The McKenzies' Blog…

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog with anything remotely interesting.  I can’t say this will posting will change that, but who knows haha

On September 1st we took the kids to LEGOLAND Windsor for the day.  There was 5 of us, the kids, Yuki’s Father and Yuki and I.  The trip was a complete surprise to the kids.  They only realized where we were going when we pulled into the park.  That made the last 2 miles of driving a bit of a loud nightmare haha so glad we didn’t tell them before hand. 

The kids aren’t looking so happy here because we took this as we were leaving and not going in haha

This is a list of the rides we went on during the day, including links to the LEGOLAND site and who went on them)

• Sky Rider (All five of us)
• Extreme Team Challenge (Emma and I, Lisa went down with someone else, Yuki chickened out)
• Chopper Squadron (Rob and Lisa in one and Yuki and Emma in another)
• Fairy Tail Brook (All five of us)
• Drivers School (Kids only ride, no adults allowed)
• Atlantis Submarine Voyage (All five of us)
• Dino Safari (Rob and Emma in one car and Yuki and Lisa in another)
• Remote Control Trucks (Lisa and Emma controlling)
• Thunder Blazer (Lisa and Emma only)
• Aero Nomad (All five of us)
• Pirate Training Camp (Kids only)
• The Dragon (Lisa and Yuki in one car, Me and some random person in another)
• Longboat Invader (Lisa, Emma, Yuki and Rob)
• Loki’s Labyrinth (All five of us)
• Hill Train (All five of us)
• Rocket Racers (All five of us)

You can see all the photos by clicking here.  Most have descriptions on them.

The park was quite good, quite well laid out I suppose.  We went around the park backwards (if you go by the attraction numbers on the map).  I suppose to some degree this worked well for us.  There is hardly a flat area in the park, so those that tire quickly or just struggle with constant hills, then this isn’t really the place for you. We were all pretty knackered.  We arrived at the park just after 930am and got inside just after 10am.  We finally left the park around 730pm.  It was long day and late night, the kids slept pretty much all the way home

The kids really liked the Atlantis Submarine Voyage.  They got to see loads of sharks and manta rays swimming around the “sub”, plus all the other usual sorts of fish you’d expect to see in an exhibit like this.

But, without a doubt the one ride they both looked forward to was the Driving School.  This is a kids only ride, no adults allowed.  The kids sit and watch a video that explains how to drive a car and the rules of the road including road signs.  After that there is a small oral test before they’re let loose on the cars.

The girls with their LEGOLAND Drivers Licenses.  Emma isn’t mad, she was trying to be funny haha don’t think it worked so good shhh don’t tell her

Well that’s about it.. I could more but it’s late, I’m tired and don’t wanna bore folks more then necessary Check out the rest of the pics.

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve made a blog posting. I suppose it’s a matter of not really having much happen that’s blog worthy.

Hopefully over the coming months I’ll have something more to write about.

At around 0430 AM on Monday April 11th we set out for nearly a week long holiday on the continent. The trip started by driving from Cambridge to Dover where we got the ferry for Calais, France. We’d arrived nearly an hour early due to a bit of bad planning on my part but also due to no traffic on the roads at that insane hour. We’d arrived at the ferry port an hour early and managed to get put on an earlier ferry.  This was was great as it meant we could get to Disney that much earlier and also avoid more rush hour traffic around Paris.

Once in France it was a very straightforward drive to get to Disneyland Paris.  I think we got checked into the hotel, “Disneyland Hotel”, about 90 mins early. Not a problem as the kept our cases for us and gave us our park tickets so we could start to enjoy the park without delay.

The kids (and you can safely assume for the rest of this posting that I am including Yuki as one of "the kids") were mental and wanted to see the characters and get on some rides.

Read on if you want to read all the details of trip This is a long read .. so brace for it

Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve updated my blog.  Since my last update on Dec 15th there’s been loads happening.  Lets see.. we had Christmas, New Years, I’ve been to South Africa with work and now it’s March already.

I’m planning a lot of walking trips for this year, now if only the weather and time are kind to me I will actually be able to complete them.

The longest walk I’m planning is a walk around Lake Windermere, which is 45 miles.  That will be a multi-day trip with camping along the way.  I’m planning for 4 days but expect to complete it in 3 days. No idea when this will be but I’m guessing not until May.

Another walk I’m looking at has been inspired by this site Walkmate.co.uk – The Cheviot and The Big One. While it’s a single day walk, albeit a long one, I’m planning to take it slower and do it over 2 days with one nights wild camping (on the Scotland side of the walk near Windy Gyle.  We’ll see how that one goes.  I’d rather not do that one alone given the remoteness of it all, but then again it would be a nice confidence booster alone too.

Closer to home I’m looking at some walks along the Norfolk coast and even closer to home along the river cam.  One circular walk I’ve planned out is about 20km, it starts in Waterbeach, walking up the one side of the river and returning back the far side.  I’ve also looked at doing an 18km walk starting in Waterbeach ending in Ely then a quick train ride back to Waterbeach back to the car.  Both of these are known to be quite wet and mucky so I will have to wait for some nice dry weather, not interested in getting covered from head to toe in mud

More updates to come, I hope at more frequent rates then I have been for the last 6 months.