We are in Michigan!!

Hello! I know that we haven't updated in a little while, but we have been super busy packing and driving and moving into our new home in Michigan! We are officially here and loving the beautiful weather (the 75 degrees here is MUCH nicer than the 107 degrees in Waco when we were loading up our truck). More updates with pics of our new house to come!

We are in Michigan!!

Hello! I know that we haven't updated in a little while, but we have been super busy packing and driving and moving into our new home in Michigan! We are officially here and loving the beautiful weather (the 75 degrees here is MUCH nicer than the 107 degrees in Waco when we were loading up our truck). More updates with pics of our new house to come!

Dogs Graduated from School!

Savannah and Charlotte have been enrolled for the past ten weeks in dog training school at Petsmart. On Monday night, they finally graduated!! They are officially well-behaved dogs (haha!) who know how to sit, stay, lay, watch, come, and leave it! We had fun taking the dogs to school, but are glad that our weekly commitment is over. For some reason, only one picture of Charlotte came out well, so the rest are of Savannah (be sure to check out their cool hats with tassels and doggie diplomas made out of rawhide!):

Charlotte graduating!

Savannah and Colin

Savannah again

Savannah with a lopsided cap!

Weekend in Dallas

Colin and I drove to Denton this weekend to see our friends Cindy and Ron. We went to yummy dinner at a restaurant called Hannah's, and then Colin went home to Waco because he had high school band camp. I stayed and had a sleepover with Cindy, and then the next day we relaxed and went shopping. On Sunday, we went to a get-together with several friends from my Master's program in library science at UNT. It was so fun to get to visit with friends that I never get to see as well as visit with fellow colleagues in my profession who are at the same place in life as me. Then it was home to Waco for packing, packing, and more packing...the big move is in three weeks! AAAHHHH!!!

Free Vera Bradley Tote!

Click here to win a free Vera Bradley tote in the Betsey Pinwheel pattern! Lauren Nicole Gifts is giving one away--to enter the contest, click on the link above and subscribe to her blog! Just though I would pass the word along--she has some super cute stuff!

Astros Game and TMTA

This past week, Colin and I went down to Houston to visit my parents and to work registration at the Texas Music Teachers Association convention. On Wednesday night, we went to Minute Maid Park to watch the Astros take on the Chicago Cubs. The Astros won 2-1 and it was super fun! The highlight of the night was when the Astros marketing guys came up to our section and told my mom that because of her seat, if the Astros hit a grand slam in the next inning, she would win $25,000. Of course, she didn't win, but they did put her up on the big screen with the mascot and made her wave for the camera. She was embarassed, but it was really funny. Then, Colin and I went to work the convention. It was long hours, but lucrative, and we enjoyed seeing friends of ours who also graduated from Baylor who were also working the convention. All in all, it was another fun weekend achieved before we make the big move to Michigan!

Some pics from the Astros game:

Minute Maid Park

Dad and Colin

Mandie and Mom

Mandie and Colin!!

Mom and Dad

San Antonio Anniversary Trip!

Yes, I know that our anniversary isn't until July 12, but as we will be moving the weekend after our anniversary and packing like crazy the weekend of our anniversary, we decided to take a relaxing weekend trip to San Antonio on a more relaxing weekend in the summer in order to celebrate our first anniversary. We got tickets to go see the musical Wicked at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio on June 4, which I have been dying to see and border line obsessed with for two years now. It was amazing! Everyone should go see it if you get the chance--eveything about it is wonderful! We found a super cheap rate at the Sheraton Gunter hotel right across the street from the theatre and near the Riverwalk, so we got to pretend that we were fancy for a few nights. And, of course, we ate all of the yummy Mexican and seafood that we could since we are moving to Michigan where those kinds of restaurants don't really exist. Our favorite meals were at Casa Rio (where Colin requested that the Mariachi band play a song at our table called "La Paloma", a love song about a dove who returns a message to the lover of a sailor who is lost at sea--how romantic! :) ) and Joe's Crab Shack, where Colin peeled and ate crawfish for the first time and we had a crab feast. We had a super fun weekend just hanging out with each other, which rarely happens during the school year. Hopefully we get to have more times to travel with each other in the future!

Here are some pics from our trip:

The Wicked marquee outside the Majestic Theatre

Mandie with the Wicked poster

Our crab feast and crawfish

Crawfish!

Colin eating yummy crab

Spring Update!

Ok, ok, so I know we haven't updated this in a while....so I will fill you in on what we have been doing! The end of April and beginning of May were pretty busy. Colin had his last concert at Baylor on May 3 with the Concert Band, and his Garcia grandparents came all the way from El Paso to see it! We were very excited to have Papa Richard and Grandma Katy at our home for a few days since we don't get to see them very often because El Paso is a ten hour drive from where we live in Waco. Then, last weekend, we took our dogs to Paws in the Park, a charity event for the Waco Humane Society. There were tons of dogs at the event, and we had lots of fun going on a 2k dog walk and visiting the booths that were set up. Please see the pics below!

Us with the Garcia Grandparents!

Colin with Beauregard, Charlotte and Savannah at Paws in the Park

Mandie with Beauregard, Charlotte and Savannah at Paws in the Park

Charlotte!!!!

April is Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month

April is recognized by the ASPCA as Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. Since Colin and I are obviously animal lovers, we thought we would give a link to a good article about signs of animal cruelty (http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/how-to-recognize-cruelty.html). Colin and I are also participating in Paws in the Park on May 9, an event hosted by the Waco Humane Society to raise money for their organization. For those of you don't know, all of our dogs are rescue dogs, and Beauregard, our Beagle, was adopted from the Waco Humane Society last February, so we are excited to be able to participate in an event to support them. We will be walking our dogs on a 1k dog walk at Indian Springs Park in Waco as well as participating in other fun pet-friendly events. More information about the event can be found at http://wacohumanesociety.ning.com/. We are accepting donations from people who would like to sponsor us on our walk, so if you are interested in helping us support the Waco Humane Society, please let us know!!

Beauregard playing in the Christmas Decorations

Beauregard and Charlotte on the couch with my Dad

Beauregard and Charlotte on the couch with my Dad again

Beauregard looking distiguished in his new bandanna

Savannah!!!!

Spring Break and Big XII Basketball Tournaments

Colin and I spent most of Spring Break (last week) in Oklahoma City at the Men's and Women's Big XII Basketball Tournaments. Colin got to do his band director thing while I got to hang out and be the "band mom" for the kids on the trip. It was so much fun and the Baylor Bears and the Lady Bears both provided excitement for the trip. The men's team way over-performed by not only beating higher seeded Nebraska, but by upsetting both Kansas (the #1 seed team of the tournament) and Texas (who we haven't beat in the past 25 times we have played them) to make it to the championship game against Mizzou! Even though the men lost, that was the furthest they have gone in the tournament since I have been a Baylor fan, so that was really exciting. After the Texas game, we went and visited the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and museum--a sobering and thoughtful experience that everyone who visits Oklahoma City should have. Then, the Lady Bears won all of their games and became the Big XII Tournament Champions. SIC 'EM!!!

On another note, here is cute picture of us with Beauregard--Colin brought him on a walk by the library to visit me yesterday!