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.

We're preparing to welcome a third member to our little family!

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.

I was quoted in this week's Economist in an article on dual citizenship:

A new law proposed by the Dutch government aims not only to limit dual nationality among immigrants (in 2011 around 20,000 people gained Dutch nationality through naturalisation) but also to make it easier for the authorities to strip members of the 850,000-plus Dutch diaspora of their nationality, should they secure a second citizenship abroad.

Guus Bosman, a Dutchman living in Washington, DC, calls the proposal “mean-spirited”.

Very cool. I've been a reader of the magazine for over a decade and it's fun to see my name in it. To read more about the initiative against the proposed law, please visit www.nederlanderblijven.com.

Four days after we left Secaucus, we are back at Jonathan and Irena's to celebrate New Year's Eve. There's a big party here tomorrow, and we're looking forward to welcome 2012.

Tomorrow morning we're frying oliebollen, a Dutch specialty.

The last two weeks of the year have begun. Our Christmas tree is up, my cubicle is nicely decorated and I'm listening to Sky.fm's Christmas station all day long.

This morning I have posted the year overview for 2009. It is only available to registered users of this site. Send me a message if you do not have an account yet or if you'd like me to reset your password. You should also be able to use your Facebook account to login.