Leo & Adrian completed Veilig Leren Lezen, a Dutch reading curriculum for first grade. Today they received their official diploma; they really completed the work several months ago.

When the boys were little, I was thinking that it might be hard to get the Dutch reading skills to the same level as Nora. I spent quite a lot of time with Nora and with 3 kids instead of 1, it would be hard to give that same attention to the boys, I figured. The pandemic changed that equation dramatically of course and since March 2020 we have done extensive Veilig Leren Lezen exercises, most days of the week, and the result is there.

Both boys read Dutch very well and read books well above their grade level. Adrian loves reading about history ("De weg naar Titicaca" was one of his recent reads), Leo enjoys the Dolfje Weerwolfje series.

I'm really proud of them, a great achievement.

Had a lovely bicycle trip though DC this afternoon. Gorgeous weather.

Over the last 2 decades I've done a mental check: "am I able to watch a soccer game on my mobile device?". For 20 years, that was a pipedream but I realize now watching a live game online is now a reality.

Twenty years ago, in 1991, text messages were the best one could hope for: a text message if the game results were known was fancy.

Later, liveblogs became a real thing and cell phones had the ability to follow those starting about 10 years ago.

It was only three years ago, when I was in the metro after a game when I tried to watch a real-time feed of ESPN, and while it kind of worked, it was choppy and not a good experience.

This weekend, in rural Virginia, I was able to watch a game on my Pixel 3 phone, in very good quality, going through a VPN in the Netherlands (for Dutch commentary). Very cool.

Nora read her first Terry Pratchett book; she finished it on Halloween today. I'm a proud father.

The book is _The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner: And Other Stories_, a collection of short stories Pratchett wrote when he was still a teenager.

Leo and Adrian, discussing some plans: "na het corona, of misschien in het weekend..."

Tonight Nora bicycled for the first time without her training wheels and it went great! We are very proud.

On the photo you can still see the training wheels, but they are all the way up and not helping her at all.

We went to the Gallery of Art yesterday. We had prepared to take the Metro, like Adrian wanted, but it started raining so we took the car instead. I dropped everyone off, and parked 15 minutes away.

It is such a lovely place. We all had a good time. Leo liked the boats, Adrian liked Rembrandt's self-portrait and Nora liked the French impressionists colors.

We looked at several Greek and Roman statues, and the boys had various observations to make.

Here is Leo looking at a model of a Dutch "jacht" -- in the back you can see "View of Hoorn".

A script I wrote a few years ago to help me with pictures on the website stopped working... It assumed every year started with 201, haha.

FoundPos := RegExMatch(clipboard, "^201[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9].*\.[jJ][pP][gG]", FoundFileName)

We went to the screening of Why We Cycle today, a lovely Dutch movie about the hidden beneficial effects of bicycling. After the film I was part of a panel discussion.

The screening was in the Northeast library in Capitol Hill. We arrived just in time, and found good seats on the front row. There was coffee, stroopwafels and Christmas cookies to all five of us where happy (I think the kids had three cookies each).

It was a beautiful film, very well made. It was fun to hear the interviews in Dutch, the kids picked up on it too. At one point we saw twin boys in a bakfiets -- they looked very much like Leo and Adrian!

The panel was fun too. Other folks on the panel where Katherine W. who lived in The Hague for two years, Jeremiah Lowery, Advocacy Director at WABA and Alan Page, an attorney and artist from DC.

The screening was organized by Greg Matlesky and underwritten by The Daily Rider and Friends of the Northeast Library (thank you).

The kids were very well behaved. They patiently sat through the one hour movie, and even the beginning of the panel after which Sasha took them to roam around the library. Once we were in the car (!) to go home, Adrian fell asleep right away. Everyone's a little under the weather it seems.

The boys were downstairs at 7.30 am, and they are doing Paw Patrol "werkjes" over breakfast. They really enjoy it.

Adrian asked: "papa, hebben Sinterklaas en Piet deze boekje gemaakt?"