"Hello my baby...

...Hello my honey, Hello my ragtime gal. Send me a kiss by wire, Baby
my heart's on fire..."

As soon as I sat him down at the piano, he was like that singing/
dancing frog in the Warner Brothers cartoon.

Biking with Baby, Dutch style

This is Aaron's other bike. This is the one I was so desperate to get when we first arrived. Not having something like this in Amsterdam is like not having a car in Los Angeles.

Back home, he loves his Chariot trailer. But the Bobike front seat is a whole 'nuther kind of exciting--you see everything coming at you! And that provides an opportunity to give everything a shout out--BUS! TRUCK! BIKE! BABY! DOOR! DOG!

Christmas morning with the neighbor kids

The boys from downstairs came up to play with Aaron late Christmas morning while the cleaning lady did her work. Yes, odd that the cleaning lady would come on Christmas. Justice (pronounced YOO-stice), 10 (left) and Gijs (pronounced CHCHCHICE--that's with the Dutch soft 'G' at the beginning, don't know how to phonetically spell that!), 8 (center).

These two saw us pull up to the outside front door one day and they came out and invited us in. They got along swimmingly, which I think will come in handy for the future. I had a nice chat with their mom, Irma. This is the family that we first got to know from the stupid spigot incident.

Cold weather

We are having unusually cold weather--right around freezing day & night, which I realize is not Denver cold but pretty cold when you're used to walking and biking everywhere.

We hear this is exciting because it may build up a foundation of ice on the canals in the north part of the country, and if we have another stretch of freezing temps, it will build on that ice and then maybe, just maybe, the ice will be thick enough for the officials to hold an Elfstedentocht race, which is a 211 km speed skating race on natural ice between eleven northern towns that happens only when the ice is thick enough. Last time was 1997. The country goes crazy if this happens; it would be really cool if that happened while we're here.

Merry Christmas

BIKE! BIKE! BIKE! BIKE! BIKE!

An aquatic SUV?

I feel much safer taking the kids to soccer with this instead of some tiny little rowboat.

A proper breakfast!

I've heard it said that the number one export from Ireland is Irish pubs. There's one 2 blocks from our house in Rembrandtplein (Rembrandt Square). www.stjamesgate.nl Nothing special, just a decent place to go to for a comfort food breakfast. Inasmuch as blood sausage is comfy.

Delivery for you

With most Dutch staircases being impossibly cramped and steep, this is how many items get to the upper floors.

Mozart played here

St. Bavo Church, Haarlem. Seen on a Sunday morning bike ride.

The statue in the foreground is of Laurens Costers, the man the Dutch claim as the inventor of moveable type. Gutenberg can go pack sand, as far as they're concerned.

Slumming it

This is my new coffee rig for the next 3 months. No Chemex or Mazzer grinder. I don't know if I can make it.

Watching equestrian trials

While walking down the street you'd never know that there are stables and two arenas inside this row of houses.

www.dehollandschemanege.nl

We came here with friends who also have a young one. It was a chance to get out of the house and have a few beers. There's a bar with beer on tap just about everywhere you go: the equestrian arena, the ice track, the cycling club. Mmmmmm.

I totally drank him under the table

What's wrong with this picture?

This is the view from inside a storage closet here in the apartment. Even back when we lived here before, this totally random spigot perplexed me. A spigot in a closet? And no drain? Last night it became more than just perplexing.

There was a knock on the door at about 4:00am. It was the downstairs neighbor, who informed us that their storage closet, directly below this one, was flooded. Apparently, when I put our luggage into the closet last night, the spigot handle must have been bumped. But I'm guessing this water line had become dry since it is never used, so no water came out right away. But eventually water did come out.

To add injury to insult (literally), I mildly threw my back out as I hastily yanked the still-loaded bike case out of the closet.

We knew many of the people upstairs in this building, but now we know the downstairs neighbors. They've been very nice about it, though. This is not the first time leak/flood problems have happened. These are old buildings and stuff happens. I recommended to the landlord that the spigot be cut off and capped. If I had only brought my plumbing toolkit (the TSA would have probably not liked the MAPP gas canister), this would be a done deal. But instead we're waiting on a plumber.

Our house needs a mural

Greek gods wouldn't be out of place in the suburbs of Littleton, would
they?

This is on the east side wall of our apartment.

No more magic mushrooms

To those who were considering a visit: the locals have informed me today that "smart shops"--the little shops where you buy hallucinogenic mushrooms--have been outlawed recently. Turns out they've been having problems with far-right religious types in government gettin' all up in peoples private biznass over here too.

No, I didn't go look for such a place as soon as we arrived. The woman who rented us a crib and high chair pointed this out to me. She deals with a lot of expats, so she naturally assumes that's what we're here for.

CPR folk take note

You might recognize this view from the pencil drawing in my office--left side of my desk. This is about 50 feet from our front door.

A-ron in A-dam

At the age of 18 months, this kid already has two stamps in his
passport. Not bad.

Everybody and everything arrived safe and sound.