Today I ran my first road race in two years, a 5k that is part of Clarendon Day. John and I met up at 7.30 am and walked to the start, a few blocks from our apartment building.

The race went very well. The first mile was downhill over Wilson Boulevard, and we passed our house after a few minutes. At the first mile mark I saw that I was doing 6 minutes a mile -- clearly not sustainable -- and I slowed down afterwards but still ended with a personal record: 24:37 minutes. I managed to sprint the last 200 yards.

We went for drinks and breakfast at Whitlows on Wilson. A great morning.

Nora is now 7 months old.

Here she is on her Dyado's shoulder.

The official results of last week's election for Dutch parliament were released today and the report includes a breakdown of votes by Dutch citizens in the USA.

The official results show that about 7,700 votes were issued through Dutch embassies world-wide. The Embassy in Washington, DC saw the biggest turnout with 2,379 votes. That is 36% higher than two years ago in 2010, when 1,767 votes were cast.

A big part of the increase went to D66, most likely due to the campaign by D66 candidate Eelco Keij who traveled throughout the USA and the Netherlands to gain support for his expat-friendly platform.

In total, there were 2,379 votes (13 blank or invalid); here are the results:

• VVD: 757
• PvdA: 330
• PVV: 65
• CDA: 91
• SP: 105
• D66: 748
• GL: 163
• CU: 47
• SGP: 6
• PvD: 29
• Piraten: 9
• 50PLUS: 6

We left out parties that received less than 5 votes.

Yesterday we drove from Arlington to Secaucus with a car full of people. It was Nora's first road trip, a 5 hour drive. There was quite a bit of traffic between DC and Baltimore, but once we reached Delaware the road cleared up. We stopped for dinner at our usual stop, the welcome center in Delaware.

It was great to see the Zane family again, and for everybody to be together. Tomorrow is Julian's birthday.

Today I completed a project that had been pending for a few weeks. When Jaap was here I installed mudguards on my bicycle but not yet the bicycle rack.

It took a few tries and a visit to the store but it looks great now. I bought a pannier bag as well. This way I can do shopping on the bike more easily. I've done it many times before but since I had to carry the bag on my steering wheel I couldn't carry much.

Sasha and I were getting ready to go for a walk when I saw a new icon flashing on my phone. It was an emergency warning for a potential tornado nearby. It gave us enough time to clean the balcony and of course we stayed inside.

Interestingly, I received the warning email only at 4:06 pm.

We had some pretty heavy weather for 20 minutes but the worst seems to have passed. We still have electricity and internet, also.

Milan and Nadia arrived! They plane from Munich landed at 7.30 pm last night. I went to pick them up while Nora was sleeping.

It is great to see them again and the best part was to see the grandparents meet their granddaughter. Nora woke up around 9.00 pm and she loved seeing dyado and baba.

Opa and Oma arrived safely in the Netherlands yesterday. We talked over Skype and Nora recognized them on the computer screen.

We took a family portrait before they left.