Day 61 of 365 Days of Being Thankful

      Today I am thankful that I got to see Renee last evening and spend some time with her and say Safe Travels to her.  She is leaving for South Africa to finish her internships.  Renee is adventurous!
 She'll be there for a month and she is excited to be going! One of her friends from her PA program is also going and they are renting a house together. 
South Africa

They are also renting a car. I guess they need to do that because they will be too far to walk to the hospital. I am sure Renee will learn a lot and have a wonderful experience!

 I think we instilled a love of travel in our girls.  They all love to travel and see and explore new places.  My favorite place we have ever vacationed at  is the Bahamas.  Olivia and Olya saw the TV advertisement for Atlantis resort so we went there a few years ago,  the resort was fantastic, so much to see and to do.  My girls are swayed by TV advertisements.
Atlantis, Bahamas

 So the first part of the week, we stayed at Atlantis and went in the pools, waterslides and lazy river. We ate in all the fancy restaurants inside the resort.

We went to the aquarium. The second half of the week we went to the other side of the island and stayed in a small hotel across from a magnificent beautiful beach.
Orange Hill, Bahamas
  The sand was white and the water was a sparkling blue! Most of the time we were the only ones on the beach!  We rode the local town bus and went to the outlets.   We ate in the small restaurant inside the small hotel and the food was excellent! We also saw a real life Flamingo show.
It was so much fun to stay there too! When Olya first came to the U.S., she only knew a few words of English.  One day a TV advertisement  came on for Disney World  She loved everything about the Disney channel.  She kept saying Mom, me, this,  whenever the Disney Castle came on TV.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  She kept saying, Mom, you this, Dad this, Olia this, Renee this, ME THIS.  Then she took me out in the hallway and pointed to a picture of all of us at  Disney in front of Cinderella's castle.   
Then I understood that she wanted me to take her to Disney World!  So off we went to Disney World, Florida that year.  A few years later we took them to Disney CA.  They knew we were going to CA but they didn't know that we were taking them to Disney for part of the vacation. When we were driving near Disney, Olivia started reading street signs..........Disney Lane, Mickey Way, etc.  They asked if we were near Disney and I said I didn't know, I really didn't know!  Finally we parked and got out of the car and it hit them as they were walking.  Disney CA is much smaller and there aren't as many signs near Disney CA as there are in Florida. The three of them started screaming and jumping up and down like crazy! They really were surprised! That was so much fun to surprise them and we all had a great time!

Disney, CA

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