Guus Bosman

Adrian drew a picture at school of our family. Half of it in the Netherlands, half in Bulgaria. Can you guess which side is which?

Hint, on the left they are wearing rain jackets.

Adrian explained: "ik was vergeten mezelf te tekenen".

One of my favorite books is Het Bureau, about the politics in a scientific institute about culture and language.

Today arstechnica wrote about a study published by the actual institute from the book, and it was very interesting to read. Ever since I've been reading the ancient classics, I've been fascinated by "books that disappeared". The study tries to estimate how many works from medieval literature still survive -- their headline number is that only 9% survived.

One of the characters in the book predicted my interest in studies like this, quite rightly:

'Er komen daar natuurlijk allemaal natuurkundigen, chemici, biologen, geologen. Wat moeten die met de Nederlandse volkstaal en volkcultuur?' 'Dat interesseert ze juist!' zei Balk apodictisch. 'Eindelijk eens echte wetenschap!' - hij lachte met een grimmig sarcasme. Voor wat wij doen, heeft iedere intellectueel belangstelling. Dat geeft die bètamensen juist status! En anders prikkelt het het snobisme!' - hij glimlachte gemeen.

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

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

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?"

We were there early -- right at 12.30 pm -- and the kids all knew what to expect so they enjoyed things more. They played with the Pieten in the beginning, had some pepernoten and looked around with curious eyes. The organization is excellent each year, this year was very smooth also and it was clear that the crew was having a lot of fun too.

Adrian had a long conversation with one of the Pieten. I overheard him say that he didn't like her feather (it was yellow) but that it needed to be black, haha. He has strong opinions, our dear Adrian.

Adrian had big plans to talk with Sinterklaas -- "ik zal hem vragen hoe hij op het dak komt en het paard" and he was going to sing a song. But once he was invited to come over, he was quiet and subdued, the sweet heart. Leo was shy also and when he was done the whole room cheered him on, so nice.

Nora had made a drawing for Sinterklaas, a mijter and they had a short conversation. She is never shy.

In the evening, Adrian told us something funny. He has told Sinterklaas that he is "boef lastig" and that Sinterklaas' mouth fell open in surprise, haha.

The other day I met up with Mark, who was in town visiting from Raleigh. It was really nice to see him again. We had coffee and talked for a long time.

We went to the Arlington County Fair today, our second visit. Last year we took the bakfiets but that's still at the repair shop. We took the shuttle service from Virginia Square metro and that was awesome: it was a true yellow school bus. The boys were super excited.

The first ride Leo and Adrian did, a merry-go-round with small jeeps, was serious business for Leo. It took him several rounds before he dared give us a big smile.

The second ride was one with various cars. The dudes chose the fire truck, of course, and they enjoyed being in front and steering.

When Adrian saw the fire brigade where kids were getting dressed up his was adamant to do that. The boys were dressed in a beautiful fire brigade costume and really liked it.

When we were leaving, the bus back to Virginia Square had just arrived, so I went in quickly. Then, crying behind me, Adrian. He had lost his balloon -- it was flying in the sky. Oma offered to get him a new one and so they went back inside, and we took a later bus.

I found a new game for the Veilig Leren Lezen reading course for the boys. It's one of the assignments kids can do when the teacher is busy helping others, with a fun way to self-assess the result.

We played the game today after lunch, while Jaap and Mieke went for a walk in DC.

The boys woke up full with energy and were downstairs at 7 am, so we had an early breakfast. Afterwards, we did a Veilig Leren Lezen session. Adrian wrote his first word today, with the ringboekje -- he stamped VIS without having to look up the spelling. Very cool.

Leo is making nice progress in the second kern. To slow him down I make him do zonnetje exercises as well, which he enjoys.