Dmitry'll get a phone call from one of his Russian friends (easy to tell....American friends get a "hello" while the Russians are greeted with "da") and so long as the conversation is - to Dmitry's mind - inconsequential, he'll stay in the living room and talk, but once the topic turns to Private Stuff, he'll hop up and scurry back to his room, chattering in Russian all the while.

Look, kiddo, you could be planning to knock over a bank within my hearing and I wouldn't know a thing about it, so long as you're speaking Russian. 

It was a terrific trip, being able to see Alex after over a year, and Beth, Hannah and Faith.   

Thank you, Alexander! 

I trust the poppets are better?  Faith seemed definitely on the mend last night and this morning, at least.

It was an odd thing, but while in Japan I'd take photos with my cell phone but they wouldn't appear in my "pictures" section even though the "saved to card" message appeared.  Now I'm back in the US they're visible.  Okay, I could understand the phone requiring a connection with Verizon to reveal photos at all, but why would the older photos appear but not the new ones?  That's puzzling to me.  Whatever, that's what happened, so here's a photo I took of Beth and Hannah in Beth's hospital room the evening of the day she had her surgery:

Isn't that a cute photo of them?  ;^)

While waiting in line at immigration/customs after landing this morning, I noticed on the monitor that a Vietnam Air flight had also arrived from Narita; after a bit, here came some nattily dressed attendants that I'm guessing work for that airline:

Taken with my cell phone from a ways away and cropped, it's not showing the details such as the hair ornaments sported by them.  Trust me, these ladies were elegance on the hoof. 

BTW, to my mind the International Date Line has a lot to answer for, as it's just plain weird to arrive at one's destination before one left.  My flight departed on the 27th at 11:30 a.m. but arrived in DFW on the same day at 8:30 a.m.  Very mixing, it is! 

I mentioned the kids are sick. Here's a photo of a sick li'l Hannah Handful:

Is that a sad face or what? OTOH, Faith is feeling much better this evening:

Isn't she a cutie-patootie?

Here's a video of Faith for her Grandpa, who didn't get to come:

Yesterday Beth's weekly bible study met at her home, and in attendance was her friend, Monica, with Monica's little girl, Chi Chan, who is Hannah's particular friend:

Isn't she cute?  Here's the two buddies hugging:

A photo of Beth with her girls:

Later in the day, of course, Hannah began to go downhill, winding up crashed on the sofa:

Here's sweet Faith, looking adorable.  Unfortunately, she's also been under the weather.

So this morning off we went to the pediatric clinic at the hospital on base:

Turns out Hannah has an ear infection along with a cold, while Faith has just the cold.    Poor li'l tykes!

With some, um, occasional background provided by Hannah and Faith.

Beth is doing marvelously well, praise God!

And Don and I miss each other frightfully. 

Therefore I'm coming home on Saturday instead of Monday.  It'd have been nice to have taken the four hour tour of Tokyo, but it'd mean an hour and a half (or is it two hours?) train ride there and back, for which Alex and I would have to get up and out fearfully early.

Then he was going to have to haul me to the airport....another hour and a half to two hour drive each way....on Monday morning.

Too much driving for the sake of a four hour tour, ISTM.  So I called American and got on the Saturday flight.  It IS disappointing that I lost my aisle seat, though.

But to get home to Don two days sooner, it's worth it. 

It's going to be hard to leave my poppets, however. 

They'll be in Texas in a couple of months, thank goodness. 

At five minutes and a bit it was too much for Xanga or YouTube, but MotionBox could handle it. It's a medley of Disney tunes in which Alex is often and easily heard, and about midway through it he's seen being his usual goofy self.

While at a large "Wal-Mart"-type store in Yokosuka the other day, I bought Hannah a little doctor's set:

Poor Daddy's sick, and doesn't like the cure.  No one likes shots!

This afternoon we all piled into the van to drive along the coast to Kamakura, which was Japan's medieval capital:

Looks like Japan, alright!  Alex pointed out this house built in a very traditional Japanese style:

The streets are quite narrow and parking is extraordinarily difficult, so this is a common sight when driving:

They do the best they can, I suppose.  Here's an entrance to one of the shrines in the area:

Check out the gorgeous sunset:

There are a surprising number of American restaurant chains here, including Red Lobster, Denny's (many of those), Starbucks, Wendy's, KFC, and the ever-present golden arches:

Looks a little different, doesn't it? Somehow, Japanese language and McDonald's just do not go together.