made it baby: Hide & Seek in the Rose Garden

Auckland is blessed with the most gorgeous rose garden open year-round to the public.

I know there are people out there who are blessed with a green thumb & can grow these beautiful blooms, my mother-in-law is one of 'those' people, but I have to make do visiting the Parnell Rose Gardens to get my fix of the delicious smelling flower in all their glory.

Saturday afternoon was our first trip of the year to the gardens. We had to time our visit just right to ensure the gardens were empty of all visitors there to appreciate the flowers in a meditative, quiet state. There is nothing quiet or demur about our visit to the gardens!

The flowers tower over my two girls (4yrs & 2yrs) & they love nothing more than to race around the winding paths, squealing at the tops of their lungs, getting completely & utterly lost.

Hide & seek with littlies is funny at the best of times (you know, they bury their faces on the couch, bums in air & think you can't see them because they can't see you!) - but hide & seek in a rose garden is especially trying when you have a princess of a daughter! Our dear Tia would be all excited to seek the 'hiders' ... she'd take a couple of fast strides & stop short to smell another glorious flower that happened to be at nose height. And try as we might to tell her that the petals on the ground aren't really a 'clue' that someone has left like in the storybooks, she insisted on collecting each & every one!