(A couple of weeks late...)
One year. We have been married an entire year. What a year it has been! Since I haven't been doing a lot of blogging, here are some highlights from our first year (mostly in order):
- Our honeymoon in Aruba. Nine days of paradise...so wonderful.
- A new job for Ahmed (an answer to prayer).
- A Great Gatsby Halloween party with friends.
- Many weekends and holidays spent with wonderful family and friends.
- Our first New Year's Eve as husband and wife was spent at home, with both of us recovering from the stomach flu. Maybe not a highlight, but definitely memorable :)
- A weekend in Sioux Falls in January with my family to celebrate my Mom's 50th birthday. We went bowling and to an indoor trampoline park.
- A warm weather get-away to Florida in March. A much needed break from an especially harsh winter.
- A spontaneous trip to Minneapolis to see Twenty One Pilots in concert in the middle of the week in April. We had never heard of them, but it turned out to be a great concert.
- A weekend in June with Ahmed's family that included a trip to the Omaha Zoo.
- A weekend June in Rochester that included a visit from my brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and niece. My brother and I went skydiving for Autism awareness.
- We scored tickets to the free MLB All-Star concert featuring Imagine Dragons in July. It was a really fun show followed by an impressive fireworks display.
- A weekend get-away in July at the most adorable Bed and Breakfast in Duluth, along with some exploring of the North Shore.
- A long weekend in August at a cabin in Yankton, SD with my family. We had a few relaxing days on the beach. (And I took ZERO pictures, oops!)
- Our annual weekend o' fun in Yankton, SD in August with some of my friends from high school.
- Kayaking down the Zumbro River on Labor Day.
- MANY lovely dinners and brunches with just the two of us (both at home and out and about).
- To wrap up our first year together, we made a celebratory epic trip to NYC where we saw Wicked, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (which included Seth Rogan, James Franco jumping topless out of a cake, James Spader, and freaking Stevie Wonder- AMAZING!), Central Park, Top of the Rock, Empire State Building Observation Deck, the Statue of Liberty, the 9/11 Memorial, Times Square, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Central Perk 20th anniversary Friends pop-up, and anything we could fit in between. (More pictures coming soon, I’m still working on them.)
Wow, we made a lot of really great memories in our first year! We are so fortunate. We of course have our ups and downs like anyone else, but I love being married and having Ahmed by my side every day. I can't wait to spend many more years with my amazing husband. He is supportive, patient, affectionate, loving, thoughtful, helpful, and of course he's still a big dork :).
I love you, Ahmed!
**Update: several hours after I posted this, I realized I forgot one! So I added our weekend in Duluth to the list. So many great things!
My blog has continued to be neglected...with good reason! Between wedding planning and summer activities I have been pretty busy. Hopefully after the wedding, things will slow down and I can get caught up on documenting my summer. (I haven't even gone through my pictures from our Fourth of July vacation!)
Quick recap of summer highlights:
I had a solid chunk of time off at the beginning of July. Perk of being nanny: when they go on vacation so do I :) Since Ahmed was finished up at IBM, we spent Fourth of July weekend at a cabin in Yankton, SD with my family, followed by a week at my parents' house which included THREE wedding showers, and a quick weekend trip to Kansas City to see family. Busy busy!
The first weekend in August, we attended my cousins' beautiful wedding in Sioux Falls, which was the last wedding Ahmed and I will attend before our own.
Last weekend, my sister and sister-in-law came up to Rochester so we could celebrate at my bachelorette party with some friends. It was so much fun!
Tomorrow, we are heading to Yankton, SD with some of my high school friends for our Weekend o' fun tradition. Next weekend I need to move out of my apartment, and then there will be less than two weeks before our wedding. Hopefully I'll be able to breathe around September 14 ;)
I have done a few photography sessions over the summer, which has ended up being a lot to take on with wedding planning and a full time job, but I really enjoy it :) Ahmed has stayed busy with job searching and his web design/marketing business.
Hopefully I can eventually get to editing all of the pictures from summer. For now, enjoy the new header :) The picture is courtesy of Rachel Ebel Photography. Feel free to check out more of our awesome engagement pictures on her Facebook page. I am so excited to have her shooting our wedding, which is in 22 days!!
How is tomorrow July 1st already? This happens every year, but every time it still seems like a surprise. Summer is my favorite time of year, so it usually makes me a little sad that it slips by so quickly, but this year I'm a little excited. Every day that passes is one day closer to our wedding, and I can't wait!
Yesterday, we attended our first wedding of the summer. It was a beautiful wedding and a fun day spent with great friends- congrats to Mandy & Kyle! Last summer at this time we were at our FIFTH wedding of the season (with several more to go). It was an honor to celebrate with so many of our friends and family, but this year it's a little relief that don't have so many.Last summer was full of uncertainty with not knowing where I was going to live or work after August. This summer, unfortunately, is a very similar situation. Ahmed was on the receiving end of a resource action at IBM (fancy way of telling him he was being laid off), and is now in full gear with his job search. This is not what we had in mind in the months before our wedding, but we are trusting that God has a plan, and have hope that there is a great opportunity somewhere out there for Ahmed. I am so proud of Ahmed and his positive attitude in such a tough situation. He is pretty amazing :). Since "out there" could be just about anywhere, we have to wait to look for a place to live for after we get married until we know where we will be. Turns out I'm not done working on patience. :)Since we haven't spent all of our weekends out of town or at weddings, we have enjoyed some time hiking, biking, grilling, sitting around a fire, bowling, watching movies, cooking new food, and folding wedding invitations (I'm pretty sure folding invitations was Ahmed's favorite activity. He was so excited, he folded about five of them ;).We are very much looking forward to some vacation time with my family over the Fourth this coming week! Bring on the rest of summer!
Enjoying some ice cream from Flapdoodles, sitting in the same spot where Ahmed proposed :)
I am very glad to be back in Rochester after a fun weekend in Iowa followed by an extra long drive due to the lovely winter icy mess today. Ahmed and I debated all day about whether we should venture back or not. We had decided to stay and even informed both of our [very understanding] employers, and then last minute decided to go for it. It took a little extra time, but it wasn’t the worst trip we have made.
Speaking of which, during our long drive we did a little reminiscing about our worst trips back and forth. Ahmed and I have been dating for six years. For two of them I was in Iowa, and for the four that I have been here in Rochester, there continues to be frequent trips back to Iowa. During our reminiscing, we estimated that between two of us, there have been approximately 100-120 round trips between NW Iowa and Rochester. If we have made 120, that’s about 60,000 miles, and approximately 2,000-2,400 gallons of gas. Yikes… We actually have been pretty fortunate that very few of our trips have included inclement weather :)
Most of our trips back to Iowa are rather purposeful (I can’t say the same for the trips during the long distance portion of our relationship :) This weekend we headed back for a wedding to celebrate with some friends. Congratulations to Tyler and Sarah! It was a beautiful wedding and was fun to catch up with other friends at the wedding. It is always great to spend time with this group of friends, they are some truly wonderful people! With the frequency of weekends in Iowa, it makes me kind of sad how little time I spend with these awesome friends. Most of our time is spent with family, and sometimes it’s hard to find a balance.
When we don’t have whirlwind weekend trips to Iowa, things in Rochester are usually pretty quiet. I have been finding that I have more free time than I would prefer. I realize that most adults would love to have more free time, but I work by myself most of the day so all of the quiet time was starting to cause anxiety. Last week, I decided I needed to find something to fill up my free time, because reading books just wasn’t doing at anymore.
I hauled the little monkey (sweet girl I nanny) to the store and bought supplies to learn how to crochet. Thanks to youtube and google, I think I caught on rather quickly. So far, I have really been enjoying it! Here are a few fun projects I have started with:
Sorry for all the cell phone pics, I was lazy. The first hat I attempted to make wasn’t perfect, but little monkey sure makes one cute bunny. Emma’s hat was the most difficult, but I really love how it turned out. The angry bird hat was perfect for James, and now he wants me to make him something orange :) I also made a scarf, and am currently working on something for my other nephew Elvin.
I really have found crocheting to be enjoyable, so hopefully that can keep me busy until our next whirlwind trip to Iowa. We are headed back next weekend to celebrate my dad’s 50th birthday. Here’s to hoping for better traveling weather!
A few years ago, my family was having some difficulty finding a time when we could all celebrate Christmas together. The only time that seemed to work was Christmas morning, so we opted for Christmas brunch. It turned out great and was a lot of fun, so it has been something we have continued doing. To add to the fun, everyone who is available attends a Christmas Eve candle light service and then spends the night at my parents’ house. Kind of like when we were kids, except our family has doubled in size :)
After Christmas Eve candlelight service. The kids looked so cute!
There probably will be a day when this tradition has to end, but for now it is my favorite. Another fun tradition is a mystery gift from my parents, where everyone takes turns asking yes or no questions to try and figure out what the gift is. Whoever figures it out first gets to take the gift. My mom has been impressively creative with this, with past gifts including things like a gas gift card and quesadilla maker. This year my brother got to take home a cordless drill.
Whole family on Christmas morning
We also have traditions of gift giving, photo ops, jammies for the kids, extended family parties, and eating ridiculous amounts of food. My family isn’t perfect, and we have our own sets of problems and quirks just like everyone else, but when we’re all together like this we always have a lot of fun.
The kids are always a great source of entertainment, and my mom always says we need to write down some of the hilarious things they say, so here’s a quick cute story… While recalling something that happened earlier this week, my brother asked, “Emma, what did you say when you got stuck under the table?” Emma replied, “Ayúdame.” While everyone was laughing and discussing how our little Dora and Diego fan didn’t even actually know what the correctly-used phrase meant, James chimed in with, “Emma, next time you should say ayúdame, por favor.” I can’t even type that without laughing out loud right now :)
The kids in their new jammies
Ahmed and I before the Christmas Eve service
After lots of delicious food, some fun games, movies, and great quality family time, Christmas is over for this year. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful memories we have made while celebrating the birth of Christ. Everyone has left my parents’ house, but lucky for me, I have another week before I have to go to work! We still have some more celebrating to do :) I hope everyone had a merry and blessed Christmas!
We're all a little weird :)
