Charlotte featured online through Bark Magazine

Charlotte has been chosen as one of the Bark Magazine's smiling dogs! Check out her photo at http://www.thebark.com/content/weekly-smilers-4-25-11. (She is listed under week 4-25-11). The dogs are listed alphabetically so her photo is at the beginning of the array! YAY for our beautiful, gorgeous girl!

Moving Countdown!

Things are coming to an end quickly here in Michigan! I have only three weeks of work left, so have been busy trying to wrap things up there. I will be sad to leave a job that I love and all of the wonderful co-workers I have, but am looking forward to our next adventure!

Colin has submitted his transcription of John Corliagno's Tournaments for band as well his document to his committee. His dissertation defense is scheduled for May 2. Hopefully, if all goes well, he will have finished all of his requirements and we will just need to register for his remaining dissertation hours this summer (why we are still required to buy those after he has defended, I don't know--graduate school can be a racket!) and then he will be Dr. McKenzie in August! Please keep him in your thoughts as he tries to finish up his last class and prepares for his dissertation defense.

We go May 4 to Statesboro to look for a place to live, so wish us luck! We are hoping to move over Memorial Day weekend.

Mandie

Puppy Dog Easter Pictures

Last weekend, we took our puppies to Petco because the Lansing Jaycees were having a fundraiser for the Capital Area Humane Society and the Animal Placement Bureau by taking pictures of dogs with the Easter Bunny (CAHS is the animal rescue where Colin and I volunteer, and one of my co-workers helps run the Animal Placement Bureau, so we like to support them!).  We have never taken our dogs to have pictures taken like this before, so it was a little bit of an adventure. Charlotte is apparently scared of people in costume and originally started growling at the Easter Bunny, but we finally got her settled down with lots of treats!  Beauregard just wanted to escape and run around the store (true to form) and Savannah, as usual, was our best dog, sitting still for the camera. Overall it was a fun experience and gave us some cute pictures while we supported a good cause!

You can view all of the Easter pictures as well as other puppy pics by clicking here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2332887&id=9203837&l=f6f5504c5d

Beauregard

Charlotte

Savannah

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! :)