Day 43/47  As the school holidays come to an end, there suddenly still seems to be so many things that we had planned to do!  I don't think we'll get to cross everything off our list now, but today Hayden got to choose where we were going, and Willowbank it was.  Willowbank has been a favourite place of ours to visit for many years now.  We have had annual passes ever since Hayden was one, and we have spent many, many a day there.  With Hayden starting school this past year, it's been a while since we've been, but Austin is now just getting to a great age to take, so I would say that we will once again become frequent visitors!

It was Austin's first time at Willowbank today (if you don't count a visit when he was just a few weeks old), and Hayden had a great time showing him around!  Hayden also had a great time feeding the deer (even though they 'stole' his first bag of food and we had to go back and buy more!), and although Austin wasn't too sure about these strange big brown animals, he did incredibly well considering they were nearly in the buggy with him a lot of the time - well their heads were a few times!  We saw most of the animals, although a few were hiding on us today.  Austin signed 'dog' and said 'd, d, d' for most of them, but I'm pretty sure he enjoyed himself.  I think his favourites were the ducks and chickens though, a little more his size!  He was following a peacock around for a while at lunch until it turned around and looked at him, literally eye to eye as they were the same height!   Hayden's favourite part of the day was his donkey ride.  A little sad though as it will be his last donkey ride there as he only very much just made the height restriction today! But, as always, it was a fantastic day out! 

So if you are in Christchurch, or just visiting, you should definitely make a trip to Willowbank!