Clothes make the man

Love is real , real is love
Love is feeling , feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
we can be

John Lennon wrote this for she who will not be mentioned on our family blog. Imagine what he would have written had he been looking at my new tie purchased here in Wellington as opposed to she who will not be mentioned.

Drake celebrates his tenth

First Grandma, then Alden, now it's Drake's turn to celebrate being on planet earth. For his magical day, Drake had several requests:

1. Home made pizza for dinner
2. Unlimited screen time on the computer (one day only)
3. Chocolate Cake
4. He gets to stay up unit 10:10pm

His cake read: "Runescape Rules".
Pictured here is Drake enjoying some of his birthday wishes.

No Soup For YOU

Boys night in the Ducharme household. MoneyPenny off hobnobbing with colleagues stateside, the fastfood trio opted for "Soup Nite". The boys helped prepare seven different soups for "Tea" with the hope that they might like at least one for future reference. Drake loved the Chicken Curry, Marc was torn between the Pumpkin-Coconut Cream and the Tomato-Roast Capsicum. Alden, being the discerning taste-bud, gave the obligatory "thumbs-down" to all soups concerned. No worries there as that meant more soup for the other two! In case you are wondering, yes it was quite difficult emptying the pre-made soups from their cartons into the pans for heating. Let me tell you, there was heat in the kitchen last night!

Happy Birthday Alden!

Hard to believe that the "baby boy" is eight years old...till his stubborn trait rears its ugly head. Anyway, the family tradition, breakfast and gifts in bed to start the day! Alden requested pancakes (that's the dinner request too) and a huge glass of water. After that sumptuous feast, Alden ripped open his gifts from family members. His brother gave him a pair of swords (made of some plastic/foam variation). What else would an eight year old boy want?

Helicopter Rides

Birthdays galore these days. Drake turns 10 on the 7th of May, Alden 8 on the 30th of April and Grandma celebrated her birthday on the 14th of April. To celebrate, Grandma bought tickets for the family to take a helicopter ride over the city of Wellington. The trip included a landing along the coast to see a seal colony. Marc quickly realized that someone had to stay behind, drink coffee and read one of the dailies while others dallied in the air, and volunteered to do just that. No complaints. The four rough riders found the helicopter ride absolutely exhilarating while Marc found the newspapers fascinating and somewhat safer too! That's Grandma seated upfront in the envious position of "shotgun".

Luge Running

Following our voyage through the Sound, we drove to Queenstown for our eventual flight back home to Wellington. While in the QT, the boys really wanted to ride the local Gondola up to heights unknown. Everyone except your lovely narrator enjoyed the ride, the views and the subsequent Luge rides that were available at the summit. After all, why stop at the summit? Why not terrorize the height impaired with a swinging chairlift to some godforsaken place just to ride a luge back down to the lookout tower? Alden rode the chairlift solo and was definitely the smallest luge rider out there. He did it three times! His father courageously stayed at the summit taking pictures, this after nearly wetting his armor during the gondola ride. Kudos all 'round.

How does Fjord translate?

According to our resident Ishmael of the good ship "Lady of the Sound", there is no direct translation for fjord in our good king's dialect so when it came time to describe this glacial gem, the term "sound" was inserted. Interesting eh? Mark that piece of minutia right next to your collection of misc for crossword puzzles. Anyway, we took a boat ride through the infamous Milford Sound. Waterfalls, Fault Lines, swimming penguins. The usual suspects. What a country. Check out Penny! A priceless moment of reflection and solitude. Yeah/