Above and Beyond
Above and Beyond By Bonnie Hoover The kids had gone to bed, and I was making one last sweep of the kitchen to ensure it was all tidied up before ending my day. It only took a few extra minutes, so I went ahead and got the coffee ready for one touch of a button […]
Made for More
Made for More By Bonnie Hoover Wake up, work out, eat breakfast, drop the kids off at school, head to work, pick up the kids, oversee homework, eat dinner in the car, dance, and baseball practice, and head home for showers and bed. Sleep, wake up, repeat. Do you ever feel like your life is […]
Making Room for Growth
Making Room for Growth By Bonnie Hoover One sunny afternoon in February, just as tiny buds were beginning to swell on the branches, I spent several hours meticulously cutting back growth from my peach trees. I clipped the water sprouts and the hundreds of small shoots crowning the top of the trees. I cut out […]
Spring is Coming!
Spring is Coming! By Bonnie Hoover Cold, rainy winter days feel like a wet blanket on my soul, and it’s been raining where we are for three months straight. Seattle folks might scoff at the plight of this south Georgia girl, but the dreariness is real. Two weeks ago, for the first time in a […]
What’s Your Favorite Chocolate?
What’s Your Favorite Chocolate? By Bonnie Hoover I find myself in the minority of women when I admit that I’ve never really been a fan of Valentine’s Day. I’m sure you’re wondering why I wouldn’t be interested in a day devoted to romance, love, and chocolate. I have my reasons. Maybe I’m too practical, cheap, […]
Tricky Transition
Tricky Transition by Bonnie Hoover “I don’t feel like I’m losing a daughter but gaining a son.” We often hear this lovely sentiment from the bride’s parents as they speak fondly of their future son-in-law. With all the excitement and joy surrounding an upcoming wedding, knowing your new spouse will fit in with your family […]
Unexpected Detour
Unexpected Detour Marriage is messy, and “til death do us part” is a long time. We rarely know what sharp curves and pitfalls we’ll encounter when we begin our Marriage Adventure. We hope that taking the scenic route means quaint country roads with spectacular views and sunsets. But, if we stay on the journey long […]
What Came Next Was a Bit of a Blur
What Came Next Was a Bit of a Blur By Bonnie Hoover It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon, one I had been anticipating since parking my mower back in late November. The sky was clear blue, and the wind blowing through my hair was exhilarating as I whipped around cutting grass on my Zero Turn […]
This is Love
This is Love By Bonnie Hoover “I never knew what real love was until I looked in the face of my newborn baby.” Have you ever heard someone say this about their child? Maybe you’ve said it yourself. What a funny thing to say about a person who has barely drawn air for a full […]
Becoming One Flesh
Becoming “One Flesh” By Daniel & Bonnie Hoover Of all the ways we connect with our spouse, the intimate bond that is formed between a husband and wife during sex may be the most fascinating! In His love for us, God allows us to experience both physical and emotional ecstasy together. He actually designed us […]
Connection is Costly
Connection is Costly By Bonnie Hoover It happened on mile 3 of our 5-mile hike down from an overnight stay at the Len Foote Hike Inn. The kids walked ahead while Daniel and I lagged behind, enjoying the crisp mountain air. Daniel reached out and grabbed my hand as we talked about what a fun […]
Daily, Weekly, Monthly…
Daily, Weekly, Monthly… By Daniel & Bonnie Hoover Several years ago, I (Daniel) received a phone call from one of my best friends. At the time, he was single and was on a business trip to Colorado. While there, he took a trip to the top of the Rocky Mountains. As I picked up the […]
Beyond Expectations
Beyond Expectations By Bonnie Hoover Typically I wouldn’t say I like surprises. You see, I’m a planner and don’t enjoy things being sprung on me at the last minute. However, I have come to love birthday surprises when my hubby is planning them! Daniel is the king of planning and keeping fun secrets on special […]
Good Fences
Good Fences Early in our marriage, I felt something was missing. It wasn’t money, a big house, or children, though we didn’t have those either. No, it was something a bit more straightforward. I wanted a puppy. After much begging, Daniel finally agreed to get me a miniature dachshund, and we named her Maggie. I […]
Sounding the Alarm
Sounding the Alarm “It doesn’t even seem sporting. I pretty much sit on the porch and pick the deer off from there. It’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said. I remember the previous owner’s words to us from across the table at our house closing. I sat in silence, staring across our […]
Tweaking the Recipe
Tweaking the Recipe A couple of weeks ago, our twelve-year-old daughter had a friend over to hang out on New Year’s Eve. We usually do something fun as a family on the final night of the year. But this year, three of the four of us had plans to sit and yell at our TV, […]
Give Away, Throw Away, and Save
Give Away, Throw Away, and Save By Bonnie Hoover I was recently sorting through a bunch of old stuff, getting ready to make a move from one house to another. I am not a packrat, by any stretch of the imagination. If I haven’t used something in over two years, chances are I don’t need […]
Codependent on Our Dependants
Codependent on Our Dependants By Bonnie Hoover I’ll never forget holding my seconds-old daughter in my arms for the first time. After five years of longing, crying, and praying for the Lord to give us a child, Josie was finally here. She was so tiny, helpless, and dependent on us for everything. But that was […]
Dreams Cost Money
Dreams Cost Money By Daniel Hoover When our kids were younger, some of their favorite tv characters were Dora the Explorer and Diego (her cousin). Dora & Diego wereconstantly in the pursuit of some hidden treasure, only to be messed up by Swiper. Swiper was their nemesis. He always messed up their treasure hunt. “Swiper, […]
Rekindle the Romance
Rekindle the Romance By Bonnie Hoover I’ve never been much of a fan of Valentine’s Day. No, really. When I (Bonnie) was in college, I spent a little time working in a flower shop. February 10th-14th was usually crazy! But oddly enough, besides Mother’s Day, the rest of the year was just average. I rarely […]
7 Lessons from High-Level Leaders
7 Lessons from High-Level Leaders By Daniel & Bonnie Hoover On this week’s podcast episode #55, we had the privilege of sitting down with Ira and Kim Blumenthal. Ira served as the CMO of a division of Sara Lee, the President of a $300-million food company, then founded and presided over CO-OPPORTUNITIES. CO-OPPORTUNITIES is an […]
The Freedom of Grace
The Freedom of Grace By Daniel & Bonnie Hoover How many “friends” have you lost in the new year? We were all ready for 2020 to be gone in hopes 2021 would be better in our world. But only a month in, we’re starting to see that was wishful thinking. Our nation is so divided […]
Reluctant Grace
Reluctant Grace By Bonnie Hoover “Mama! Maaaaake him STOOOOOP!” The annoyance between the nine and eleven-year-olds in the back seat had escalated to the point of my daughter demanding intervention. A quick glance in the rearview mirror and reminder that her brother was returning what she had dished out wasn’t appreciated. Nor was my next […]
Six Lessons from the Book When to Walk Away by Gary Thomas
Six Lessons from the Book When to Walk Away by Gary Thomas By Daniel & Bonnie Hoover 1. “Every toxic person is difficult, but not every difficult person is toxic.” God created all of us with different personalities. Some are more laid back, while others are more forceful. Just because someone is more aggressive, driven, […]
10 Things I’ve Learned from My Parents’ Sixty-Year Marriage
10 Things I’ve Learned from My Parents’ Sixty-Year Marriage By Daniel Hoover 1- You don’t HAVE to date for years before you get married. Obviously, I’m not encouraging couples to rush into a marriage. However, my parents met in September and got married in January. I’ll never forget after meeting Bonnie, I asked my dad […]
Rivers in the Desert
Happy New Year, and welcome to 2021! Most people flip the calendar from one year to the next in anticipation of a fresh start. This year is no different! With so many circumstances that remain out of our control, we think it’s a great idea to focus on something we can impact, our marriage. Many […]
“The Desire to Finish Strong”
A few weeks ago, Bonnie & I had the opportunity to spend some time with New York Yankee’s great Brian Doyle and his wife, Connie. Primarily, we were there to interview them for our podcast. It was apparent that God had much more of a blessing in store for our family. Typically, we record the […]
Thankful Hearts
In September 1620, 102 passengers left Plymouth, England, on a small ship called the Mayflower. They endured 66 days at sea in the tiny vessel that they dreamed would carry them to a better life of land ownership and religious freedom. They reached the tip of Cape Cod, then crossed the Massachusetts Bay a month […]
L.I.F.E.
LIFE. Life is a word that holds different meanings. For most people, it simply means that you have breath in your lungs and you are still on this rock orbiting the sun. Believe me, that is a good thing! However, life has other connotations as well. It also means that you have stuff going on. […]
Lucas & Maggie Black: Movie Star Marriage
Lucas & Maggie Black: Movie Star Marriage Most of our blog posts are directly tied to the topic we discuss in our weekly podcast. This week we released an interview two felt was so powerful that recapping it or drawing one or two points out of it wouldn’t do it justice. If you have the […]
“Marriage Shouldn’t Be That Hard”
“Life’s too short to stay with such a difficult person. Marriage shouldn’t be that hard.” We sat in shock as someone relayed the advice she had received from a marriage counselor. Maybe the counselor has been watching too many Hallmark movies! Where else would he have gotten the idea that marriage should be easy? What […]
Eternally Ever After
Eternally Ever After When I (Bonnie) was a young girl, many, many moons ago, I had this picture in my head of my “happily ever after.” I dreamed of future sunset walks through open fields with my fingers laced through “Prince Charming’s.” We smile at each other as we watch our 2.5 children (whatever that […]
“You Complete Me”
“You Complete Me” Don’t you just love a good romantic movie? The year we got married, the romantic-comedy Jerry McGuire hit the big screen. It had something for everyone, sports, comedy, romance, even a cute kid. We watched the relational ups and downs of an unlikely couple. And just when we thought it wasn’t gonna […]
Will We Still Be Together in 4 Years?
Will We Still Be Together in 4 Years? In the late ’80s/early ’90s, John Gottman published the findings from his study about what causes a great marriage. John Gottman was able to predict with 94% accuracy if the couple would be together and happy in 4 years using the ratio of positive interactions and negative […]
Situational Awareness
Situational Awareness Wikipedia defines Situational Awareness as “the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status.” Wow, that is a mouthful. In laymen’s language, it means to know what’s going on around you and adjust if you need to. Recently, […]
Married Sex
“I’ll make it worth his while when I get home from my girl’s night out.” “I cleaned the house, so I’ll be getting some tonight!” “It wouldn’t bother me if we never had sex again.” “Okay, let’s just get it over with.” These are exact phrases we have heard from couples about their sexual relationships. […]
Catch the Little Foxes
Catch the Little Foxes Every night we walk through the same routine at bedtime. We say prayers and tuck the kids in bed. Then, I (Bonnie) head to our room to take a bath, take off makeup, and get on my pajamas. But Daniel’s ritual involves keeping our family safe. After getting coffee ready for […]
Sex… God’s Idea
Sex… God’s Idea “Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman, for she was taken out of man.’ That […]
Can I Have Friends of the Opposite Sex?
Can I Have Friends of the Opposite Sex? Having spent our entire marriage in ministry together, it’s been natural to have boundaries with people of the opposite sex. We spent our first eight years traveling from church to church in a motorhome, so we were virtually never away from each other. When we came off […]
5 Things Newlyweds Can Teach Us
5 Things Newlyweds Can Teach Us These days our alarm goes off around 6:00 a.m. We rush around to get everyone up and dressed, fed, teeth brushed, lunches packed, and race out the door to get to school. We go in different directions, send texts midday to coordinate after school schedules. We eat a quick […]
Patterns Have Partners
“Nice of you to join us,” I said sarcastically, as Daniel put a plate in the microwave to reheat his dinner. The kids and I had finished dinner twenty minutes before he walked in the door, an hour after I had expected him home for dinner. “Someone caught me on the way to the parking […]
Flat Brains and Hard Hearts
FLAT BRAINS & HARD HEARTS I’m sure everything is great at your house. But at ours, emotions have been running a bit hot lately. After months and months of close-quarter living with the same people, one little comment or action can take our emotions from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds. Walking through […]
The “Me” That You See
The “Me” That You See When I (Daniel) was a little boy, my brothers and I would throw the baseball or football in our side yard. As we got older, we stretched into our neighbor’s yard. I don’t guess it bothered them, and we never thought anything about it. Now that I’m a Dad of […]
My Goals are Killing My Marriage!!
We all have different personality styles. Sometimes we’re born with a particular personality, sometimes life shapes it for us. I’m (Daniel) the youngest of four boys. Typically the youngest is thought to be spoiled, not driven but lazy…you get the picture. However, I’m not that way. I’m not sure if I was born that way […]
Coping with the “New Normal”
It’s been almost five months since our lives were turned upside down by the novel COVID-19 virus. Face masks are becoming fashion accessories, cash is accepted in fewer stores, take-out trumps dine-in, and in-person schooling is becoming a thing of the past. Welcome to the new normal! Our family has mostly held it together until […]
Patience Required
This summer, we set out, with the help of my (Daniel’s) brother, to teach our ten and eight-year-olds how to water ski. My brother pulled them behind his boat, while I and bobbed up and down in the water with them. One at a time, I attempted to teach them how to get up on […]
Empty Arms & Longing Hearts, Our Journey Through Infertility
When a couple begins their Marriage Adventure, they rarely have a complete picture of what they are pledging. “For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and health…” Dreams are dreamed of wedded bliss, as life is an open road before them. The perfect job, a white house with the picket […]
A Clean House and Manicured Lawn
About fifteen years ago, Daniel had bronchitis, so I got out and cut the grass. We had been leading worship at youth camps all summer, and the grass had gotten pretty high. As I (Bonnie) was picking up the last bag of clippings, two of our neighbors ran over to help me finish before it […]
12 Things Happy Couples Do
By the time this posts we will have just celebrated twenty-four years of marriage! Yep! Happy anniversary to us! Realizing we’ve been married for over half of our lives has us reminiscing lately. Sometimes it feels like we’ve blinked to find ourselves married for a quarter of a century. But reflecting on seasons we’ve walked […]
Shiny Happy People
Many years ago we were watching a video curriculum with our couples’ small group. The speaker made a point that initially stung us that we have mulled over and over ever since. He said that marriage was never intended to make you happy. It was designed to make you holy. Since my marriage has been […]
5 Things We Learned from an Interracial Couple
In the days and weeks that have followed the video circulating of the brutal murder of George Floyd, our nation has been collectively horrified. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, eyes turned to social media and news mediums to see demonstrators of both peaceful protests and violent riots expressing outrage. Racial tensions could no longer be ignored. […]
Keeping your Marriage on Mission
Social media can be both a blessing and a curse. It has allowed us to connect with long lost friends as well as stay connected to current ones. However, many times we fall into the trap of comparison. We see all the best moments of our friend’s lives and none of the mundane. After all, […]
Don’t Be Mean
Though I don’t have any idea what I was so upset about at the time, I will never forget something that happened during our second year of marriage. We were living in a single-wide trailer, and I vividly remember sitting on our bed and being so angry I might explode. That’s when I screamed something […]
Casualties at War
Both mine and Bonnie’s grandfathers fought in WWII. Bonnie’s grandfather was a gunner on a B17 Bomber. During one of their missions, his plane was shot down. His crew was captured, and they spent time as a POW in a prison camp. My granddad was a paratrooper. Once, after jumping out of a plane, a […]
My Spouse is Changing Without Me
Several years ago, Daniel came to me to tell me that he felt led to go back to school to work on his Master’s degree. He had a fire in his belly and was excited about the challenge of taking classes online and working toward a goal. This seemed like it was coming from out […]
Committed to “Us”
I (Daniel) started playing football when I was little. Well…at that point in my life I wasn’t exactly little. Little Debbie was one of my best friends! I loved the game and was a natural fit for playing the position of Center since I weighed close to 200 pounds in eighth grade. However, when I […]
Nailing Our Colors to the Mast
When we stood at an altar in front of our friends and family almost twenty-four years ago and said, “I do,” we had little idea what we were actually committing to. We vowed to stay together under all circumstances, “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…” For […]
If You Were Quarantined on a Desert Island…
I (Bonnie) am writing this post from my living room with two elementary-aged- children interrupting every five minutes. That can only mean one thing. Quarantine. Even though we are trying to get dressed and follow a schedule, the days seem to run together. One day we are doing well, checking all the boxes and embracing […]
Winning at Marriage
We recently had the privilege of meeting a Major League Baseball pitcher, best-selling author, and Emmy award-winning Atlanta Braves broadcaster for Fox Sports South. We got to visit with Paul Byrd and his wife, Kym at their farm, The Byrdhouse Ministries, and interview them on The Marriage Adventure podcast. In a profession that has a […]
Living with a Mission
A few years back, our church went through a rebranding of sorts. I (Daniel) helped lead our pastor and team in developing a new mission/vision statement, along with core values. It was such a unifying thing for our entire church, especially our staff. However, I realized something through the process. Many of us give 40 […]
Intentional (Im)balance
After spending the first nineteen years of our marriage working together in ministry, I (Bonnie) felt caught in a vicious tug of war match between my job at the church and my family at home. Though I was only working fifteen hours per week, most of them were at home on my laptop. The work […]
Speak Life
Have you ever had one of those days or weeks when everyone in your home was in a rotten mood? A couple of weeks ago, I (Bonnie) became frustrated with the way our children were talking to each other. They are the typical eight and ten-year-old siblings. Still, the tone behind every conversation had turned […]
“Near to the Brokenhearted”
I’ll never forget the look on Daniel’s face as I wrapped the towel around me after having taken a shower on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, 2012. You never forget the moment you hear words that brutally shake the world as you have known it. Or when you get “that” call, or have a […]
Time-Out
We’re sitting at home writing this on a weekday with our ten and eight-year-old doing school assignments online. Today marks the beginning of a two-week Coronavirus quarantine of our school system here in Paulding County, Georgia. It seemed a little drastic when we first heard about it. But, when we really investigated the reasons for […]
We are SO Different!
When we were dating and getting to know each other, we thought we were just alike. We both loved Jesus, our families, and the outdoors. We had similar dreams for the future and for what we were looking for in a spouse. So, after a week of spending every spare moment together that we weren’t […]
Think on These Things
We are usually cautious about what we allow our ten and eight-year-old to watch on TV. They often ask why they can’t watch some of the movies or shows that their friends are watching. A few weeks ago, we were flipping through channels and landed on the movie, Titanic. We happened to tune in about […]
Marriage Maintenance
My (Daniel’s) parents recently came for a visit, and we helped them drive from the Northside of Atlanta down past the traffic south of the perimeter. Before we got on the road, we gassed up their van, put air in the tires, and ran it through a car wash. This got me thinking about the […]
Preparing for the Empty Nest
When we started out on this Marriage Adventure, as twenty-three and twenty-one-year-old college students, it was just the two of us. We were ready to take on the world and enjoy the journey together. The Lord had plans for us to remain a family of two for the first thirteen years of our marriage. During […]
And Then There Were Two… Again
“For the first few months…there was a hole. There was an empty chair at the dinner table. But, after a few months, we began to get our feet under us and find a new normal.” Mike Linch, Senior Pastor at our home church, NorthStar Church, and his wife Anne recently shared their hearts with us […]
This is My BEST Friend
“He said he’s not my best friend anymore,” Colby related the workthrough tears as he got in the car after school. My (Bonnie here) heart went out to my little guy as he shared with me how his best buddy had stomped off to play with someone else during recess when Colby wouldn’t go along with […]
Video Games & Cute Boutiques
“Honestly, we just don’t have any similar interests. He likes to play video games and I like to go shopping at boutiques.” This a statement I’ve heard many times from couples. Whether it’s fantasy football, video games, or hunting… men find things to do in their cave! Typically, men don’t enjoy shopping at cute boutiques […]
#1 Rule in Conflict
As most mornings, we were in a crazy rush trying to get everything together to leave for school. “Colby, get your shoes on.” “I can’t find them!” Colby said. If you have kids, you know that they are notorious for losing shoes because they never put them where they are supposed to go when they […]
The Problem with Your Marriage
A few years into his marriage, a young pastor just finishing seminary was about to take a pastorate at a small church. However, there was one major problem, his marriage was in trouble. “How can I preach hope to people as a pastor, and I can’t even make my own marriage work?” As he cried […]
Brokenhearted and Ticked Off!
A few years ago, Bonnie and I were asked to go to breakfast with a couple from our church. We knew them, but not well. What we did know of them was that they were really amazing people. These people love God and love others. When we got to breakfast we had the typical small […]
