Happy Holidays

We’ve just come to the end of a very happy 3 weeks with Justin’s parents, Robin & Eileen, visiting us in Kenya. It was their first time in Africa and they both loved it. We knew miracles were happening when Eileen said towards the end of their stay, “I think I could live here”. A couple of years ago she would never have even wanted to visit!

To celebrate their 60th birthdays we went on safari in Nairobi National Park and there was so much to see and enjoy. We had the thrill of chasing down some lions that we were tipped off about by another vehicle. They sauntered down the track ahead of us for a good 10 minutes and happily looked as though they weren’t hungry (we were in an open-topped van)!

The scenery was beautiful and it was so peaceful to be away from the noise of city traffic. Our quote of the day was when we took a walk with an armed ranger to see whether we could spot some hippos in the river. The ranger pointed out some crocodile snouts peeking out from the water and we showed Caleb saying, “there are some crocodiles but they are still in the water”; he replied with, “can we shoot them anyway?”! We honestly have not been encouraging that approach to wildlife appreciation!

A week at the coast felt as though we had stepped into paradise. The house we were renting was so tastefully furnished and you can glimpse the beauty of the surroundings for yourselves.

(this one is for my brother Jon!)

A cook and a maid were all part of the package and the daily rate for 6 of us was less than one person staying in a hotel – it couldn’t get much better! We could have happily stayed lazing around the pool all day but we did get out a few times to see the local sights.

Gede ruins, the foremost archaeological site in East Africa (according to our Rough Guide)

Kipepeo butterfly project

Midas Creek mangrove swamps (and their very own "Indiana Jones bridge" - very scary!)

Our final week together was back in Nairobi and we enjoyed visiting all our favourite places. We found a cheetah who looked very like Caleb in the giraffe park and Robin even got a kiss from Daisy the giraffe…

Finally, we thought you may also enjoy seeing the "family Top Trumps" Caleb made. All categories and scores were decided by him - it's nice to see we're all good at something!