a birthday present opening assistant

i've had these pictures from ryan's birthday sitting on my desktop for nearly two weeks but keep forgetting to post them.  these photos are from the week of ryan's birthday when he was opening his present from me and leko decided to assist with the ribbon and the wrapping paper.

have a great labor day weekend!
love, laurie

attack kitten

on sunday morning we were sitting out on our screened porch eating our breakfast while trying to wake up after being exhausted from the day before working pentatonix.  leko was sitting on the floor sunning himself under ryan's chair.  he was acting completely innocent and then all of a sudden decided to attack the chair.  what a silly guy.  it was comical watching him try to fit his whole mouth around the base of the chair.  wonder what that chair did to him?  whatever it was, it sure had it coming!

love, laurie

pentatonix

out of the entire show line up this summer at our outdoor concert pavilion, the only act that we had any interest in was pentatonix.  we watched a documentary on netflix a little while ago about the group and really like their renditions of songs. 

on saturday, we both worked the load in, show call, and load out of the show.  ryan was on deck for the show moving set pieces around and i was back up in the spot light tower running spot for the two opening acts and pentatonix.  it was a pretty neat experience since it was a band i like for a change rather than working a rock band that i've never heard of like all of the other shows this year!

love, laurie

the harford fair

after our bike ride on thursday afternoon, we picked up ryan's mom and headed to the hardford fair.  we didn't think we'd get a chance to go this year, so it was a nice surprise to be able to go and take ryan's parents.  we wandered around looking at the exhibits and the animals.  we were probably most impressed by this gigantic tractor with wheels bigger than all of us!

love, laurie

harford fair 2015, 2016, 2017

a thursday afternoon bike ride

ryan drove all the way down to work on thursday afternoon just to find out that they were slow that day and didn't need him.  even though we were aggravated that he wasted his time driving, we were happy to have him free on an afternoon with nice weather.

we packed up the bikes, picked up ryan's dad, and the three of us hit a local trail for an afternoon bike ride.  much better than work if you ask me! ;-)

love, laurie

groovin' to the beat

this past weekend ryan's mom upgraded her laptop to a macbook air.  as part of the current promotion, she got a free pair of beats solo 3 headphones with her computer purchase.  ryan has been wanting a pair of beats for over a year now, but they are so darn expensive.  he was thrilled when he found out his mom was getting them with her computer purchase but didn't have a use for them.  as soon as we brought them home that night, he synced them right up with his phone and fell asleep listening to them.  just like a kid with a new toy.  it was funny.

have a great weekend!

love, laurie

perfect hiding spot

all winter/spring, leko was obsessed with cuddling up in our basket chair to stay cozy and warm.  this summer he changed things up and has been hanging out underneath the basket chair inside the circle base a lot.  it's the perfect hiding spot for him because he can keep a good eye on us, but we never seem to see him there since it's not at eye level for us.  it's funny how many times we've been looking for him, only to find him in this exact spot.  ryan snapped this picture the other night to show me how cute leko looked posed under there.  what a silly guy!

love, laurie

guardian of the mice

here's your daily dose of cuteness for the day.  my mom texted me this picture yesterday, and i couldn't resist sharing it.  one of my parents' cute kittens got his two toy mice out, placed them side-by-side on the carpet, and parked himself right behind them.  i'm not sure if he is guarding the mice, or if the mice are guarding him, but either way it's just too cute!

love, laurie

bird's-eye view

we spent the whole day up at the concert pavilion on friday working the "five finger death punch" and "breaking benjamin" concert.  it was a nutty day with an odd schedule and bizarre weather.

ryan and i both worked the load in, show call, and load out.  even though we were both there all day, we didn't really get to see each other since we were on different crews/positions.

it was a super soggy day with two major storms that passed through.  even though we had to delay for lightening, and one of the two opening acts was cancelled, the rest of the show eventually went on to a sold out (and very soggy) crowd.

it's rare that i get many pictures when we're working, but for this show i had a running position as a spot light operator up in one of the spot towers which made for a great bird's-eye view of the stage and the audience.

^after loading in the main stage, i had to head over to the entry stage to load in another band.  when we got there we saw that a dove decided to make a nest in the part of the wind screen that was bunched up.  i thought for sure that the bird would high tail it out of there as soon as the sound check started, but to our surprise, this bird stayed through not only sound check but the entire show!^

^the look of being beyond comatose after so many hours on the clock and the realization that the show didn't even start yet and there's a long night ahead!^

love, laurie

what we do as stage hands

i've mentioned many times before that ryan and i have been working in the theatre industry in various capacities for years.  we're both members of the stage hands union (the international alliance of theatrical stage employees) and i find that often many people outside of our industry don't understand what the stage hands union does or why it exists.  our union is celebrating it's 125th anniversary this year, and they put together this video for the anniversary celebration.  i thought i'd share it since it gives a good explanation of our union and a bit of the history behind it.

love, laurie

a little video of ryan's birthday trip to nyc

a few clips from our day in nyc on tuesday celebrating ryan's birthday

(music is "the chicken" by jeffrey camlet, matt o'donnell, and jason bundy)

have a great weekend!
love, laurie

a trip to nyc for ryan's birthday

ryan's birthday was tuesday and we had a hard time deciding how to celebrate his birthday because the weather forecast called for rain all day long after what has felt like 40 days and 40 nights of rain.  originally, we thought about going to an amusement park, but decided to take a rain check and plan an indoor activity instead.

we decided to head to nyc for the day and were thrilled that our parents were able to join us!  we took the bus into the city and spent a majority of the day exploring the museum of natural history.  (it's hard to believe that it has been 6 years since ryan and i were last at the museum.)  we took a break from exploring for lunch at cafe lalo (which was a huge disappointment btw) and then had dinner at jacob's pickles after the museum closed (luckily our dinner experience was much, much better than lunch).  on our way back to the bus station, we popped in levain bakery to pick up cookies to take home for the birthday boy and also made a quick stop at sprinkles to pick up a cupcake for the birthday boy too.

it was a fun way to spend ryan's birthday all together in nyc.  a few pictures from the day . . .

love, laurie

friday night at the wayne county fair

it's become a summer tradition for us to take a trip to the wayne county fair the first week of august.  as far as local county fairs go, it's our favorite because rides are included with the price of admission to the fair.  we love seeing the animals, vendors, entertainment, and of course riding the rides.

we were disappointed that we had to break tradition and miss our trip to the fair last year because we were out of town.  this year, it was looking like we were going to miss our trip to the fair for a second year in a row because we couldn't find any free time in our work schedules to go and because it has been raining for what feels like the past 40 days and 40 nights!

we had a really nice surprise on friday night when ryan got out of work early unexpectedly.  it actually wasn't raining for a little bit, so we made a last minute decision to head up to the fair.  i'm so glad we were able to fit in a trip because it was a lot of fun and a great little date night!

a few snapshots from my phone from our impromptu trip to the fair . . .

love, laurie

previous trips to the wayne county fair: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016