Nora really likes playing with her cousins. Sometimes from a safe distance -- there can be a lot of noise! -- and sometimes close by. To communicate with Julian she has to speak English and slowly but surely she is making some progress.

She knows some short sentences, like "happy-birthday-to-you" and "merry Christmas", and on command she can say "thank you", "hi" and "bye bye", but she doesn't talk independently yet. Listen to her talk here. Unlike in Bulgarian and Dutch, where she will use pretty long sentences and even sing songs.

Over Christmas I noticed her using two specific words: "no" and "thanks". "No" is pretty clear: when her big cousin gets too overbearing or when he takes something that she has, she will try "no!".

She says "thanks" also -- but she means "give it to me". So when Julian has something that she wants, she will say: "thanks!" in the hope that she gets it.

Yesterday I took a day off. In the morning Nora and I had a lot of fun. After breakfast and talking to Opa and Oma we went to the pediatrician to pick up a letter, and then to the bakery. Heidelberg bakery is always a nice destination, and with Christmas is it very festive. There was live accordion music. Then to the supermarket.

In the afternoon Sasha came home early and we prepared our budni vecher meal. The Zane family arrived a few hours later and we spent a great evening together.

Budni vecher is always a special meal and evening, and we had a nice selection of vegan dishes. Surmichki, two types of beans and salads. We made three pitka's: one big bread and two small pitka to break. In our family Sasha got the coin -- Julian was the lucky one at the Zanes.

Last weekend was the start of the Christmas season: we bought a tree and spend a lovely afternoon singing Christmas songs at friends.

On Sunday afternoon we went to Bill & Ingrid who organize a sing-in ever year. Accompanied by a great piano player we sang various Christmas songs, traditional, religious and others. It was an enthusiastic group and we had a lot of fun. We brought pepernoten.

In the evening we decorated the tree. It was a little on the large side -- I had to cut it down -- but we managed to get it in the house. Nora put a snowman decoration in the tree.

Yesterday morning, just after Nora woke up, she had a lot to say. She was talking about the game we played the evening before.

Nora: "Nora vallen! Tapijt."

Me: "Was Nora gevallen?"

Nora:
"Bank!
Pappa!
Nora zeg kiekeboe!
Pappa zeg leeuw!
Nora. Vallen. "

When I came home Nora wanted me to go in the living room right away:

"Instoppen!"

I was confused. Did she want to sleep? So I said: "Instoppen?"

"Instoppen! Bank!"

Then I understood.

"Oh, verstoppen! Jij wil verstoppertje spelen!"
"Oh!" (She uses "oh" to confirm things)

So we played hide-and-seek. Every time I screamed, she would scream and then say: "Leeuw!" -- because I was making lion-sounds.

"Squeak! Squeak!" We were trying to figure out where the strange noise in the car was coming from. It was 9.00 pm and we were on highway 101 on our way to Menlo Park. At first I thought it was the gas pedal but then we realized it came from the back seat. My colleague Chetan and I were in California for business meetings.

At the airport in San Francisco we rented a minivan -- it was that or waiting another 20 minutes -- so I drove one of those huge cars for the first time. But the noise was bothering us -- was it a bird? Some sort of small animal?

Thankfully, neither. After a few puzzled minutes we realized that I had accidentally switched on the wiper-blades on the rear window and they were making the noise.

Wednesday was a very productive day at work. We had design meetings all day, with people who are normally in offices in four different states. We made a big breakthrough in a difficult architecture question -- clearly a result of meeting face-to-face. Of course I found time to 'do the rounds' and I said hello to a lot of my colleagues. I like our Menlo office, it has a cool vibe.

The time difference is nice. I got up early in the morning and then went for a run on the Stanford Campus. I talked to Sasha and Nora around Nora's dinner time and sure enough, when she heard my voice she said: "hapje eten!" "Wat ben je aan het eten, Nora?" "rijts!" -- she was explaining that she was eating rice. And then she sang a song! She sang 3 sentences of зън зън зън, a Christmas song we've been singing with her. Amazing.

In the evening my colleagues and I made a quick stop at Nak's, a small Dutch store in downtown Menlo Park, on the way from my work to dinner. It's a quaint small store with a nice mixture of Eastern and Dutch goodies. The son of the owner persuaded us to try the dried persimmons, which were indeed good. This being Silicon Valley, he said that Steve Jobs used to come in and buy them. We then had dinner in an Indonesian restaurant where I had nasi goreng and green beans with sambal, among other things.

I travel back yesterday. We had a working lunch and from there went to the airport. Travel went smoothly, it was great to be home again. The first thing Nora said in the morning? "Hoofd, schouders, knieen, teen".