Guus Bosman

In the fall of 2004 Sasha, Steven and I went to the Toneelschuur in Haarlem and saw the movie Girl with a Pearl Earring.

A few days later, while I was waiting for my visa to be processed, we saw the painting in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. It's a gorgeous little painting, and through the movie it became one of Vermeer's best-known works.

Yesterday the news came out that Girl with the Pearl Earring will be shown in three museums in the United States next year, while the Mauritshuis is being renovated. Very exciting news.

It was snowing tonight and we woke up to a white world. It's the first snow this season, and it will disappear soon.

Last year when we visited D.C. for Sasha's interviews there was a very thick layer of snow in February, so there's still a possibility, but it has been a very mild winter so far.

I took three pictures and stitched them together with Hugin, an excellent tool.

Over the Christmas weekend Irena threw a surprise baby shower for Sasha. She had arranged everything and invited our friends to Secaucus on Saturday.

A baby shower is an American tradition where a friend or relative of the future mom organizes a surprise party (usually just with girls) for her to celebrate the baby with drinks, food and a "shower" of baby presents.

Early in the morning while Sasha was still upstairs we decorated the house and prepared the drinks and snacks for the party. The decorations were adorable: pink baby balloons, garlands of tiny diapers, tiny giraffes and elephants. The cake was also carefully chosen for the occasion. We got a lot of baby presents and the girls had a fun time at the party which was spiced up by champagne (apple cider for Sasha though). Thank you, Irena, this was a great surprise! Special thanks to Ilana who chose some of the decorations and took great pictures.

While the girls were enjoying the party I went out for drinks and lunch with Jonathan and Ed.

Saturday evening Yaxin and David came over for dinner. They were the second guests we hosted in our new apartment (the first were Pascal and Hanna) and we had a fun evening.

After dinner we watched the Republican debate at 9.00 pm. Twelve hours later, this morning, we watched the second debate.

In the afternoon the FiOS technician came and replaced our internet router -- that seems to have fixed our connectivity problem.

Tonight we had a fun New Year's reception from the Dutch club. There were about 50 people in a clubhouse in Maryland, including many that we already knew. There were fresh oliebollen and bitterballen.