Legoland

When we planned this trip on Disney.com we saw that the tickets to the park were cheaper if you bought them in a bulk package and one of those packages, the city package did three days at the Disney parks (where you could trade parks), a day at Legoland and a day at Sea World.  We are big Lego Fans in this house.  When the holidays come around I like to joke with Dr. J that I wish we had Lego stock, but seriously...I wish we had Lego stock.  I think at least half our Christmas budget went to Lego's this year, so it definitely made sense that we'd want to stop here.  Lego Land was one of our shorter days.  There hours weren't very late but considering we had to drive all the way down to Carlsbad California, and hour and a half away it was probably a blessing.  Lego Land was an interesting place.  Like I mentioned before my kids love Legos and my husband loves Legos so some of our favorite parts were just looking at the things built out of Legos.  They have a whole area with famous Landmarks, cities, and stories.  There are a bunch of Star Wars themed scenes, the White House, the Eiffel Tower, the Las Vegas Strip, New York, etc.  We loved looking at those.  The kids also really enjoyed putting together their own Lego guys.  It was probably my favorite souvenir of the whole trip.  I think you can build three for 9.99 but on the Legoland app their was a coupon for buy one get one free so they got to built six for 9.99 (definitely worth downloading).  We spent quit a bit of time searching through heads, bodies, and accessories.  The rides were only so, so though and here is where we get to my main problem with Legoland.  My 12 year old (who is the biggest Lego fan in our home) was almost to big and too old for most of the things here, but meanwhile my four year old was still too little to go on a lot of rides by herself (there were some, but there were a lot she needed someone bigger to go with her and some she was just plain to short to get on at all).  The perfect age for Legoland is probably 6-9.  Our kid spread made it so that there was a lot of time when one kid or another was being left out.  I'm definitely glad we got to go and if I was in the area again I'd certainly thing it was worth going to but I'd never make a trip just to go there.  Which is great to keep in mind.    

This was probably my favorite ride the kids went on.  You could press a button at the watching area to make a water cannon shoot your loved ones on the ride.  Good times had by the person on the ride and the watchers :)

G was barely short enough to get on this ride but Cheetah wanted her company.  What Cheetah wanted more was to go on this roller coaster with her dad but she was too short.  G was interested so she came with us to wait.

This city scenes were incredible.  There was so much to look at.  Whoever puts them together definitely has a sense of humor.  The people are placed in super funny ways often.  It almost felt like being in Where's Waldo book...in fact now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I saw a Waldo.

No surprise here my kids loved these giant star wars figures.  

The girls just hanging out.  

Captain E and Luke.  

The kids gave the baby over to the dark side here.

This was a pigtail braid day for me.  Even baby dumpling got to go on a ride.  

The Long Road Home

When we scheduled our trip they allowed you to fold in two weeks of vacation time...one at the beginning, one at the end.  You could use it for travel or to do extra time working on the wards, the choice was yours.  When we flew in Dr. J hit the ground running.  In April they'd send everyone home and it wasn't until May 1st that we learned that we would be allowed to come.  Then there were the bombings in Nairobi.  We knew at any minute they could decide that for the safety of the participants and the program people would have to leave and so we decided ahead of time that Dr. J should start as soon as possible and work as much as possible so that he could maximize his time on the wards in case we had to leave at some point.  Because of that we went straight from Chicago, to London, to Nairobi, to Eldoret and then the second full day we were there, when everyone was still suffering for jet lag and he still technically had five more days of vacation Dr. J headed off to wards.  We ended up being lucky.  Even though there were two more horrible terrorist events in the country (on the coast) the program deemed us far enough away that we were allowed to stay and Dr. J was able to fulfill two full rotations on the wards, one in medicine and one in peds.  That gave us a lot more freedom when we were leaving country.

Our first little vacation blip came in the fact that while I'd intended to get the flight with only a two hour layover in London I'd accidentally clicked on the one with the 10 hour layover and purchased it without noticing.  When I first discovered this I was a little distraught, thinking about trying to fill 10 hours in a airport with four kids but then it hit me, why not leave the airport.  So I talked to Dr. J and we decided to make a jaunt outside the airport.  The second little blip came in the fact that we didn't fly out of Kenya until Sunday night.  Dr. J's vacation technically started that Monday but he decided he'd work until we left but on the weekends the whole area shuts down and if you aren't out doing something you are bored.  Plus we'd heard that even though there are two flights from Eldoret to Nairobi on Sunday, the afternoon flight often gets cancelled but taking that 7 o'clock morning flight out of Eldoret and sitting int he Nairobi airport until 11:30 at night just seemed like a nightmare.  We were still debating what to do when Kristin planned our Navisha/Nakuru trip a month before we left....on the way home we just left her in Nakuru and she did some travelling before she headed to Nairobi.  We left Hannah as well and some friends came and picked her up and took her to Nairobi.  Meanwhile poor Corinne had to drive all the way back to Eldoret with us and then fly back to Nairobi the last night.  It was crazy.  At Navisha we were less than 80km from Nairobi.

We knew the program directors like to encourage people to fly because the roads can sometimes be less than ideal but we already driven almost all the way there and we thought it would be much more fun to have a little adventure before we left town then to stay at the compound over the boring weekend and then be stuck at the airport.  So we talked to JJ, the guy who heads the internal medicine residents and students, and he said, "what you do on your vacation time is your business."  So we planned on overland exit that would cover several days.  I'm going to link them all here below but add them separate or this post would be a million scrolls long.  Hope you enjoy this last little bit because I think this concludes most of our Kenya pics.  We have a couple more things to add, an our favorite places list, Dr. J's feelings on working in the hospital, my negative feelings towards Toms shoes right now, but this is most of what is left, so hopefully you won't be too overwhelmed.

OUR LONG JOURNEY HOME:

Lake Navisha Area
Lake Oloiden - Hippo Boat Ride...video of hippos in the water and on land plus birds everywhere video
Mount Longonot - The Volcano Hike that Didn't Happen
Camp Carnelly - We're cheap and we stayed here again...hippo in the camp
Crater Lake - This Volcano we did get to hike on...video of flamingos flying

Nairobi
Amani House/Mennonite Guest House - Our most comfortable Stay
Elephant Orphanage - One of my favorite parts of the trip...elephant baby videos
Nairobi Game Park - 25 yards from a lion

London
10 hour Heathrow layover = London Walking tour...short changing of the guard video

10 Hour Heathrow Layover Turned London Walking Tour

So when I realized we were going to have an accidental ten hour lay over in London I was initially a little bummed out.  There is a play area in the Heathrow Airport and plenty of restaurants but the idea of being there for ten hours with my four kids made me want to poke my eyes out.  We were also concerned and rightly so about Cheetah on the plane.  On the way out the other kids had been great but she had been up and over climbing on seats, crying, and insisting I hold her in the back for hours.  It was horrible.  It didn't take long for Dr. J and I to realize we had a opportunity to spend some time in London and hopefully wear Cheetah down so that she'd actually sleep on the second flight and so we made a plan.  We knew there were three trains to get from Heathrow into London.  You could take the London underground. The plus on this is cheap.  The negative it can take an hour or more one way.   The second two options were the Heathrow Connect.  It takes about 26 minutes to get to Paddington station from Heathrow.  It cost about 10 pounds or almost 18 US dollars.  The final train option was the Heathrow Express.  It was the most expensive at 34 pounds round trip if you buy them in advance online but it was also the fastest with trains leaving every fifteen minutes and it only taking 15 minutes to get from Heathrow to Paddington Station.  The cool thing about the Heathrow Express is they actually had a deal where buying the tickets in advance and using the code KIDSFREE12 we could get two kids ages 2-15 on for free for each adult ticket bought.  It was perfect for our family.  So for $122 US dollars my whole family could travel into London on the fastest train and get back to the airport.  When you have a limited amount of time going fast is worth it.  After getting off our plane we headed toward security.  We had to ask three people where to go, I swear Heathrow has the worst signs ever but then we found immigration.  We gave them our passports and the landing card we had to fill out on the plane as well as showed them our tickets showing we'd be leaving the country in less than 24 hours and they stamped our passports and let us in for free.  If you are going to be staying longer and I'm not sure if it is longer than 24 hours or 48 but there is a fee, either 40 or 54 pounds depending on how you travel.  Anyway we were only there for 10 hours so it was cheap and easy to get through border control.  

Then we hopped on the Heathrow Express.  The train was nice and fast and in no time at all we were pulling into the Paddington Station.  I love Paddington Station.  It is old and new filled with people moving all over the place.  Unfortunately these are the only two pictures we got at the station and they are blurry.  Just know we were in Paddington, it was 8 in the morning and we were happy.  We'd looked up different places to go from here and as we left the station we leaded toward Hyde Park.  This part of London is just gorgeous.  There are shops, pubs, fish and chip, and curry places to get something to eat.  There are white fronted hotels, tree lined streets and everything is clean and fresh.  Hyde park is also a treat.  In the early morning it is filled with bike commuters, people running, and people taking their horses out for a trout.  There is lots of space and everyone just sort of moves seamlessly past eachother.  There are also signs and maps everywhere.  Talk about a great city to do a walking tour in.  Every 300 yards or so we'd find ourselves at a new map and could reorient ourselves.  Then our son suggested we just take a picture of a map with our phone and we could carry it with us.  Hello brilliant child!  It's probably easier if I just tell you the things we did in a list.

We walked from Hyde park to Buckingham Place.  Then we headed down to Westminster Abbey, passing the Guards Museum where we listened to guys playing the bagpipes and drums and they rehearsed for the changing of the guard.  We saw Big Ben, we crossed the Thames to the London Eye and Aquarium.  We ate overpriced McDonalds Breakfast Sandwiches because Dr. J was starving and insisted we had to eat something immediately.  We walked by Parliament and Downing Street where the Prime Minister Lives.  We headed to Trafalgar Square by the Military museum where the kids enjoyed looking at the horses.  Then we headed back toward Buckingham Palace.  We stopped at the back side of the military museum to watch the soldiers dressed in old fashion uniforms on the horses.  Then we headed back to Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard.  At this point it was noon and while we were reluctant we knew we should probably head back.  We went back through Hyde park getting ice cream at this cafe on the lake.  It was 2 pounds a cone ($3.90) but it was totally worth it.  It was the perfect pick me up and it got us back to Paddington Station, because at this point we'd walked almost eight miles and the kids were starting to get a little tired.  I loved London.  It was clean and easy to walk.  The signs, maps, and high concentration of sites made it extremely tourist friendly.  It is definitely a costly place to be but I would love to go back when I had the opportunity to go into all of these places.  I think it would be totally be worth buying the London Pass if you were going to spend any significant amount of time in London.  It gets you into a lot of attractions for free and you can even add a travel pass so you can travel on the underground.  Seriously I would love to go back again and see everything!  Maybe someday...for now though this was a great introduction to London and for less than 200 US Dollars (our travel into the city from the airport and our food) our family of six got to spend a day in London and see things I'd only ever imagined I'd read about in books or see on Masterpiece episodes.  I'm so happy that we accidentally ended up with that ten hour layover.  Scroll down to the bottom if you want to catch the video of the changing of the guard.  It was crazy to me how close you are able to get to the palace the Queen of England lives or the house where the Prime Minister lives.  Seriously nuts that people can just drive right by.  And just so you know Cheetah crashed out on the plane and slept the entire way to Chicago.  We had so many people tell us we were nuts for doing this, but let me tell you, it was SO WORTH IT!!!!