Willard's Winners

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!

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

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!

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

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!

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

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