Makeup Party

Last weekend, I attended my first Bare Minerals makeup consultation and party at one of their shops at a local mall. The store was not open to customers yet, so we had plenty of individualized attention.

Sally is the older sister to two of my closest friends, Hannah and Leah. She won a free makeup party in a contest and invited me and all of her friends to come. Here's a little known fact: Sally was our dorm Student Advisor when I was a freshman in college. Back then it was mostly Sally threatening me and Hannah (and our friends) with "write ups" or something for being too loud and Hannah threatening to tell their mom if she did. Hilarious!


I stopped wearing makeup on a regular basis when I started college; my morning beauty routine consists of washing my face and putting on moisterizer. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a good 'ol face polishing with a makeup artist, though. In fact, I love people putting my makeup on, as all my friends can attest to on various Saturday nights before we go out. I will plead ignorance and then ask them to put on my eyeshadow etc., and they humor me.

Although I haven't incorporated makeup into my daily routine, I have a fascination with anything skincare related. You should see the amount of skin creams, micro-exfoliators, face masks and pore minimizing toners hanging out in my medicine cabinet. It's ridiculous.

I did end up purchasing this lip gloss, it's called "sugar plum" and at $15 it was probably the most affordable thing in the store. Beauty doesn't come cheap, right? Thanks Sally for a fun Sunday morning!!

And What Would This Be??

...my first loaf of homemade bread!! Ya! The crust was fabulously crunchy and it tasted great. Of course a 3 year old could do it as long as you have a dutch oven, which I bought specifically so I could do this recipe.

Balloon Glow!!

Last Friday, Caroline and I went to Forest Park to see the Balloon Glow in Forest Park. Every year, the night before the Forest Park Balloon Race, the participants fill their balloons and allow the public to get up close to these amazing balloons.

The crowds were pretty thick, which made walking around the park a little difficult. It was amazing though, to see the fires shoot up in to the balloons. It lit up the entire area.



It was increadible how hot it was around the balloon baskets. The gas fires would shoot up a good 15 feet in to the balloon and it was just mesmerizing. We met up with our friend Elena and her boyfriend, David. The balloon glow was followed by fireworks and we had a great time eating corn dogs and watching the show!

Clayton Art Fair

My sister and I decided to go to the Clayton Art Fair this past Saturday.

Aside from the fact that most people can't actually afford to purchase most of the artwork, it was neat to see. The little Andean dancers in the photo above are actually about 2 inches tall. The detail was amazing!

It's not every day you get to see life size metal dancers in the air!

Caroline actually did splurge and she bought an absolutely gorgeous silver necklace. It's her early birthday present to herself, and we should all be able to give ourselves birthday presents every once in a while!

Notes from Labor Day

I don't have much to blog on. I was planning on posting about my fabulous 32nd birthday party which was going to include all of my dear friends and heapings of lovely baked goods. And then I got a mild head cold. And then that head cold headed south and became severe bronchitis/pneumonia that has lasted so far 6 days and counting. I cancelled the party and spent the entire weekend holed up in my apartment watching TNT movies, reading and resting and that's it. Today has been my first day to really venture out since my lungs didn't sound and feel like I had a bunch of rocks in it. I skipped the Greek festival in Forest Park and met up with my sister and my friend Elena for lunch at The Majestic in the Central West End. It was wonderful. I felt like a prisoner glimpsing freedom.

After lunch, not wanting to give up on getting some fresh air, I decided to walk to the park and read...and I also brought my camera. I've been learning about shutter speed and thought I would try and take some photos at various speeds. The photo above was taken at 1/30th of a second - it's not the slowest setting, but it's pretty darn slow. As you can see the fountain water is blurry and smooth looking.

The above photo was taken at 1/500th of a second and you can start to see the individual water drops as they fall in to the pond.

This last photo was taken at 1/2000 of a second and my goodness can you see the detail or what?! You'll also notice, though, that the photo becomes progressively darker as the shutter speed gets higher. I'm sure you can control for this on an SLR camera, but I haven't figured out a way to change this on mine. Regardless, it was a neat experiment. And it was nice to get out of the house!

Old MacDonald

So I took my nieces and my nephew to Suson Park last Saturday. It was a gorgeous day, 75 degrees, no humidity and breezy. Perfect time to visit the farm!

Aren't these the cutest little one year old feet ever?! Yes, I thought so.

The kids enjoyed visiting the cows and horses.

And I enjoyed their independence - above, my 4 year old niece proves to me that she can push her sister "ALL BY MYSELF".

It was a lovely day.

Archer says "Hey, what's up? I'm just hanging."

Paint Pots

I thought I would tresspass in my mom's art studio to take some photos of her messy/creative space (the only messy space in the house)...

she's been on quite the streak and has another 3 galleries interested in looking at her "stuff".

I think her main interest will always be oils, but I just really love the collages she's been creating lately. Aren't the colors great?

Sister Trip 2009

Every year my sisters and I make a point of setting aside some time to get together as a group and hang out. Now, we see each other multiple times a week, but our "sister trips" are something special and usually involve leaving town. We were hoping to get to Memphis this year to spend a weekend, but scheduling just didn't work out. So we settled for a day-trip to Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois.

We met up this past Saturday morning and enjoyed some breakfast at St. Louis Bread Company (Panera Bread, to all you phillistines). I noticed that they have begun selling their own version of pain au chocolate and decided to give it a try. Not bad. If you can believe it though, Trader Joe's frozen cholocate croissants taste more like the ones I had in Paris.

We had planned on hiking some of the great trails at the park - as evidenced by our "hiking" gear. As in, we sprayed ourselves with OFF and then some of us wore sneakers. People, we are city girls. Anyways, it began to rain in earnest by the time we arrived at the park so we contented ourselves with taking ridiculous photos at the visitor's center.

Since it was raining/drizzling too much to take a long hike, we decided to drive through the park anyway. I am glad we did, since there were a number of pretty scenic lookouts.

And because it wouldn't be a sister trip without acting like 12 year olds, we decided to race eachother. Leanne and Caroline easily left Aili and I in the dust. I'd like to thing it has more to do with the maturity of age, you know, we're too dignified to run. Yeah right!

After our visit to Pere Marquette, we explored the town of Grafton Illinois. It was a cutie little town. On our way out we stopped by an adorable old-timey Candy Store.

We got some delicious fudge for the kiddoes and explored the rather interesting selection in the store (there were also moccasins and cowboy boots for sale).

It was a great sister day!

Homemade Chocolate Cake!

And this is why I LOVE Cook's Illustrated. Their cake recipes are truly fabulous - like this cocoa and esspresso based chocolate cake. My brother-in-law has a serious sweet tooth (which he rarely indulges) so I decided to bake him the mother of all chocolate cakes for his birthday - add some crushed heath bar in the middle and on top and you got yourself a party!

Paranormal St. Charles

I love Ghost Tours. I've been to one in Nashville and to one amazing tour of New Orleans a few years ago when Shalyn and I went for vacation. So, when Elena and I were discussing possible Paris activies, I suggested that we find out if there is a Ghost Tour of Paris (there is). It was expensive though and seemed to be more of a pub crawl so we passed on that tour. Elena, however, remembered that discussion and recently sent out an invitation for a Ghost Tour of St. Charles. My sisters, Caroline and Leanne, our friends Leah and Lesley and I all joined Elena in the historic district of St. Charles for dinner and chills.

We ate at the "Old Mother in Law" restaraunt and enjoyed their complimentary blueberry muffins. Once our waiter found out we were attending the evening Ghost Tour, he regaled our table with ghost stories about the old restaraunt. Apparently, a boy closely resembling a Little Lord Fauntleroy who enjoys haunting the restaraunt because there is "always something going on".

We met up with our tour guide, Michael , in front of the City Hall on Main Street at 9:30 pm.

Our guide was quite the character. He is a long time resident of the area and has spent some time researching the area surrounding Main street. He has a Ph.D. in communicatons and has a side gig as a magician - so I would take many of his claims with a grain of salt.

Above, is a concerstone of a building contructed by the "Oddfellows". Supposedly, every building contructed by this organization that has been torn down has contained a body in the building.

Above is the only "orb" I was able to capture on the tour. This was the site of the St. Charles gallows...creeeeeeeepy....not really.

Caroline and I enjoy watching Paranormal State on A&E - so she was excited to carry around an EMF detector.

We, of course, never actually saw anything, nor did we expect to. The element that makes for a good ghost tour, then, is the storytelling ability of your tour guide. Our guide, I think, was more concerned about coming off as credible, than providing some good stories. So, while we had a good time I would recommend trying out some other tours in the area - like Alton, Illinois or Lemp Mansion - both of which we will be trying in the coming months. Regardless, it was a fun Saturday night!