Merry Christmas from the McKenzies!!!

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family!! I know that it is a little bit early, but we figured we should post about our Christmas plans before we leave the state of Michigan and have limited internet access. Colin has been at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic since Wednesday, and will be returning on Sunday!! I have missed him being away like CRAZY and can't wait for him to return!

On Sunday, we will begin our 23 hour journey to Texas by car so that we can take the dogs to see their grandparents in Baytown. :) We will stay overnight in Little Rock, AK, and then drive on down to Baytown the next day. After that long drive, I am sure that we will be ready to be out of the car, but we are excited to see the Rhodes family! We will hopefully also be able to get together with some great friends while we are in Texas. Then, we will travel to Columbus, Georgia for a few days to see the McKenzie parents! Dr. McKenzie is going to be deployed to Afghanistan soon, so we really wanted to be able to see the McKenzie side of the family as well before he leaves! Please keep that side of the family in your prayers as they prepare for his departure.

After visiting Georgia, we will be going back to Texas so that we can go to San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl!! Michigan State is playing Texas Tech at the Alamodome on January 2, and we are excited to be able to spend New Year's Eve on the Riverwalk with our MSU friends! We will be able to share our Texas heritage with all of our friends from Michigan who have never experienced real Mexican food or Texas Barbecue, so we are thrilled to be back in our home state to see family and friends and catch up on eating good food!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! We hope that you have a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends just as we intend, and we wish you all safe travels!

Our Christmas tree at our house in Michigan

Colin and Mandie at Dr. Sedatole's house for the band department Christmas party

McKenzie Christmas Picture!!

Christmas Time is Here!!

Christmas time is quickly approaching here in Michigan, and with it has come many blessings!! For those of you who do not yet know, I have a JOB!! Starting in January, I will be one of the reference librarians at Michigan State University. Because of the economy, it is only guaranteed through the end of the Spring semester; however, it could turn into something permanent if more funding is found and will give me some great contacts who can help get a foot in the door somewhere else potentially. We are so grateful that we will have some steady income for the coming semester, and are thankful for all of the prayers and well wishes from our friends and family.

In addition to the blessing of a job, we were also excited to experience our first snow ever tonight! It was beautiful and coming down pretty hard; we will probably receive three to four inches before tomorrow morning. The dogs loved playing in their first snow--they were romping around and chasing each other and eating the snow. Beauregard was even jumping about three feet in the air trying to catch the snowflakes in his mouth before they hit the ground! It was hysterical! Our house looks very pretty with all of our Christmas lights and all of the snow on the ground. I told Colin that it looks like the movie "White Christmas" outside, which he has never seen. We will have to remedy that before the season is over!

Colin is finishing up his first semester here at MSU, and is very busy studying for finals and writing papers for the end of the term. Wish him luck as he prepares to ace his classes! I have recently joined the Meridian Community Band, and performed with them at the annual Lansing Christmas tree lighting at an event called Silver Bells in the City. Colin and his friend Paul came to watch me and we got to take some cute pictures with the Christmas decor. We had fun exploring downtown Lansing as it was all decorated for the holidays, which was fun because we hadn't really ventured into downtown before. Now we are just trying to wrap things up here so that we can travel to Texas and Georgia to be with our families during the holidays!

To see an album of our holiday adventures so far, click here.