(4/18/12) Mexico

Someday, I'm going to move to Mexico.

And I'm not just saying that for the sake of saying it. The week I spent in Mexico on a missions trip with Bayside church gave me such a passion for missions, I can't imagine not going back and continuing to serve long-term. March 30th to April 7th was a week where my heart changed dramatically - God showed me that I can do so much more with my life than I had ever thought possible! Meeting the pastor, the families, and the kids at the site my team served at was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had. 

The beginning of a great new day in Mexico:

Another dusty morning!

On the way to our site:

Iglesia Milagro de Dios, the church my team served at:

 Adorable kiddos everywhere!

Hector :) he's such a cutie!

Awesome kids, Carlos and Pelon -

Nayeli and Karla

Karla and me! Even though we had a massive language barrier, we totally hit it off. She's such a sweetheart and an incredible girl!

Making crafts -

I love that he's totally zoned out from everything around him:

Heart. Melted.

Lovely Evelyn:

These two were *so* much fun. We played tag, blew bubbles, and just generally goofed off for the longest time!

 The super fun trampoline that broke in an hour because it was being mobbed by a pack of excited kids who were too stoked to pay any heed to the "five at a time" rule.....

 I'm missing my new friends so much already; it was so horrible to have to say goodbye. I love them so much and can't wait to see them all again next year!

I left my heart in Mexico-

(3/21/11) Photo Soup

Well, life has certainly caught up to me lately. Of course that seems to imply that, at some point, I was ahead of it! To be completely honest, it seems like life has lapped me and left me in the dust. :) Crazy how a whole day goes by with only bits and pieces of productivity. Waking up in the morning comes with lofty plans as to how the day will go, but things seem to unravel here and there until it's all lying by the wayside and I'm falling asleep that night, formulating ambitious plans for the next morning. Course that's a normal thing, but it's been especially pronounced these past few weeks due to a bunch of travel, random chaos, being sick, and giant school projects. (One of these projects being a speech on photography! Fun stuff.)

The images I'm sharing are just a collection of the craziness of this past month. It's like... photo soup! So here goes, dig in!

The gorgeous, spring-y flowers that bloomed behind our house about a week ago:

I love this one so much... It has a bit of an underwater feel, which I find really neat:

More photo soup! My family and I took a hiking trip to the American River Canyon... very fun stuff:

Looks like a painting:

The water was so still that day! This is Clark's Pool, a refreshing swimming hole in the summer, a freezing cold one in the winter:

Geometric reflections:

The color of the water is just so striking:

Stirring things up a bit now... My mum, brother, and I took a trip down south to Irvine to compete in a speech and debate tournament. (That's where I presented my speech on photography, by the way!) No especially fun photos from the actual tournament, but we took a short side trip to the beach to experience the SoCal sun:

A few details:

Such a beautiful beach:

So we're all caught up now! Such a lovely feeling. :) I have quite a few photoshoots planned in the next months, so expect more images soon.

As a bit of a PS, the Hunger Games is coming out in one day! Have I ever fangirled this much about anything before? No. Is this movie going to be fantastic? Um, YES!! Anyone else totally stoked for Friday?

(11/13/11) Tahoe

Gee, this trip was quite the adventure. My family went as a birthday trip for my (now 18 year old) brother, Justice. It included driving two hours through the mountains with the new Coldplay album turned up loud (cause it's AWESOME, if you haven't heard it yet), hiking through ridiculously gorgeous forests full of colored leaves, eating garlic bread sandwiches that were delicious but had garlic that stuck to my thumbs all day long, and finally getting lost out in the woods as it was getting dark.

We started out by just driving along the west side of the lake, sometimes getting a glimpse of the water here and there through the trees until we pulled off to the side of the road and began hiking.

The light was just so yummy:

I hadn't seen fall-colored leaves in so long that it was a bit of a shock to realize how bright they actually are:

Emerald Bay:

Random moonscapeish rocks in the middle of a forest:

Random snow makes my day 32789432 times better than anything else could:

The last picture I took that day... before we completely lost our trail through the woods and got rather stranded! Next time we hike that trail, I think we'll be paying more attention as to where the trail is and where it isn't: