He's home.   

Above is Charles coming off the plane and heading toward baggage claim, and below is him greeting Dmitry:

Beth, Charles and Hannah:

Best darn smile I've ever gotten from him:

Him with us:

Afterward we drove to Jessica's so he could collect his old car, which she's been using while he's been away; upon hearing Brianna was asleep, Charles begged to be allowed to wake her up.  Permission was given (if a little reluctantly...Brianna had gone unwillingly to bed):

Naturally, as soon as he got his car he went immediately to visit his friend, Tanner.

Yup....he's home.  

Sorry for the silence yesterday but Alex, Beth and Hannah arrived, then Don and I kept Hannah while Alex and Beth went to stay at a B&B for their anniversary.  They'll return later this morning.  ;^)

But first a photo from Dmitry's birthday; here he is checking out his new t-shirt, prior to leaving for school:

 

Here are some pix from yesterday, starting with Beth and Hannah:

 

Of course Hannah was entranced by the cats, who unfortunately were not equally entranced by her:

 

Isn't she a poppet? 

 

Occasionally Hannah bore a rather startling - and lamentable -  resemblence to her Uncle Charles:

All the moving around and visiting tuckered her out:

 

And speaking of Uncle Charles, guess who comes home tonight?  He's graduating as I type this, and as soon as he finishes checking out of sub school one of the instructors will take him and another sailor to the train station so he can make his way to NYC to catch his flight home.  Speaking of that, mercy Maud, did I mess up getting his ticket.  It's costing so much for him to take the train then a shuttle to and from LGA that any savings that came from flying out of that airport has been more than erased. 

Only good thing is he gets on the airplane at LGA and off it in DFW, without having to change planes in the interim. 

So long's he gets home!  That's the most important thing. 

 

Happy birthday to Dmitry!      He's SIXTEEN years old this very day.  

We wound up getting him a new television (well, along with a T-shirt that says something about school starting before he gets up in the morning, plus a manga book and Borders g/c), as his was an cheap little thing I'd picked up at Foley's three years ago.  I know, I know...he needs a better TV like he needs pierced ears, but when offered a choice between the TV (Don's notion) and a new cellphone (my idea), he went for the TV.

Like father, like son, I suppose. 

Dan, Joe and Zhenya kindly came over this afternoon after school and the four of them went swimming, then returned here and hung out until Don got home, at which time we went to Dmitry's new favorite place, Long John Silver's.  Ick.  Well, the chicken wasn't too bad and at least they make a right tasty coleslaw.  Afterwards Dmitry and Joe brought up how they each have homework, so the party broke up.  It was a lovely birthday for him! 

Well, darn.  I was afraid it'd happen and it did.

Charles got left on the cutting room floor....the September Shape magazine came out and the NYC feature didn't have any Navy personnel at all. 

Drat. 

Speaking of Dan's graduation this coming Saturday, how about this....?

He's come a long way in three short years, hasn't he? 

Rather lost in the shuffle due to the trip to NM was Don's and my 35th wedding anniversary yesterday.  

Hooray us. 

And Dmitry is turning 16 on Wednesday.  What the heck does one buy a 16 year old boy, anyway?  All my other 16 years olds just wanted moolah but Dmitry likes to open presents.  Trouble is, we're unwilling to give him video games this time, as that's ALL he tends to do and we're trying to get him interested in something else. 

He's being okay with the No Video Game restriction except he can't come up with much of anything else, and neither can we.  Anybody have any suggestions?  He's not interested in movie passes or remote control cars or planes, a couple of things we suggested at dinner this evening.

It's a puzzlement. 

This week starts a lively second half of the month, as in addition to Dmitry's starting 9th grade tomorrow and his birthday on the 16th, Alex and Beth will bring Hannah to stay with us Thursday night as they go to a bed-and-breakfast for their anniversary, then they'll stay with us the next few nights, and Charles gets picked up on Friday evening.  Plus Dan's high school graduation ceremony is on Saturday evening, there's the family photo and party coming (currently scheduled for the 20th but I'm going to see if it can be pushed back to the 27th so Louis and Mary can be included), I've got jury duty on the 25th, Alex and Beth leave for Japan on the 28th, and Charles heads back to Groton on the 31st.

Oy vey! 

Hee-WHACK!  We're HOME!  

From Alamogordo to Fort Worth's a longish trip of about ten hours with just one significant stop at The Lodge in Cloudcroft.  Add driving through two separate strong storms plus some areas of construction and you'll agree this was an American Road Trip, indeed.  By jingo, we saw the USA in our Chevrolet. 

Don and I were talking about it, in fact, and we're thinking the Road Trip is a uniquely American (and Canadian) type of vacation.

Today Dmitry and Zhenya played video games literally the whole way.  Drove me crazy!  I'd cry "Look at the view, boys!"

Briefly they'd lift their heads, glance out the window, mutter "Uh huh" then return to their respective games.

"Boys!  The desert!  See the desert?"

[absently] "Um hmmm...."

"Oh my!  Those mountains!"

[muttered]  "Yeah..."

Never mind my impassioned pleas for appreciation of the glories of nature which display the creative mind of the LORD....Mario and Luigi took precedence. 

Still, they seemed to have a good time, starting in Roswell:

We'd not realized how taken Dmitry was with Roswell, but he was anxious for us to stop so Zhenya could see "Alien Town", as Dmitry referred to it.  ;^p

The first evening the various family members gathered at the Riverdeck for dinner, where Zhenya obligingly posed on the same rock Dmitry did last year:

The next night we went to the Flying J Ranch show with the Kloesels; here are Dmitry and Don waiting for the gunfight to start:

Also waiting for it were Kirstin and Bethany:

In addition to the gunfight and the dinner and the show were pony rides for the children, along with pistol shooting; here's Benjamin taking a ride:

And Bethany, holding onto her Daddy's hand:

Here's Zhenya trying the shooting, and to my pleasure I caught the puff of smoke:

The next day we went to lunch with Jeanne, who kindly took our picture in front of her cabin:

Yesterday the boys rented water bikes and took them out on the lake at the Inn of the Mountain Gods:

Last night, as I mentioned earlier, we went to White Sands National Monument, where Dmitry tried to locate the desert fauna with his binoculars (no luck, sadly):

Zhenya is almost as enthusiastic a photographer as moi. so this was a common sight on the trip:

Here the boys are at a brief stop on the way up the mountains from Alamogordo this morning; that's White Sands in the distance:

On the drive home we ran into some rough weather, but one of the upsides of such storms is how they often result in rainbows:

Got to see a perfect arc!  This was as much as my camera could capture, though.  

It was a lovely trip.

 Hello from Alamogordo!    Sorry for the extended silence but it turned out the cabin didn't have the promised wi-fi access. 

Fortunately the hotel's internet access works fine, so I can check in briefly (haven't uploaded photos yet, you see).  We've had a lovely time, Don, Dmitry, Zhenya and I.  The weather's been good, the cabin was quite nice, barring the disappointing lack of wireless access, and we struck what Don and I considered to be a reasonable compromise between chillin' out and going out. 

This evening we went to White Sands only to find an isolated thunderstorm raging over it, with additional thunderstorms ringing the Tularosa Basin.  We went ahead and entered the Sands and found our way to where the Sunset Stroll began and joined in, though casting an uneasy eye on the lightning bolts not far away.  After a little bit I couldn't stand it (having a healthy fear of lightning) and cut the three guys out and herded them back to the van.  Everyone knows you're safer in a car in a lightning storm than you are out in the open (and in any case the "stroll" had turned into a seated lecture, which the ranger said would last about twenty minutes, and was boring the boys senseless).  We went ahead and drove deeper into the Sands, then back to the front, stopping to walk out on the interdune boardwalk, as the lightning had stopped.  It was a beautiful evening in the desert, with a cool, fresh breeze!  Delightful to be in the dunes in such conditions, as we normally are there in the early afternoon with the sun beating down on us.  Zhenya wound up being as taken with the Sands as the rest of us, to my pleasure.  I do love White Sands.

Tomorrow we drive back home, so I should have some photos posted sometime in the evening.  ;^)

Alex has officially left Tennessee and the Mid-South Fleet Band, and is
in Texas, prior to leaving to assume his duties in Japan.  He sent
some pix....here's one of the band as a whole:

Here's the Brass Quintet, which y'all might remember from their visit here the first part of the year:

And here's one showing the marvels that can be wrought through the
miracle of photoediting software.  Everyone who knows Alex at all
well is aware of his affection for the Rocky movies.  Well......

That's my boy.