The Best Two Weeks

On Sunday July 22nd I flew to California by myself and had the best two weeks in Santa Paula, CA at Thomas Aquinas College.

I went to the college's two week High school Summer Program that they have every summer for uprising Seniors. And it was incredible.

Everything was incredible, from the people I met there, to the weather, to the books we read, to the classes we had, to the day trips we took, to the food, to the campus, and well the entire atmosphere of the place.

In short, TAC is a very, very, very special place.

I have a million and one pictures from my trip - literally 900+ from the Summer Program alone, and then I went up to Napa Valley to visit family for a few more days (from the 4th-9th of August) and I have another 300+ pictures from there!

I will be posting more detailed and organized posts on this trip in the future. But for now I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures from the Summer Program.

My dorm room, which I shared with my awesome roommate, Rachel:

Our dorm's private courtyard (and usually that fountain in the middle is up and running, but it was being repaired during the program):

Our dorm balcony:

 There are three man-made ponds on campus (which are more like outdoor swimming pools made to look like ponds), which we swam in almost every day and studied at in the mornings:

We took a day trip to the beach and Santa Barbara one day.

This was taken from the pier in Santa Barbara:

 

Inside the campus chapel, yes I know, it's amazing:

 

 

I am so incredibly grateful for the two weeks I had at TAC. I could have stayed there forever. I have come back with a deeper faith, new friends, a better attitude towards life, hundreds of pictures and thousands of memories.

~Mary Kate

The Schultz Family

The Schultz's have come to visit our house every year since before I can remember. They are  part of my mom's huge extended family, my Aunt and Uncle and cousins. This year they asked me to take their family pictures while they were visiting and luckily we were able to catch some gorgeous light at nearby parks.

It was my first family with older kids which led, naturally, to a different dynamic and more thought into the posing when all the people were roughly the same height. But I'm thrilled with the end results!

~Mary Kate