And a Happy New Year!

Colin and Mandie celebrating New Year's Eve at

Pat O'Brien's on the San Antonio Riverwalk

Happy New Year from the McKenzies!! We hope that your holiday travels and visits with friends and family were as wonderful as ours were!

As you read in our last post, we had planned to take a whirlwind tour of the South over the Christmas break, and it ALMOST went off without a hitch! A friend of Colin's from MSU is also studying conducting and is a fellow Texan, and had planned to carpool down to Texas with us in his own car with his Cocker Spaniel. Unfortunately, on the day that we were supposed to leave for Texas, his car would not start! So, Colin and I being the wonderful friends that we are :), delayed our trip for a day to see if they could fix his car. The dealership could not fix it in a timely manner, so we offered to take him with us to Texas. That is right--three people, four dogs, and all of our stuff for three weeks of travel in a Honda Accord for over 20 hours!! Sound fun, right? Really, it ended up being fine and we were glad that we could help out a friend.

We visited Texas and Georgia to see both of our respective families, and it was wonderful to be home for Christmas. We even had the added treat of seeing my Aunt Vicki and Uncle Bob in Baytown when we didn't think we were going to be in town at the same time, and seeing lots of people from Columbus when Mrs. McKenzie had a dinner party at her house, including Colin's brother's in-laws who also live in Columbus. Good times were had by all and we were so thankful that we got to be with everyone we love over the holidays. To see pictures from our Christmas vacation, click here to access the web album.

Then, it was off to San Antonio for the Alamo Bowl! San Antonio is one of my favorite cities, so we enjoyed very much taking our Michigan friends to experience Texas in one of the most fun places in the state. We were able to ring in the New Year on the Riverwalk, which was very fun. MSU lost the game to Texas Tech, but I felt that we put up a good fight, and the game was much better that we had expected it to be. To see pictures of our trip to the Alamo Bowl, click here to access the web album. To all of our friends that we didn't get to see this trip to Texas, we are coming back in the summer and hope to see you then!

We had to leave the day after the game to drive back to Michigan so that I could be back to start my new job as a Reference Librarian at MSU. I have been working for a week now and absolutely love it! It is exactly what I wanted to be doing in a job, and I am enjoying every minute of being a working girl again! Colin has started his Spring semester of classes and has enjoyed conducting the pep band at hockey games for MSU. We are looking forward to a wonderful semester and hope that Spring comes soon to the state of Michigan! Not that we don't enjoy the snow, but the eight degree weather for weeks at a time is a little too cool for our tastes.

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.

Fall Greetings!

With the advent of the changing leaves and brisk weather that signals the onset of Fall have come busy times in the life of the McKenzie family! We have been making new friends, going to football games and concerts, and going to job interviews. I went to Homecoming at Baylor in Texas and got to see my family plus all of my friends from college and my aunt and uncle who live in Waco. Even though Baylor lost the game, we are still proud to always be Bears and Baylor Proud! Colin has been keeping busy with school and marching band. It looks like if MSU wins their next two games, we will be at the Alamo Bowl for Christmas, so those of you who are not MSU fans please start rooting so that our Christmas plans can include a taste of home in Texas! We have also been dog sitting for our friend's Cocker Spaniel, Bailey (see picture at the bottom), who is very cute and friendly with our dogs! On the job front, I have been substitute teaching and continuing to search for library jobs, so hopefully something will happen on that front soon. Everyone keeps telling us that it will snow soon, but it has remained just cool and fairly mild, for which we are thankful. Other than that we miss our families and love our friends, and are continuing to make a life here in Michigan!

Mandie and parents at the Homecoming bonfire

Savannah and Charlotte napping on their bed

Beauregard and Bailey taking a nap together

Colin taking a nap with Beauregard

Colin and Mandie at the MSU vs. Notre Dame game in Indiana

Colin and Mandie at the Notre Dame game (again!)

Charlotte giving Mandie a hug in her prissy argyle sweater

Savannah and Beauregard being sleepy dogs

Fall Update!

I know that it has been almost a month since you have heard from us--sorry!! Colin has been keeping busy with coursework, studying for tests, and the Spartan Marching Band with football games on most weekends. We are half-way through the season and looking forward to the holidays when we actually have time to see each other! I attended substitute teacher training last week and should be able to start subbing in a week or two so at least I will be bringing in some income for our family while continuing to hunt for the elusive professional librarian position here. Fall has officially come to town--the leaves on all of the trees are changing and it is absolutely beautiful here!! Continue to keep us in your prayers as we try to build a life here in Michigan!

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!