Hagley Park, February 8, 2017

After a long flight and getting to the house at 11 pm, the girls all sleep soundly until 8 or 9 am.  We were happy they slept good.  We unpacked our bags and situated ourselves around the house.  We were excited to get out and see some of Christchurch since we had arrived at dark.  Brady took us to the biggest and most well known park in town, Hagley Park.  It is a 400 acre park in the center of town... HUGE PARK.  We only saw a portion of it.  There is a Museum (which we didn't see), a school campus, and a Botanical garden.  Also, a pool and playground.  But who needs playground equipment when you have the most amazing trees in all the world to play in?

Below is an area photo of Hagley Park

As soon as we got out of the car... ducks were spotted and we wished we had some food for them.  They were very friendly.

Beautiful flowers all over to stop and pose by.  As you'll see in the pictures below there are many flowers and trees in this park.

I have never in my life seen such enormous and beautiful trees as we have seen in Christchurch.  They remind me of the Tree People in Lord of the Rings.  As it was filmed in New Zealand, I can see exactly why they looked as they did, they are just like that in real life.  Enormous and beautiful and full of life and character.  They take such good care of their trees and grass and flowers.  NZ is a very "Green" place in color and state of mind.

We found this beautiful patch of wildflowers growing so perfectly in a circle.  There was a small path right through the middle so that you could walk in (not to disturb any flowers) and it looks as if you're right in the middle.

This tree was especially neat as it hung low to the pond.  The duck found it quite inviting.  Behind it is a "stairway" in the background.  It is a stairway for ducks.  Such a neat piece of "art" and there was even a duck halfway up catching some warm sun rays.

This stump was so large and fun to climb on.  

But not as fun as climbing in this tree!!!  Now this tree was a memory maker.  We nearly had the whole family in the tree.  Except someone had to be the one on the ground taking more pictures.

Even I was up exploring the large tree.  It had almost a little carved out spot... perfect for a treehouse of sorts.

How old do you think a tree this size could be?  I wish I knew.  So tall and SO wide too!!

Even some small nooks and crannies to squeeze in around the base.

Ava found this neat tree that was basically hallowed out on one side.  Even though Ava found it, I didn't get a picture of her in it.  She was running off exploring faster than I could find her and take her picture.  Alyssa was happy to oblige my picture taking frenzy.

After enjoying the amazing tree, we found the rose garden.  The smell was intoxicating (in a very good way) as soon as you entered.  The roses were all so perfect and large.  Colors and hues that are hardly seen anywhere else.

And the perfect little grass path.  The grass here is amazing.  It is soft and they cut is so short and it's always so flat.  Almost like fake grass, but not.  I love it.  I wish this grass was in my yard.

Kayla enjoyed all the beautiful roses... apparent by the loads of pics she took after stealing my camera.

Brady and I enjoyed watching the girls run around in the rose garden on this little bench.  It was a beautiful day.

And more amazing trees.... with branches growing in all directions.

And flowers with blooms as big as your head...

Ava was so proud of her pine cone.

We loved every second of the park.  We didn't want to leave, but we had placed an order in for dinner and it was coming close to pick up time.  We drug ourselves out of the park promising to be back very soon.

Our dinner was from Pedro's House of Lamb.  From a recommendation from a friend/colleague of Brady's, we bought some roast lamb and potatoes.  We had been talking in the car earlier that a popular meat in NZ is lamb.  Kayla was quick to say she would never eat a lamb.  Brady and I laughed inside.  Savannah had known that we ordered the lamb and we made her promise not to tell anyone else that it was lamb.  We told them it was Roast, which is was... but roast what???  We picked it up and drove back home.  They all commented on how good it smelled and we were all very hungry from our long day.  The girls hadn't had a decent dinner since we'd left Austin and they were all hungry for warm and yummy food.  We served it and Kayla took the first plate.  She ate it quickly and commented right off on how GOOD it was.  She was raving about it....  

After they'd all eaten their meat and Kayla came back for more, I whispered to her that it was LAMB... She GASPED in horror and Brady, Savannah and I laughed.  She still admitted it was delicious and we all ate the whole thing.  Experiencing new food her has been lots of fun with the girls.  Lots more stories to come.....