On the door of the Halloween store a sign said "for kid-friendly route, follow green arrows". I walked with the three kids through the automatic doors and just as I was thinking "ah yeah, that makes sense, a kid-friendly route might be good for these little kids..." -- an enormous crying started left and right of me.

Right at the entrance there was a "animated crawling zombie" prop on the floor and it came crawling straight at us, making a lot of noise and with shiny red eyes. We ran out of the store and took cover. I felt bad for the guys but it was very funny too. It took several minutes, lots of cuddles and an assurance that the doll was gone before we could go back in.

We succeeded in buying a Halloween costume -- a shopping trip the boys won't quickly forget.

Nora wanted to be a fairy ("fee") but we couldn't really find that, so instead she is a princess now. Last weekend at a birthday party I heard her talking with her friend Graham about being fairy, and when we came home she said that she'll tell Eli that she'll be a princess instead.

I took the kids for a short bike ride after dinner. It was dark and drizzling but we're well equipped for that.

Another milestone... we removed the gates to the living room. We used to have them to keep the guys in the living room but we haven't used them in the past several weeks.

Adrian went down the stairs a few times this week, all by himself.

I took the kids out for dinner tonight, in Nora's favorite place, the boterhammenrestaurant.

We had a fun evening, and it was pretty easy. Would have been a different story only 6 months ago.

There were only a few other people in the restaurant. One of the new dishes they had was "Dutch mini pancakes" -- poffertjes. We tried them, but the sandwiches will remain our favorites.

Our first meal without Sasha was pasta with red sauce, a favorite. When I told the kids about this in the grocery store, they were happy and Leo immediately remembered: "blote buik!" The previous time we had this dinner I made them take out their shirts, so they wouldn't stain, and they liked that. So Leo got to take of his shirt for dinner again.

Speaking of which -- the boys like to point out: "papa dikke buik!". Obviously they have poor judgement of these matters, being only 2 years old. In any case, they will also point to each other's belly and exclaim the same.

For our college recruitment I gave a tech talk at Carnegie Mellon University last week. It was fun talking with students. They were younger than I remember. It seems like my talk went over quite well, and at the end I gave them my three pieces of advice for looking for jobs: 1. Work where the firm makes its money, 2. Your supervisor is very important. When looking for a job, try to interview her/him as much as possible, 3. Do the hard things. In college: take the hard courses. At work: investigate the hard problems. Be the go-to-person.

The next morning I went for a run downtown, crossing all three rivers. Pittsburgh is a beautiful city.

I drove to Pittsburgh from Arlington -- about 4 hours clean driving time.

This morning when the boys were eating, Leo all of a sudden said with a very sad voice: "sleutel" and pointed to the window.

My parents had told me that the guys sometimes play with a toy wrench key and try to put it through a hole in the window screen. Apparently Leo and Adrian succeeded in that the other day because indeed, the wrench key was outside -- right on a ledge.

So I left the kids up, one by one, to take a look. We'll have to use a broom to get it off the ledge.

Time flies... my parents are leaving tomorrow. Last night we had a wonderful taverna. We had dinner with Ginny, Gilbert and Judy, and Trey and Baka visited for a while. Jaap had made hamburgers and fruit salad and we had great conversations.

During dinner Leo and Adrian kept saying they wanted to go on the bakfiets. Sasha was staying late at work so after dinner Jaap and Mieke helped to get them ready and we went of for a bikeride. Often we'll go to a store, but last night I just drove them around a bit.

We lucked out -- there was a fire alarm at one of the high rises near Virginia Square so there were lots of firetrucks. Thankfully it was a false alarm but the cars and fireman were very interesting for the kids.

Then on to Clarendon, where we saw the bakfiets from Bike Arlington with two ladies who had been doing outreach.

The kids were watching the world go by and having fun. It made me realize they are growing up to be real Arlington kids, living on the border between suburbia and the urban R-B corridor.

Sasha came with the elevator -- much to Adrian's surprise -- and after being reunited, Sasha and Adrian walked home together -- but not after trying the elevator once more.

The other day Jaap, Nora and I went to H-Mart. We bought Indonesian condiments, and ingredients for sushi.

It's great to see my parents and Nora together.