Tonight my brother and sister-in-law treated Dmitry and me to enchilada dinners and bingo, where my long-standing, seemingly carved-in-stone tradition of Never Winning held true.

It's idiotic how I never bingo.  Ever! 

This evening both Mary and Dmitry came within one number of winning, only to go down to heartbreak as others snatched their victory away.  "It was in my grasp, but like a fish it slipped away," Dmitry groaned as we left.

He tends to get poetic when in the depths....must be a Russian thing.

After a particularly bitter loss I consoled Mary by pointing out "It's a rough game," to which she gravely agreed:  "People get hurt."

Three years ago today we were in Cheboksary, Chuvashia:

That's right, this is Dmitry's third adoption day. 

To celebrate we went out to dinner, with him choosing to repeat where we went last year, i.e Wan Fu's.  Dmitry loves Lo Mein. 

How cosmopolitan, eh?  We with our Russian-born son went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate his adoption day. 

I prevailed upon one of the people at the restaurant to snap our photo in the entryway:

Boy, does he look excited or what? 

But look how tall he is compared to three years ago!  A truly amazing difference. 

On the way to school Dmitry and I agreed how weird time is.....OTOH it seems as if it's been much shorter than three years, but OTOH it's hard to imagine a time we weren't together as a family. 

Turns out there are phones for the sailors' use when they're in port, so he was standing atop his sub...or sub tender, I forget which....talking to us at 1:30 a.m. Strange! He's exactly midway between us and Alex, timewise.

They had a time getting to Sardinia and no mistake. Talk about a comedy of errors! First they reach Providence, RI only to be told their flight had been cancelled. The airport drove them to Boston, where they were to take a 5:30 p.m. flight to Philadelphia. In an attempt to make sure they arrived in time to catch their flight overseas, they switched to an earlier flight, one scheduled to leave at 5:00 p.m.

All flights were delayed, with their original flight departing before the earlier flight.

They were supposed to fly to Rome but somehow they wound up in London, where whichever airline they were to fly told them there was no record of the itinerary change, so there weren't any seats reserved for them. US Airways apparently dropped the ball, making the itinerary change on their end but not telling someone in England about it. Somehow whoever was in charge in their group managed to get them seats on a flight to Olbia, but it meant they literally had to sprint to catch it before the doors closed.

One poor sailor's seabag was lost in transit, meaning he arrived at the boat with nothing except what he had on his back. Charles said his bag went astray, too, but was fortunately located.

So far he's had an "amazing" kabob, and a four-cheese pasta dish, and a gen-u-ine Italian (okay, Sardinian) pizza.

He sounds good.

As soon as he can figure out what his PIN is, he'll be able to update his blog, as there's an internet-ready computer on the sub, which can be used so long as they're in port, and he'll be in port till the end of the week.

This afternoon was darling Margaret's birthday party.....she turns 3 years old on Saturday!  

There was a bounce house provided, which Margaret and Benjamin enjoyed tremendously:





Elaine provided coloring pages and crayons, which lured both Margaret and Meredith; the latter gave her Auntie Anne grief about having her photo taken (Charles, are you paying her or something?), but I managed to snag a good shot of the li'l stinker:



Here are Mom and Betty, Hal's mother, schmoozing in the background (Benjamin's in red, and that's Bethie up front in the light blue shirt):



Also in attendance were Matt and Bryson:



Talk about above-and-beyond!  Kirstin's busy at their church this afternoon so Matt made the trek from Keller with all three kids so they could be at Margaret's party.  What a sweetheart he is. 

And here's the birthday girl herself, in front of her cupcake tree:



Happy birthday, dearest Margaret!  

This morning was the official dedication of the new sanctuary, and for the occasion there was a 50 voice men's choir, the ChapelMen, who sang a marvelous rendition of "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".  I tried to take a photo with my camera, but as usual, it didn't come out terribly well:

We always sit over on the far left side of the sanctuary so Don can rest his left arm on the end of the pew, due to a pinched nerve in his neck.  It's not a terrific vantage point for surreptitious photography, unfortunately.

The new sanctuary and Dmitry are rather tied together in a small way, as we had to miss the big all-church service at Will Rogers auditorium that acted as the kick-off for the building of the new sanctuary on the Sunday we arrived home with him.  Now here it is, all completed. 

Or as near as makes no odds.

Vika wrote: "Everything went great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was awesome!!!! I am almost a PhD now (still need to complete all the paperwork) but it's only a matter of when the Ministry of Education special commitee issues the diploma for me - which basically is only a formality."



How about her, eh?

To refresh y'all's memory, this is the almost-Dr.:

Beauty AND brains, not to mention a soul as lovely on the inside as she is on the outside.

We love her lots.  Congratulations, Vika!  We're all so proud. 

While searching for info on the Dallas, I came across this blog, owned by an ex-bubblehead; here is a post with info about the Dallas, including a photo of it taken quite recently, as in on this tour that Charles is trying to catch up with: USS Dallas In Souda Bay

Here's an image snagged from the Navy's website of the Dallas on the 18th:

From what I've gathered from Charles, he'll be one of the ones standing up there on the top, nicely armed and keeping a keen eye out for anyone intent upon mischief.

Would-be mischief-makers and other assorted villains, beware...this is your only warning.

Here's a good photo of it: