Trip with Mom & Dad: Day 1 - Christchurch

My Mom & Dad have arrived!!! It was so exciting to see them get off the plane this morning.

If you look hard enough, you will see mom & dad coming out of the exit in the back 

We started out our sightseeing at Hagley Park & the Christchurch botanic gardens.  Sadly, we have a rainy forecast for the weekend, so we took a little shelter under this ginormous tree.

Mom & Dad trying to figure out how to use their camera...haha!

I'm not sure if it's because of the rain or they just turn it on at specific times, but I haven't seen this fountain going full force before.  It looked really cool!

Before the water turned on - and me with my best Averie pose 

And after!

We also hit up the rose garden...we got some great pics of the rainy roses, but I'll post those at the bottom so you don't have to look at them all if you don't want to. My mom and I got picture happy :)

Other sightseeing today included the Canterbury Museum.  We didn't take any pictures in there, but Mom & Dad learned about the extinct Moa bird and about the Maori tribe.  We also saw a neat exhibit on the quest to reach the South Pole.  You can refer to one of our first blog posts for pictures of what is in this museum.

We also drove around the CBD (central business district) and looked at how little progress has been made in the city center for rebuilding Christchurch.  We stopped at the restart mall (see previous blog post for pics) and drove by the Christchurch cathedral.

We also drove out to the Christchurch pier in New Brighton...this time we took pictures.

Is anyone surprised that Mom was cold???

It's really hard to see, but just to my right there is a ferris wheel that was actually running.  I think there was a little fair going on for the holidays. Kind of sad it was bad weather and no one was riding it.

Here is Brian's obligatory photo for the day.  I told him he had to be in at least one picture per location during the trip.  So here he is!

And here are our flower photos...

We took pictures of these Dahlias for Aunt Linda!

For once I have to agree with Brian that the rain was a good thing. It definitely made these roses look amazing in picture - although the orange roses are not nearly as vibrant as they were in person.

Mom really loved these hydrangeas in bloom so we got her into the middle of them.  Look how happy she is!