yikes it was hot there for a while!

AH the happy couple! I spy a pretty, gorgeous, shiny ring!!!

My sweet boy :) :) :)

After the game some other friends came over to see Shelbi and Ethan and we played a game of Z-Ball which is basically the best game ever! It is played on a pool table and it is super easy to learn and way intense. However, it can be dangerous, so be cautious as you play ;)

Today, we tackled moving my big stuff up to Manhattan. I am going to attempt to re-create these situations that occured today to you, however I will probably fail miserably. As you read, try and create a mental image of my family participating in these events.

We rented a Uhaul, and thus begins the Boyers tradition. We cannot go ANYWHERE without having some sort of drama. Someone is running late, someone is sick, someone is mad, someone is frustrated, someone is lost, something doesn't go according to plan, etc. etc. etc. So why would I think that a simple trip to Manhattan would be any different than any other trip we have taken? It took us literally an hour to load everything into the Uhaul, and all we had was 2 couches, a TV cabinet, a desk, and some random knick knack crap. Oh wait, 2 couches you ask? Why do you need TWO couches? Welllll, of course the couch I wanted to put in the house was most likely too small to fit through our small, old fashioned doorways. So we spent an hour loading TWO couches into the Uhaul on the off chance that the first one would not fit. Okay, stick with me, now the story gets really good.

We finally arrive to Manhattan, and it is the hotest, most humid day KC has seen in a month, topping at 95 degrees. We take the preferred couch out of the Uhaul and attempt to get it through the back door. It goes through that doorway pretty easily, however we sat with the couch in the kitchen for about 30 minutes strategizing the best way to fit it into the family room. My father, being the brilliant engineer taht he is, decides we should flip the couch vertical so that we can turn it and try and slide it into the room. Good idea in theory, but not when you have my dad and Cameron, and two weak, not work horse women like my mother and myself. My dad ends up getting trapped on our stairway and is hidden from view of everyone else. He is yelling orders at us trying to get the couch turned the right way to get the dang thing into the room. Everyone is now hot and sweating and my father threatened to take his shirt off, so that was our cue to hurry up and get this couch in before things got real awkward! Seriously, after about an HOUR of this, we managed to slide the couch into the room. We then spent 15 minutes talking about what we should have done, and what we should do in the future to get the thing back out of the house! (That will be another adventure that will be discussed later).

Here the couch is in the room. Next time you see this couch, please remember this little story I just told and the absolute TURMOIL we went through to get it into the stinking house!!!

Overall, it was a FABULOUS weekend with so many great memories!! I can't wait to start wedding planning with Shelbi, and I can't wait to use the new couch in our house in like a month and a half!! Have a wonderful week!

Until then,

Brittany

Not Enough Hours in a Day

It is 11:16 and there were about a million things I was supposed to get done after work today and I accomplished two things, and they weren't even that fun.

1. I looked for a new phone. If you know me at all, you know this was not a fun adventure. I hate getting new phones. I get so frustrated with learning how to use them, and I almost never like the new phone better than the old one. But, my phone sucks and my dad pretty much forced me out the door to look at them, so I did. And I found one...it's decent, not my favorite, but it will have to do. This phone will be purchased soon...ick.

2. I cleaned my room. Another unfortunate way to spend my Thursday night. I am moving half of my bedroom to my new bedroom in Manhattan, so there was junk sitting everywhere because of the in-between stage I am currently in. Beyond this, I have friends coming from out of town this weekend (I am SOOOOOO EXCITED FOR THEM TO BE IN KC!!!!) so I needed to clean so they could actually get in and out of my room. GRRR. It's done, and you can once again see the floor which is always a good thing.

I did accomplish those two things, but there was still so much more I needed to get done!! Outfits for a photo shoot need to be chosen, birthday gift wrapping needed to be done, ingredients for cupcakes needed to be bought, Royals tickets needed to be purchased, ick and so much more. Good thing tomorrow is Friday and I might have a little bit of time to accomplish some of these things before my friends get into town. The next post will be so exciting because it will recap my weekend which currently looks like it will consist of cupcakes, cute lunches, Royals games, fun photoshoot, and moving!! So you know what that means...STAY TUNED!!

Until then,

Brittany

Happy Father's Day!!

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Father's Day so far! We are getting ready to do dinner somewhere (BBQ is Dad's favorite, so I'm sure that's where we will end up :) I hope you all are fortunate enough to find some time to spend with your dad today. I am so blessed to have such an incredible father figure placed in my life. My dad is devoted, steady, loyal, truthful, strong, selfless, giving, generous, hard working, and humble. He has always set such a great example of what it means to live a godly life and has shown me how a real man treats a woman. I am so glad he is in my life and that today, we get to celebrate him!! Enjoy this picture montage and have a fabulous Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all you dads!! :)

Until then,

Brittany

Day Date

Cam and I haven't been on a legitimate date in a while forever, so we decided to go on a day date today! We had lots of fun plans, however not everything went exactly according to plan. My dear friend, Kayla, blogged about a delicious looking pizza place called Blue Grotto in Brookside. It had fabulous outdoor seating, so we decided to give a go.

We are boring and ordered a pepporoni pizza, but it was delicious!

Although the above pictures make the outdoor seating look FABULOUS, we found this to be not necessarily true today. We sat down around 11:15 to eat, and we told the hostess we wanted to sit outside because it was a "beautiful day." Welllll, it was beautiful for about 5 minutes until the two wasps started swarming around our table area. Just ignore them, right? Well let me tell you a little tid bit of knowledge about Cameron Christopher...wasps are his absolute enemy. I seriously think he would rather sleep with a lion, jump out of a moving airplane, or sit in an igloo for 24 hours before he would want to be within 2 miles of a wasp. It was impossible to have a normal conversation with him, because his little eyes were constantly focused on the dang wasp. After getting rather frustrated with having a conversation with myself, I suggested we go inside to eat. He said no, he would take care of it. He proceeded to take the pillows we were sitting on swat at the wasp (isn't that the LAST thing you are supposed to do with an insect swarming around you?!) Anywho, he eventually killed the wasp, however the rest of the lunch was spent complaining (from he and I) about how hot it was outside. GEEEEZ, not the lunch we were planning on.

After lunch, we drove around and looked at houses down around the plaza area. Looking at houses have become our new fetish. Last weekend we went on a house tour with my parents and looked at model homes, and we love seeing beat up houses and talking about how we can fix them up and make it our own! We found some great ones today on our way downtown...

We loved the country/Victorian look of this one, and the best part was...

...it was for sale! We should have made an offer...haha, well maybe not, but we will keep that type of house in mind for the future!

On our way downtown, we also spotted TWO weddings, so of course I made Cameron turn around so I could be a massive creeper and take pictures!

We even found a couple in a carriage! So cute :) :)

We shopped around the plaza and had a fun time looking at stores with things that were way out of our price range! I love the stuff in Anthropologie, but holy moly, we found a cute shirt for $149, no thank you! After getting bored of shopping (which was mighty quick, do you know Cameron Thomsen? Shopping for him is short lived always), we went over to McCormick and Schmick's for some yummy dessert!

Oh the chocolate bag...if you have never had this, you are missing out on life. For those of you out of town, next time you come to KC force me to take you to get this, you will not regret it.

I also ordered some delicious lemonade that hit the spot on a hot summer day :)

Although our day didn't go exactly according to plan, we still had a great time and it was nice to spend some alone time together :) (We don't get much of that around the Boyers' household).

Take your loved one out for a nice date sometime soon, they are so fun and so worth it! :)

Until then,

Brittany