School has started at MSU

School started last week for Michigan State University, and that means that Colin has been super busy! He spent the entire week before the start of school at marching band rehearsals from eight in the morning until eleven at night, which left me at home being a housewife and dog mom! Luckily, I got a reprieve from being alone and was fortunate enough to be flown to Texas last weekend by the Hooper family so that I could go to Tabitha's baby shower in Pittsburg!! I had a wonderful time visiting with Tabitha and Josh and the Hooper's, even if it was just for a short weekend! Plus it was really nice to be in the great state of Texas for a few days! Now, school has started, and Colin is taking two classes plus helping to teach a conducting class, going to all of the ensemble rehearsals, and marching band, of course! We went to our first Spartan football game on Saturday. MSU played Montana State and totally stomped all over them, but we had field passes that allowed us to be on the sideline and super close to all of the action. It was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to more football games! Now, it is just back to the school routine for Colin while I am still praying for a job! Keep us in your prayers as we get ready for the first snow here in Michigan, which they say should happen in October. :)

Mexican Food in Michigan....

Not that Colin and I were expecting the Mexican food in Michigan to be great. We actually supposed most of it to pretty terrible. However, on the recommendation of some Baylor friends who live in East Lansing we decided to try a restaurant here in town called Cancun. I think we were just a little homesick and craving some jalapenos, so when we walked into the restaurant and saw it's brightly colored booths with Corona flags on the wall, we decided it looked promising and that it sort of reminded us of a restaurant in Waco. Then, we opened the menu. What we found was a guide in the back explaining to us how to pronounce the names of Mexican dishes, such as nachos sounding like na-choz, and we knew that we were far from home. Needless to say, the food did not measure up to our expectations; however, we did get this funny picture of the pronunciation guide/food descriptions from the menu. I guess the only Mexican food we will be eating up here is the food that we make ourselves--luckily Colin is half Mexican and knows how to make some really good enchiladas!!

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!!!!