American History

So I'm in an American history class right now. Yes, I am pretty knowledgeable about American history, but for some reason or another, I have just been absolutely horrified at some of the things we are learning about. I know that I am living in a different time and culture, but I'm just surprised at the lack of compassion that went on in the early beginnings of this country. America should be a place of refuge, but instead we enslaved black people, threw Native Americans off of their lands or killed them, and were just awful to immigrants or any other type of minority anywhere. How can people feel ok with enslaving another human being? How can people feel ok with pushing natives off of their lands, putting them onto reservations and then beating their culture out of them until they decide to become more "white"? And then I start thinking about all of the injustices that have happened in the world and are STILL happening! When will we ever learn? Is that day ever going to come? Like I said, I know I am living in a world completely different from even 10 years ago, but at the same time, I honestly just don't understand. How can you belittle a human life so much? I guess I will just never understand completely.... Compassion is the key. I'm convinced. Let's get some, shall we?

And then Hawaii was a blast

Well we did a ton of awesome things in Hawaii, I must say. I'll let the pictures do the talking, however.

We went to Waikiki beach and rented out some kayaks and an aqua cycle and took them out on the ocean. It was awesome to take on the waves with the kayaks. And the aqua cycle was a lot of fun and relaxing to take out on the ocean.

We also went out and got Shave Ice at Morimoto's. It's a snowcone on top of ice cream, and it was delicious!
This is my FAVORITE picture of the entire trip. Isn't Tay Tay a heart throb?
We watched the Sunset on Sunset beach multiple times because it was just that good. Angela, Kjerstin and I all posed for a fabulous shot.
Tay Tay and I had an epic reunion hug... even though we hadn't really been apart... haha
We went to Turtle bay and saw sea turtles- so cool!
We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which my favorite part of the trip!
While there, we went to a luau, where they gave us fresh flower leis and smoothies in a pineapple!
We went snorkeling at shark's cove
The house we stayed at was a block away from this beach
While at the PCC, we got some sweet tats
We went cliff diving off of this cliff, which was awesome!
That little dot in the middle is a tiny jelly fish- which stung me by the way! It really stung for a while, but it was horrible. It went away after about an hour.
We went jumping off of some sand dunes on sunset beach
We went and saw the Laie temple
The whole group at the luau
I tried my hand at poi balls
This is us at the rental house, right before we checked out, eating chocolate haupia pie, sooooo good

And we went horse back riding on the beach! Which is absolutely gorgeous. So amazing
So yeah, needless to say, it was a really good time. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go

We began in Vegas

I went to Hawaii a few weeks ago and it was a ton of fun. We flew out of Vegas, however, and had a little adventure there first. Angela, Dave, and I all went together and we had a really great time exploring the different sites of the city before flying on to Hawaii. Here are some pics of our time there:

We went to Coke world

We shopped around at the Venetian, which believe it or not we are inside in this picture! The whole interior makes you feel like you are on the streets of Italy at dusk.
We enjoyed the night lights
We went to M&M world
We visited the Flamingo and their "wildlife habitat"
We got ready for Mardi Gras
We took a spin at gambling
And we just enjoyed our time in general!
More pics to come soon- and don't worry, they will be of Hawaii next time! For now this will have to do. Later