Chris and Bonnie McKinney

Tis the season

2008-11-29T19:21:00.001-08:00

Well, we are definitely in the season! We have our Christmas tree up and we are almost completely done with our Christmas shopping with all presents wrapped and under the tree. We only have a few more gifts to buy and then we should be done. We bought our first Christmas tree this year and i was anxious to get it up and decorated. I also made fudge for the first time ever! It is really good too, if i do say so myself! Hope you all catch the Christmas spirit too!!

Christmas pic

1st Christmas tree!!

fall!

2008-11-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

Chris and I decided to spend Saturday taking a drive through the Tennessee Valley and looking at all the gorgeors colors of the trees in the Fall. We drove from Chattanooga up to Signal Mountain where we stopped by to visit my step mother. Then we drove down to the valley to visit our friend in Whitwell. Then we drove up Suck Creek mountain in order to get back to Chattanooga. It was a beautiful drive and a good time!

Also, the last picture is of the new wreath that we got for our front door. We also bought our very first Christmas tree (fake)!! I am so excited. I bought a bunch of ornaments after last Christmas b/c they were on sale at Target. So, i will post pictures soon when we put up the tree!

Tennessee River

Our drive down Suck Creek Mountain

nice view

Tiny waterfall near the road

Me and Chris, self portrait ;)

Chris and the Sequatchie Valley

Me and the Sequatchie Valley

Back yard photo of my dad and step mother's home, lots of trees!!

This is the road to my dad and step mother's home

This is a random shot from the road.

This is one of the three hair pin turns that we face as we go up the mountain on the "W" road.

Drive up Signal mountain

We got a wreath for our front door!

update on surgery

2008-10-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

thanks for all of your prayers and comments on the last post. the surgery went well and i am recovering at home. i am taking the whole week off of work in order to hopefully recover quickly. everything is going ok but i am having issues with eating as my body is not used to digesting while missing an organ. please continue to pray that i will be able to go back to work on monday with lots of energy!

Surgery

2008-10-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

hey folks!! just wanted to let every one know that I (bonnie) will be having surgery on Friday the 24th. i have been having many stomach problems and found out that it is due to my gall bladder being a quitter. we found that i have gall bladder disease and it has completely shut down so we are taking it out! i will have to be out of work for a week, so please pray for speedy recovery and for us to quickly find out what i can eat without getting sick. thanks for all your prayers!!

One year!

2008-10-01T19:29:00.001-07:00

So, we had our FIRST anniversary this past weekend and we were able to take a mini vacation and stay in a cabin in Pigeon Forge for three nights. We had a great time, it was relaxing, and I wish I was still there! Enjoy the pics below!

Kitchen

Bedroom

Living room

Very large jacuzzi that took 45 minutes to fill up

Hot tub!

Yummy Dinner!!

The excellent cook!

We at here for breakfast one morning

This is the top tier from our wedding cake, so of course we had to eat it on our anniversary. We ate a couple of bites, but surprisingly, it was not as good one year after it was baked!

New furniture and pottery

2008-09-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

We were blessed this year to be able to purchase a new dining room table around tax return time. We got a pretty good deal and we are very pleased with our new table. It is a big step up from the folding sides kitchen "table" that we were using before. I have also found a new hobby that i really enjoy. There is a place near our apartment that we have found called River City Pottery. They have all different kids of already made pottery pieces and you can buy one and then paint it in their store. They supply all paints and brushes and then they fire it in a kiln to make it all shiny. I have been four times (the most recent being tonight :) ) . I have displayed somem pottery pieces here for your enjoyment and then i will post next week when I get the piece that I just painted tonight. We also got new curtains for our bedroom due to the sun coming in more since our landscapers cut down a big bush in front of our bedroom window. We got these curtains because they have a lining and we thought that this would give us more shielding from the sunlight.....well we were wrong. Now, there is just a red glow in our bedroom throughout the day :)

So, enjoy the pics!

Kitchen table

This is our first pottery piece. We made this piece right before our wedding. You may not be able to see, but what we did was draw a face representing all those that were in our wedding party. Then drew palm trees because we got married at the beach!

This is my second piece that I did. I was most proud of this piece because it took so much detail to do two colors and then do the stencil for the flower. The green and yellow colors are colors that match almost exactly to the colors of our dishes.

This is my third piece. I painted this on a girl's day out with the ladies from my Sunday School class. I used the same colors for my fourth piece that I painted tonight to match this piece.

These are our new curtains! Yea!

Also, this our bed! We LOVE it. It is a king size and cherry wood. The headboard and footboard and curved a little at the top resembling the sleigh bed style. This was a blessing of a wedding gift from Chris' parents!

Gone Fishin'

2008-09-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

Hey All,

Bonnie and I were blessed to have an extra day off this week. We used that opportunity to go cruising and fishing with Bonnie's Dad on Chickamauga Lake. We had a blast. We were able to enjoy the scenery as we cruised up and down the lake. We also had a great time fishing. As you will see, we are fishermen/women to be feared.

Bonnie caught three whoppers like this one.

Unfortunately, Bonnie caught a bad sunburn as well.

I caught the first whopper of the day!

John, we thank you for taking us out. We had a wonderful time.

Willard's Winners

2008-08-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

My husband is hilarious, check out his blog here. And by the way, he did not prognosticate for Auburn, but I guess that is because it is a given, of course we will beat Louisiana-Monroe, WAR EAGLE!!

Cowboy Up!

2008-08-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Bonnie and I stepped into a portion of humanity that we knew very little of the other day. We have joined a church and Sunday school class. We enjoy both, and are meeting knew people that we are growing to like. One of the members of our Sunday school class is into Single Action Shooting. Now I became familiar with this sport while I was in Texas. A good friend of mine took me to a few matches, and it is actually fun. Single Actions shooting is a sport where men and women get together, dress up like Cowboys and girls, and shoot at targets with guns common to Cowboys of the late 1800's. It is a quick sport, and a mental sport as you have to shoot the targets in the right order. Everyone that we met at the event was extremely nice, and tried to include us in their sport. We had a great time. Enjoy the pictures below.

Here are a group of cowboys getting ready to shoot at one of the four stages. As you can see they dress authentically. To the right of the picture you see one of the shooters unloading his guns. The gentleman on the far right is observing him ensuring that he unloads safely. They are very serious about handling your weapons safely. Thank Goodness!

The object of this sport is to use your shotgun, rifle, and six guns to shoot targets in a specified order in the shortest ammount of time. You can see that it can be a smoky and difficult proposition at times.

Here is one of the target set ups. You shoot the small square targets with your shotgun, the yellow targets in the back with your rifle, and the red targets in the front with your pistols. Some are really fast, and some are just there for the fun.

Long Weekend

2008-08-11T10:15:00.001-07:00

Wow, what a weekend! It all began when Bonnie was able to get off work early so that we could start our mini-vacation. We drove to Knoxville on Friday afternoon and spent the night. We had attempted to do well at planning ahead by looking for the best hotel at the best price online in order to save some $$$. Well, we decided to stay in an area that is minutes from downtown Knoxville which has lots of hotels and restaurants. So, we booked our one night stay at the “Best” Western. We got to the hotel and everything looked OK, so we left to go eat dinner. We had a great meal at Outback and then back to the hotel to veg out and watch the Olympics. The bed in the hotel room was not great, but it seemed to be doable. Around midnight Chris was in so much pain due to the hardness of the so called mattress that we began to consider leaving the hotel. The front desk person allowed us to try the “best” suite before leaving, which was just as bad as our regular room. So, at about 1am we left the hotel and went down the street to a better hotel and checked in to much better sleeping conditions. We didn’t get to sleep until about 3am! Yikes, it was a long night.

We had driven to Knoxville because we were on our way to Bonnie’s family reunion. We were about an hour late for the reunion due to needing to sleep in, but nonetheless it was a great time for Chris to meet his new family. We didn’t get back until 8pm on Saturday night and were completely exhausted due to the hotel hopping done the previous night. Our lesson learned is that we probably need to spend a little more on the hotel in order to get an acceptable mattress to sleep on.

Sorry no pics, I will do better next time!

2008-07-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so it has been an entire month since we posted anything....and it has not been an eventful month so that is why there have been no posts, but we created this blog to keep anybody out there that wants to keep in touch with us to know what is going on....so, thus i shall write.

Things we have done this month: go to see movies, work, go out to eat, work, visit family, and work!

So, we went to see the movie "Wanted" on a whim...and were completely disappointed. Way too much bad language and blood and guts. Major bad movie and just for that I have gotten Chris to agree to take me to see "Mama Mia" as retribution.

I (bonnie) was able to reconnect with family members this month due to the death of one of my aunts. I am sad for the loss, but I am excited to have contact again with the family members that I have not see in over 15 years. I think we will actually get to go to a family reunion next month too! Chris was able to visit with his family for a couple of days this month too. We actually hope to be able to go back to visit them in a couple of weekends so that I can go to the Cheesecake factory :) !

We have also gone out to eat a lot! Yea! We have found a new restaurant (new to us) that it is quickly becoming our fav. It is Carrabas! If you are unfamiliar, it is a great Italian restaurant chain and there is one very close to our apartment. We have been there a couple of times and actually found out that our former neighbor is the manager there, so that is a plus!

So, that is about it for us this month. Hopefully we will have pictures of something fun we do soon!

Riverbend 2008

2008-06-14T19:29:00.001-07:00

Riverbend is a music festival in Chattanooga. It began in 1981 and is something to look forward to all year. My family has gone just about every year and I have many memories from childhood of seeing big stars on the banks of the Tennessee river. The festival lasts nine days and has a variety of performers. This was Chris' first year and we saw The Black Crowes, Josh Turner, ZZ Top, Little Big Town, and Rodney Atkins. It was awfully hot and we got rained on one night, but it is definitely a fun week here in Chatt!!.

Patrick's Birthday!

2008-06-14T19:23:00.001-07:00

Chris' sister, nephew, and parents came to visit the last weekend in May for Patrick's (nephew) birthday. He turned 9 years old and we loved having them all here to celebrate. As soon as they arrived in Chattanooga, we went swimming, of course, as this is one of Patrick's favorite things to do. We had Chick-fil-A for breakfast on Saturday as that is a tradition of mine and Chris. Then Aunt Bonnie took Patrick swimming, like any good aunt would do, while Uncle Chris, Sherry (sister), and Papa (Chris' dad) went shopping. We had pizza for lunch along with birthday cake and the opening of the presents. Patrick got a nerf gun from Uncle Chris and Aunt Bonnie (you are welcome Sherry :) . He got lots of action figures (his favorite), and Scooby Doo DVDs. We went swimming again and then to supper at Jason's deli. Then, we all went to see the Chattanooga Lookouts play baseball on Saturday night and then watch fireworks afterwards. All in all, it was a great weekend and we were so glad to have visitors.

The Blue Willow Inn

2008-05-19T18:25:00.001-07:00

Chris and I visited his family for mother's day and we had the privilege of visiting the town where Chris' mom grew up, Social Circle, GA. While we were there, we were able to visit the Blue Willow Inn. This is a fancy upscale buffet located in a beautiful old home. We had wonderful southern cooking and we were able to see Chris' grandparent's home as well.

Front of the Blue Willow Inn

Patrick the Nephew

This is the front of Chris' uncle Junior's former home, very beautiful!

This is Chris' grandparent's home

12th Annual Cornbread Festival!!

2008-04-29T16:58:00.001-07:00

This past weekend was the 12th Annual Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, TN. South Pittsburg is the home of the Lodge Cast Iron skillets and also the where my dad's family is from. We were able to go to the festival on Saturday, but we were wimps and did not stand in the enormous line in cornbread alley for the cornbread tasting. If you didnt know, there are many different forms of cornbread!! We saw lots of variety from a dessert cornbread to Mexican cornbread. We had a good time and were able to buy some crafts for gifts for some family members. I absolutley recommend going but be ready because it will be PACKED!! Enjoy the pics!!

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-04-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-04-24T14:24:00.001-07:00

New Blog!!

2008-04-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

I want to say hello to new and old friends! First, let me give props to my good friend and former roommate, Jessalee, for pimping our blog! Our blog has a great background and looks so professional due to her God-given creative ability.

I wanted to create this blog so that Chris and I could have one together. Chris still writes on his personal blog, and frankly I forgot the password and sign in to my other blog, soooo that means that one is no longer in use :) .

To catch everyone up, Chris graduated from Seminary in Dec. 06 and I graduated in May 07. I moved back to Chattanooga in May and started work. We got married in Sept. 08 and have been enjoying married life ever since. If you have not seen our wedding and honeymoon pics, I will make a post specifically for them.

So, stay tuned for the "exciting" life of the McKinneys!