{Glasses}

This is a friend we made at a sort of old folks' home/artist community we visited in India with RSO. She was so nice and shared a bunch of bananas with us that she was keeping under her bed. More pictures from this community coming!

{Lucy at Agra Fort}

Here is another picture of Lucy! Sorry, it's just that she is so photogenic and I was with her for two weeks straight.

{RSO Part One: The Children of Rising Star Outreach}

I know I have been talking about this post forever, so I hope it lives up to your expectations. As most of you know already, I spent a week in India at the end of May. My family and I went to drop my sister Lucy off there because she is working for an organization called Rising Star Outreach this summer. We had the incredible opportunity to travel around with her for a few days and see the work that she is doing. I was so impressed by her and by the organization.

Rising Star Outreach is a non-profit organization in southern India with three main objectives: ensure a safe educational environment for the children of the leprosy-affected, provide medical care for leprosy patients, and give the leprosy-affected an alternative to begging by facilitating loans to micro-businesses.

Today's post is about the children who go to school at Rising Star. Lucy's friend Matt is also working for RSO as the Sponsorship Coordinator. Matt is working to get sponsors for the children of the leprosy-affected so that they can go to the school at RSO. It is such a worthy cause and donations are so needed. The images in this post are some of these children, but to see all of the children in need of sponsorship, watch this video that Matt made. One of the best things about Rising Star is that that all administration costs are paid through a fund generated exclusively by donations from the RSO Board of Directors, so sponsors can donate knowing their contributions are affecting the children directly. If you or someone you know is in a position to sponsor a child, I could not recommend a better cause to donate to.

To learn more about Rising Star Outreach and sponsoring a child, click here.

Okay, fine. I will stop talking and show you the images. Enjoy!

{For Mom}

This reminded me of my mom. And even though the picture was taken in Provo, it has everything to do with my trip to India. I know inside jokes totally suck, but I couldn't resist. And I'm pretty sure a certain 5 people who see this post will get a good laugh. Love you all!

{Untitled: Agra Fort}

Dear Val,

Thanks for teaching me how to take pictures!




Love,

Cate

{Intermission/Dear Sophie:}

... So today I need to take a little break from posting images from my trip, because I took some important pictures a long long time ago and never got around to posting them! I feel terrible about this, since they are of my adorable little sister Sophie. Hopefully this huge post will make up for all the time that has passed. Sorry, Soph!

Sophie turned 12 on March 24 (I TOLD you it was a long time ago), so she got to go to the temple for the first time! She did baptisms for the dead with my family, and I took some pictures of her outside of the temple afterwards. I love photographing Sophie, she is so photogenic and loves the camera:






So cute, right? But some of you know Sophie, and probably are imagining that the shoot went more like this :



Shooting with Sophie is a total blast, as you can see! Happy REALLY Belated Birthday Soph, I love you so much and hope you can forgive me for my tardiness!

P.S. Mom, these images are huge, just for you. Steal away!

{Hong Kong International Airport}

Here is a dumb picture I took on the way home from India. We had an eight hour layover here, and I slept on a really nice couch most of the time and then I woke up and took this picture.


Then, while I was waiting to board the plane, I saw something amazing! I looked over and saw this picture, which I swear is my friend Devin, only when she is like 5 years old. I am still awaiting confirmation on the ID, but wouldn't that be totally random? I think so.


Sorry about the boring post, everyone. Come back, I promise to be better.

{Necklace Girls}

These three girls spent a LOT of time trying to sell us some necklaces outside of a tourist spot in Mamallapuram, India. I was totally enchanted by them ... but not quite enough to actually buy their necklaces. The oldest one spoke very good english and talked to us a lot, but the younger ones knew just enough to tell us that their baby sister was hungry. Later that night I saw them in another part of town with their mom eating dinner, so that made me happy. All of the children in India were so beautiful!

{Taj Mahal}

One week ago at this time I was getting ready to go see the Taj Mahal! And two weeks ago I was laying on the beach in Thailand. I started editing pictures yesterday and got confused trying to keep everything in order, so I am going to mix everything up a bit. So today is Taj Mahal day. We drove 5 hours from Delhi to Agra just to see the Taj, but it was worth every minute! I wasn't sure if it was going to be impressive in real life, but let me tell you, it was amazing. Here are two photos I took there:


(Okay okay, so I took the typical Taj picture. I HAD to! To everyone who is judging me right now, I dare you to go here and not take this picture. To make myself feel better I just tell myself that at least it is a little better than the ones people were selling outside)


(Didn't get the memo)

I will post more from the Taj later!

{100th Post!}

Dear people who look at my blog,

I am sorry it has been so long! I was just saving my 100th post until I had something amazing to show you. And after spending the last two weeks in Thailand and India with my family, I have a lot to share coming up! Get excited for the next few weeks, I have some amazing things to show you! For starters, here is my pretty sister Lucy at a Buddhist temple in Thailand. She is spending the summer in India, so I had to leave her there and I am missing her tons. I sat down to edit pictures today and felt sad that usually she would be coming to visit me soon, but instead she is one trillion miles away. So I edited a photo of her to cheer me up. I have a lot to tell everyone about all the amazing things she is doing in India, so look forward to that! Again, sorry for the long absence, but be happy that I am back!

{Tintype!}

Sorry for the long blogging absence. I have been hard at work getting nothing done because I am terrible at making tintypes. Or I was, until everything came together last night and I made this:


It looks about 5 or 600 times more awesome in real life. The only reason why I didn't give up on life before I even came close to getting this image is because of all my nice friends who helped me with all the attempts that failed up until this point. Hopefully this wasn't just luck and I will post more soon!

{Curtain}

I took this image today at my little sister's dance concert. Look for more images soon!

{Mini Me}

{Happy Birthday Will!}

(Styling courtesy Amy Williams)

We love you Will!

{Happy Birthday}

Happy Birthday, Boy! I miss you! Thank you for always making me smile, even today. I love you.

{Untitled}

{Sam}

My brother gets annoyed when I try to take pictures of him.

{Gelato Paradiso}

Next time you are in California, look up the closest Gelato Paradiso and go! It is the most delicious, not to mention beautiful, gelato I have ever seen/tasted.





It is impossible to decide ...


And once you do, be prepared to fight your whole family for it!


Click here to find locations and more information!

{Picture Perfect Afternoon}

= My brother playing soccer on the beach at sunset.

{Pacific Coast Highway}

Don't you wish you could go on a walk at night without wearing a jacket? Lets all move to California!