The last year...

I promised a post commemorating our move to Minneapolis, seeing as it's been a whole year since we moved. As I sat down to write this the only thing that sprang to mind was, it's been a year? It really has flown by fast. Since May of 2005 almost everything in our lives has changed... New house, new job, new city, new baby...

It was indeed a year ago that Ozayr packed up our little Honda and drove the 22 hour drive to Minneapolis. I once asked him what he thought when he crested that hill on the 35W when the whole city skyline comes into view... "Heeerrrrrre we go!!" is what he said he thought, and I'm not sure whether it was with excitement or dread. Now we really love that view, and we make comments like 'the city looks so beautiful tonight' or how we love it when fog hides the tops of the buildings. Then Maymuna and I followed him a couple of weeks later, and we set up camp in our temporary abode on Marquette Avenue.

That's when it all really began... the parade of visitors, I mean!! My parents came first, then Ozayr's and his brother. Then my brother. In the last twelve months, each of our parents have visited 3 times, his brother once, my brother 3 times, and my bestfriend once. Oh, and we've been to Ottawa 3 times. That's a grand total of 11 visits in 12 months. I love it actually, please don't take this for a complaint. It's a completely different dynamic, living with your family or friends for a week or two, instead of just spending an hour or two with them at a time. You get to know each other in a different way, and I am really enjoying taking people around Minneapolis and developing some nice traditions that we do every time they come (somehow these mainly involve shopping, right grandmothers?)

Maymuna has grown into a little girl here, and less of a toddler. Hafsa was born here, I brought her back to this house as a newborn, and again to recover after her surgery. Attachments like these are slowly accumulating... There were times in the last year when I wished for an excuse to move back home, but those are becoming fewer and far between. While I wasn't sure a year ago why we were really moving here, I feel those reasons have gradually revealed themselves... Ozayr's experiences at work and Hafsa's swift medical attention (sorry OHIP) are a few of those things. I also like to hope that there is something here for me, that I'm learning something about myself or changing in some way. I do feel like Minneapolis is where we are supposed to be... for the time being... :)

Here's a pic of Maymuna from this time last year...