ISO: good makeup

hey ladies (or guys if you have any suggestions for that matter), i'm looking for some new makeup and am officially taking recommendations. and i could use help. looking for makeup is probably one of my least favorite things to do (although i've decided that my least favorite things, in order, include: 1-finding a job 2-breaking up 3-finding a job while breaking up). but makeup is hard b/c you never know how it's going to look, it's expensive, yada yada. thank heavens for sephora and being able to return things though.

so, i'm looking for recommendations on lipstick/gloss, foundation and eyes. and any tips on how to use the products would be helpful. my sister loves mac products so i'm leaning towards getting their stuff, but if you have something cheaper, please save me so i can have money to get christmas gifts still...

charlestown aka charleston

this weekend we had our "grits" girls reunion for all the ladies in mi familia. and yes, grits does in fact stand for "girls raised in the south." classic, i know. our point of destination was charleston, south carolina. having never actually been to charleston before i was excited to go.

all in all, there were about 20 women who came. we had fabulous dinners and girl talk. i stayed in a room with my cousin which was fun. other highlights include: taking $4 "rick shaws" (taxis) around town, the palm trees that lined the streets, shopping on king street and the farmers market.

i did notice something interesting about human behaviour, though. other than our scheduled dinners on friday and saturday night, the rest of the time was open to do whatever you liked. even with the other options of women i could talk to, (all of which are part of my family that i rarely see) i stuck with my sister and cousin and mom. basically people i see on a regular basis.
if given the chance, people stick with what they're familiar and comfortable with. it was a good lesson for me, especially in a work context. i would have liked if there had been more structured activities that gave us opportunities to be around other family members.

side note-did you know that charleston was the first city to switch out the british flag for an american one during the revolution?


by far my favorite photo from the weekend. sassy sister, sassy.

the dc trio-cousin andrea, tab, me

charleston is known for their "sweet grass" baskets. they were originally made by slaves and the art has been passed down for generations. the sweet grass that they're made of is now hard to find and difficult to grow, so these baskets are steadily increasing in cost.

my aunt and mom deciding which basket to snatch up

this man taught me all i know about sweet baskets...

while we're at it

last christmas my dad kindly gave each of us kiddos a cd with 500 family pictures. we're talking a lot of pictures. i finally uploaded the cd tonight and had to share.

please enjoy me growing up (the good and the bad). and if you're reading this and have a blog, it's your turn to post photos of you growing up. really, it's quite liberating...


this is me and my dear grandma. her name is annie. pretty sure i'll use that as one of my daughter's names.


that's right, it says yo-yo-o-saurus. i may have even busted this out on valentine's day one year. you can only imagine how many more valentines i got that year...



ah yes, and here we hit the awkward middle school phase. notice the lack of teeth showing. i refused to show my braces and smile for the entire time i had them on. i promise i was a happy child and normally smiled.



and last but not least, what FAMILY cd would be complete without photos of ex boyfriends on there? this just makes me laugh (and i apologize for the weird sideways photo that's attached to this) that somehow a photo of me and david ended up on the cd.

like father like son

behold quite possibly the cutest picture ever taken of my dad. darling, right? now check out my brother. uncanny how much they look alike...



and yes, that is me. and yes, i apparently had an affinity for resting my hand on my chin.

1234

on saturday i decided i was sick of my current music selection (something that occurs quite frequently) and decided to peruse iTunes' music selection. iTunes apparently knows me well enough, and is kind enough, to personally select songs they think i would like. how kind of them.

normally the songs they suggest are less than exciting, but i found one that i love. it's feist's "1234." i downloaded it and as is my usual style, put it on repeat all day today. but here's the best part. taylor came in my office today and told me she had seen the video over the weekend and loved it. naturally we looked it up and it's pretty great.

lover of dogs?

i have never considered myself an animal person. growing up my mom said she was "allergic" to animals, especially cats. i'm not quite sure if i believe that to be true (sorry mom). but either way, i grew up in a household that eschewed all things animal. i can remember thinking it was fun as a child to kill ants. how sad is that? (don't worry, my parents quickly put an end to that one. we may not particularly like animals, but we voncannons are not ant-killers). luckily my dad and stepmom currently have a yorkshire terrier so i suppose that is my only claim to being exposed to animals but it still counts.

so suffice it to say, i have never been much of a pet kinda girl.

until i met oscar.

oscar is my sister's eight-week-old cockapoo. he's darling. positively darling. i met him last sunday for the first time. his brown eyes looked up at me and he just seemed so small and helpless. how could i not love him? perhaps love is strong given that we just met and he is, well, an animal. but suffice it to say, i have a very strong affinity for my new canine friend.

it's that look that won me over.


please note my new haircut. more layers in the back.

apparently puppies are like newborns and sleep all the time.

western family picnic

i have been pretty mia lately and apologize to those of you who undoubtedly check my blog daily and have been slowly dying for lack of substinence (anybody? anybody?). i understand that really, pictures of ones room can only go so far... but alas, there is good reason that i have not been in the blogging sphere as my life as of late has consisted in planning the western family picnic for work.

in a nutshell, it's an annual event centered around diplomatic outreach and we invite ambassadors and their families to attend with the hopes of friendshipping with members of the church. the venue is the marriott ranch in hume, va which is a beautiful location for a picnic.

it's my first time planning it and i'm amazed at how many details went into it. designing the program, picking out gifts, securing a speaker, deciding on who gets invited, coordinating with byu dancers, the list never seemed to end. but luckily somehow it all came together and went beautifully. we had 400 guests and seeing as how my previous largest event i planned was for 75 people, this was a big jump. but i loved it. and learned a lot. and got really worn out. oh, it's so nice to be done.

perhaps bigger than anything was the testimony builder that it was for me. (work building testimony, what?) the last two weeks leading up to the picnic were by all outside standards stressful, but i didn't feel stressful once. (okay, i can be dramatic at times, i felt stressful a few times, but seldom). i REALLY felt so blessed and was reminded that the Lord does carry our burdens if we in turn do the best that we can.

yee-haw...welcome to the marriott ranch.


senator bennett among byu living legends and folk dancers


this is our "prayer" meeting before hand. i like to pretend that as i was speaking bishop marriott was smiling at me. i'm assuming he was smiling at someone else, but i can still pretend.


the gift bag. my theme was red and white checkered with brown accents.


me and taylor