Once here in Minneapolis, we had a three day stay in a hotel while waiting for our stuff to arrive at the rental house. It was a little challenging keeping Henry entertained but he adapted pretty well and the day of the moving truck's arrival came quickly. In true Minnesota fashion, 4" of snow arrived on the same day to welcome us and one of my first purchases was a snow shovel at Target. (As it turns out, that's the last snow we've received, and we're headed for a "brown Christmas", which only happens once every 5 years or so here. Temperatures have been warmer than usual, hovering around freezing on most days and getting into the 40s a few times.)
Since then, we've been unpacking and settling in. Most of the boxes are now gone, and our kitchen is stocked so we have been able to do more cooking the last few days. The rental house has turned out to have plenty of space for us and the location can't be beat, it is super convenient to everywhere we want to go. The neighbors have been friendly, too, bringing over cookies and a poinsettia! We've had a chance to visit with Ben, Steph and the girls a few times now, as well as Uncle Ken and Aunt Judy and some of our friends here.
Katie and Henry have been spending their days hanging out at the house, taking walks in the neighborhood, running errands and checking out daycares. Sally stayed for a couple of weeks after we moved in, which was super helpful for getting unpacked and settled quickly. I am settling in at work and starting to feel like I understand the projects I'll be working on.
We finally had a little time to turn our attention to Christmas shopping. I have to say, it's really fun having access to such great shopping. Birmingham had a few shops I knew I could rely on for good gifts, but the options are so much more varied here. Every neighborhood has a nice cluster of shops to choose from. It's been fun being able to do so much shopping at local businesses, and it's been a good excuse to explore the city a bit and learn more of the neighborhoods.
We're getting used to big city living. The commuting traffic has actually been a lot less than anticipated, but it is a little weird to think of a grocery store three miles away as being a bit distant (because to get to it you're going through three miles of city grid streets, which is a lot slower than the suburban roads we're used to driving). It's also weird to drive for 15 or 20 minutes and basically still be in the same small section of the city - in Birmingham, 20 minutes generally got you to the other side of town. It's definitely a much bigger city in every respect - just keeping track of all the highways is a challenge - 35W, 35E, 94, 394, 494, 694, 62, 100, 169, 5, 55, 36... it's not uncommon to drive on all of those in an average week.
We're looking forward to multiple family gatherings over the Christmas weekend. One of the big reasons we moved here was to be closer to family so this is exciting for us! I also have some time off of work this week so Henry and I will have some quality time, and the family can get out and explore the cities some more. We have so much ground to cover!
We haven't been taking many pictures lately but now that we're unpacked and settled we'll probably get back to doing that more, and we'll have more photos for the blog. In the meantime, I've gotten back to using twitter to quickly post pictures from around town - see the right hand sidebar for links to the latest ones.
Happy Holidays everyone!
-Fran
We finally had a little time to turn our attention to Christmas shopping. I have to say, it's really fun having access to such great shopping. Birmingham had a few shops I knew I could rely on for good gifts, but the options are so much more varied here. Every neighborhood has a nice cluster of shops to choose from. It's been fun being able to do so much shopping at local businesses, and it's been a good excuse to explore the city a bit and learn more of the neighborhoods.
We're getting used to big city living. The commuting traffic has actually been a lot less than anticipated, but it is a little weird to think of a grocery store three miles away as being a bit distant (because to get to it you're going through three miles of city grid streets, which is a lot slower than the suburban roads we're used to driving). It's also weird to drive for 15 or 20 minutes and basically still be in the same small section of the city - in Birmingham, 20 minutes generally got you to the other side of town. It's definitely a much bigger city in every respect - just keeping track of all the highways is a challenge - 35W, 35E, 94, 394, 494, 694, 62, 100, 169, 5, 55, 36... it's not uncommon to drive on all of those in an average week.
We're looking forward to multiple family gatherings over the Christmas weekend. One of the big reasons we moved here was to be closer to family so this is exciting for us! I also have some time off of work this week so Henry and I will have some quality time, and the family can get out and explore the cities some more. We have so much ground to cover!
We haven't been taking many pictures lately but now that we're unpacked and settled we'll probably get back to doing that more, and we'll have more photos for the blog. In the meantime, I've gotten back to using twitter to quickly post pictures from around town - see the right hand sidebar for links to the latest ones.
Happy Holidays everyone!
-Fran
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