a little thai dinner date night!

we had a little bit of time to kill before we went to see "the office" musical on thursday night, so we grabbed dinner at one of our favorite thai restaurants across the street from the theatre.  it has been a little while since we've been there and we hadn't had a date night in forever, so it was the perfect treat before the show!  i'm still thinking about how good that thai eggplant was, yum!

love, laurie

"the office" musical . . . in scranton!

we were huge fans of the show "the office" when it was on tv.  we even have all of the seasons on dvd at home.  when we heard last year that there was an off-broadway musical parody of the tv show, we knew we had to see it!  we didn't get a chance to see it in nyc, but this week the u.s. tour came to town.  it was only right to have the u.s. tour of the off-broadway show kick off its tour with its first show in scranton (which, of course,  is where the office is set)!

there was a great turnout at the theatre and the crowd loved the show.  we had great seats with my parents and a few of our co-workers!  it was very funny and i give the cast credit for playing so many different characters!  (some of their costumes were incredibly fast!)

after seeing the musical last night, it makes me want to go back and re-watch the show again!

have a great weekend!

love, laurie

a walk around lake scranton

yesterday was a very busy day where i was running from one meeting to another.  i felt like i never had a chance to actually sit down at my desk and accomplish anything.  my head was spinning by the time i got home.  luckily, ryan was able to get out of work at a reasonable hour.  since the weather was so nice, we drove over to lake scranton for a walk around the lake.  it's always so pretty and peaceful there.  it's about 3.5 miles to walk around the entire lake and it was a great way to unwind after a nutty day!

love, laurie

the positions he gets into . . .

i was sitting at the computer over the weekend typing and realized it got quiet.  i started looking around for leko, who is normally on the floor next to me when i'm on the computer, but i couldn't find him.

i looked through the doorway into our bedroom and found him in this position on his favorite pink fleece blanket.  what a cutie!  i had to zoom in with the camera on my phone so that i wouldn't disturb him.  after i took the picture, i ran over to him and face planted into that glorious belly fluff!

love, laurie

will travel for food

ryan was at work all day on saturday, so my parents and i took a day trip to new jersey for . . . food.  the main purpose of our trip was to go to trader joe's since we don't have a tj's any closer to where we live.  we make a few trips to different tj's each year to stock up on our favorite things.

in addition to shopping at tj's we also picked up some groceries from another grocery store we like, homemade pirogies from a store that makes nothing but pirogies, and stopped at the cheesecake factory on the way home for dinner and dessert thanks to some gift cards that my parents had.

yup, we spent the day in new jersey all revolving around food and it was a great trip!  at the cheesecake factory i had some delicious herb-crusted salmon with mango lime cheesecake!

don't feel too bad for ryan, he got a slice of s'mores cheesecake brought home for him too!

love, laurie

fall bucket list 2019

happy fall!  today's the first day of autumn and the weather has felt like a combination of fall in the mornings, summer in the afternoons, and fall in the evenings.  i'm not complaining.

at the start of the fall season, i always like to put together a fall bucket list of things we hope to do before it snows.  we're already off to a good start with some of the things on our list . . .

1. decorate our house for fall

2. sip a pumpkin spice latte

3. visit roba family farms

4. visit ritter's apple cider mill

5. make pumpkin and apple recipes

6. pick out a pumpkin and carve it for halloween

7. have pumpkin ice cream

8. plant mums in our front yard

what's on your fall list this year?

love, laurie

last outdoor summer concert of the season!

we were back at it again yesterday with another summer concert at our local outdoor concert pavilion.  we both worked the jason aldean show all day, and we were beyond thrilled that this was our last outdoor concert for the season!

ryan worked lighting for the load in, deck for the show call, and lighting for the load out.  i worked rigging for the load in, robo spot for the show call, and rigging for the load out.  it was a long day but luckily it wasn't too bad of a day and the weather was fairly nice (except for the fact that we were actually freezing cold for most of the day)!

love, laurie

butterfly release

on saturday afternoon, my parents and i stopped by skytop resort to visit their butterfly house and see their butterfly release.  it's the time of the season when it's too cool for the butterflies to stay in northeastern pennsylvania, so they have to make their 3-month trek 3,000 miles to mexico!  before they took flight, the butterflies fueled up on some milkweed plants to give them strength for their journey.  it's always so nice to see monarchs in person!

love, laurie

a trip to ritter's cider mill

after visiting roba family farms on saturday, we took a drive up to ritter's cider mill.  we picked out some apples, bought some cider, and visited the animals.  i always love ritter's in the fall.

love, laurie

. . .

previous trips to ritter's cider mill: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2016, 2017, 2018

roba family farms

on saturday morning, my parents and i took a trip to roba family farms.  it's a tradition of ours to visit roba's farm each fall.  saturday was teacher appreciation day, which meant we got in for free and didn't have to pay admission.  the weather was cooler than normal, overcast, and very windy, but that didn't stop us from having a good time.

ryan had to work all day on saturday, so he didn't get to join us.  luckily, the teacher appreciation free admission was for both saturday and sunday, so after ryan got out of work on sunday evening we ran up to roba's for a quick hour before they closed so that ryan had a chance to visit the farm this year too!

love, laurie

. . .

previous trips to roba's: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018

eight years old!

this month our baby boy turns eight years old!  we love our little guy so much and it's so incredibly hard to believe that he's eight already!  i can't believe how much he's grown since we first brought him home in january 2012.  of course we're celebrating his birthday for days with lots of extra kisses, cuddles, and tuna!

love, laurie

slow mornings

it's rare that we don't have to fly out of the house first thing in the morning.  we had a moment to have a slow morning one day last week and we took advantage of it by staying on our pjs a little longer and making individual dutch babies with cinnamon sugar and strawberries in our mini cast iron skillets.  we used this recipe which we first made 5 years ago.

fingers crossed for a few more slow mornings!

have a great weekend!

love, laurie

fall flowers

we have this plant outside our kitchen window that blooms white every august.  as soon as september starts rolling around, the white flowers turn a pink color before they dry up in late fall.  i love watching them change from white to pink.  they're so pretty!

love, laurie

patriot day

we had the opportunity to visit ground zero six years ago in september, just after the 12th anniversary of 9/11 and it was a moving experience.  the waterfalls and the reflecting pools that sit within the footprints of where the twin towers once stood are a lovely tribute, and the freedom tower is quite a site to behold.  our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who lost a loved one on this day 18 years ago.

love, laurie

fall cuddles

when the weather gets cooler leko loves to cuddle even more than normal.  of course i don't complain one bit about that!  kitten cuddles are the best!!!

love, laurie

"paint it back - the history of the rolling stones"

we kicked off our fall show series at our theatre on friday night with a rolling stones tribute band called "satisfaction the international rolling stones tribute band presents paint it back - the history of the rolling stones" . . . wheph, it's a long title, but it was a great band!

i've been planning this show for nearly a year, so it was great to finally see it happen.  everyone loved it!  here are a few of the photos i snapped on my camera.  you can see the whole album with all of my photos on our theatre's facebook page here.

onto the next show!

love, laurie