Please vote for Beauregard!

Beauregard, our beagle, has been entered in Bissel's MVP pet photo contest! If he wins, we could win a number of prizes, including money for our favorite pet charity! Please vote for him everyday this week! Thanks

Click on the following link to vote for Beauregard:
Beauregard

Click here to learn more about the Bissel MVP pet photo contest:
http://bissell.promo.eprize.com/mvpcontest/?cid=p1core-tbx07.f.1800/b08a5/557/eaed585e.5af59c261f5849c6da6a8b5c54f4dc93

Giveaway on Unruly Things

One of my very favorite blogs to read, Unruly Things, is hosting a giveaway of a year-long subscription to super cute Parchment Post greeting cards!  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on the Unruly Things post saying what you would do with the cards by Friday!  Just thought I would share--enjoy!

Exciting News!

We have some very exciting news!  Colin has accepted the Associate Director of Bands position at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA (which is just outside of Savannah).  He will be the marching band director there as well as coordinate the basketball band, teach classes, and have a performing ensemble in the Spring.  His start date at GSU is July 1, so we will be moving to Georgia sometime mid-June.  We are super excited to know where we will be moving and are so happy that it is in such a beautiful area of the South!

Dreaming of Spring

The past few days have been a giant tease of what the warmer weather of Spring will bring.  We had temperatures in the fifties and all of the snow finally melted, leaving us with green grass and a big yard for the dogs to play in without snow on the ground.  I could even see the baby shoots coming in our front yard flower bed where daffodils will be when winter finally disappears.  And then, yesterday at three o'clock, a blizzard hit Lansing.  In about four hours, all of the snow that had melted was back covering everything in a foot-thick blanket.  Colin made his flight from Atlanta to Detroit, but his flight from Detroit to Lansing was cancelled because of the weather, so he had to take a bus from Detroit to East Lansing, where I went to pick him up.  The roads were horribly icy and I had a really bad spin-out where I narrowly missed hitting two other cars by inches by the grace of God. After sitting in the parking lot of the Haslett Animal Clinic and having a panic attack about my narrow escape from a car wreck, I trucked on to East Lansing from our home to pick up Colin...

Whose bus took forever to get here.  After my harrowing driving experience to East Lansing, I spent a long time in Barnes and Noble browsing for books and then spent even more time talking to my mom on the phone in the parking garage while watching the gale winds blow and the blizzard snow fall.  Finally, Colin arrived and I made him drive home! :)  Today, the city  has yet to plow our neighborhood--Colin got stuck four times trying to get onto a main road and some neighbors kindly helped to dig his car out.  I could not get out of the neighborhood to go to work tonight.  When will winter ever end here? Can we please move somewhere warmer soon?  I am dreaming of weather in the seventies and the beauty of Spring!

Love!

Valentine's Day has always been difficult for us to celebrate because it usually falls in the middle of the week instead of on the convenient weekend.  This year was no exception, so we celebrated Valentine's Day the Saturday before by going to see The King's Speech (which is absolutely fantastic if you haven't seen it yet) and going to have a nice romantic dinner at a local restaurant. We also exchanged gifts:

Colin got me this beautiful ruby bracelet to match the ruby necklace he got me our first Valentine's Day that we spent together as a married couple and some ruby stud earrings he got me last Christmas (he fondly calls it the "Ruby Collection").

Ruby bracelet from Colin

I opted for a more traditional love letter for Colin.  Any of you who know me know that my handwriting is atrocious and akin to that of a small child's, and I really wanted Colin to have something heartfelt and special as well as beautiful, so I enlisted the help of my friend Anna who has her own calligraphy business at http://calligraphybyanna.com/.  I sent her what I wanted the text of the letter to be, and she wrote it out on heavyweight paper and mailed it to Colin in time for Valentine's Day.  I know that this is a shameless plug for my friend's business, but she makes beautiful handcrafted paper gifts and calligraphy and I just love her work!  You can check out her website or also check out her Etsy store.  Doesn't her Shakespeare font just say "LOVE" to you??

Love letter

Colin has since traveled to Atlanta where he is spending the whole weekend clinicing Harrison High School's band as they prepare for the Georgia music festival.  He is very excited to be asked to clinic this group as it is the school at which he student taught and has great respect for their band program.  My loving husband, knowing that I am very sad when he leaves, surprised me a super cute flower arrangement delivered to the house today!  He is so thoughtful and I will be happy to have him home again on Sunday!

Flowers from Colin!

Colin passed his Comps!

We just got word that Colin has passed all of his Comprehensive Exams with flying colors!  WOO HOO!! One more thing that he can check off of the list as he moves closer to his doctorate completion date in the spring!  YAY for my super smart husband!

Giveaways!

Two of my friends who also blog are giving away free things on their sites, so I thought that I would share with you!

Win a free $35 CSN giftcard from Cardigan Junkie (a fashion blog):
http://www.cardiganjunkie.com/2011/02/35-gift-card-giveaway-from-csn-stores.html

Win a giant Gummy Bear from the Crazy Cozads ( a family blog similar to ours)--you have to love the factor of whimsy  provided by this:
http://crazycozads.blogspot.com/2011/02/massive-gummi-bear-give-way_07.html

Happy entries! :)

Snowcalypse!

Colin and Mandie in the snow in front of our house

So, while all of my Texas friends in Dallas were iced in for four days, we had our own Snowcalypse here in Michigan!  Last Tuesday, the weather forecast for our area simply stated "Blizzard," and Colin and I said "why do we live here?!?" We received about a foot of snow over the course of the evening (which Colin promptly had to spend hours shoveling the next day), and MSU actually cancelled classes on Wednesday, which was only the third time that the university has closed in thirty years!  Colin and I enjoyed our snow day, but were grateful that we didn't have the nasty ice that our Texas friends had!

In other news, Colin has taken his comprehensive exams and will find out if he passed them soon.  One step closer to being Dr.!  He has also set his doctoral chamber recital date for March 20, which is required for graduation from the program. The fact that we will be finished with our sojourn in Michigan by the end of the semester is beginning to set in, and we are starting to plan for the next chapter of our lives with great anticipation!  Keep us in your prayers during this exciting, yet stressful time.

You can view our whole winter album by clicking here. Photos include the bowl trip to Orlando, our friend Armand's conducting recital, and our snow pictures.

Savannah and Charlotte digging in the snow in the backyard

Our Christmas penguins buried in the snow!

Photo album link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2413787&id=9203837&l=5e1b5d714b

2011 -- New Year, New Resolutions

2011 promises to be a year of great change and (hopefully!) lots of excitement for Colin and I.  Colin will be finishing up school, we will be moving to an unknown destination, and will be able to experience all of the anticipation and enjoyment that comes with those experiences.  The turn from the previous year to the new year is always one of my favorite times as it allows one to reflect on the happenings of the previous year and make decisions to direct one's life onward and ever upward in the coming year.  That being said, I thought that I would share some McKenzie New Year's resolutions as we prepare to make the most of 2011:

*Lose weight :)
*Find jobs
*Move successfully
*Walk the dogs more and live a generally more healthy lifestyle

What are your New Year's resolutions?  We wish you the best of luck with 2011!

Leaving for the Holidays

Hello friends and family!  We are getting ready to leave tomorrow for Georgia to spend Christmas with the McKenzie family, and then will head to Orlando to watch MSU play Alabama in the Capital One Bowl (it will be televised on January 1 at 1pm Eastern Time--look for Colin on the sideline by the band!).  We wish all of you a Merry Christmas, safe holiday travels, and a Happy New Year!!