quarantine porch time

this guy loves any opportunity he gets to lounge out on the back screen porch.  we were eating dinner out on the porch on tuesday night when i realized it got quiet.  i peeked under the table and this is what i found.  what a cutie!

love, laurie

quarantine blooms

yesterday the sun was shining and we got a break from dreary overcast clouds and rain.  it was a welcomed escape from the cool damp weather we've seen lately.  we took full advantage of it and went on a walk around the neighborhood after lunch and then another walk after dinner.  it was so nice to be able to get out of the house!

when we came back from our walk, we were pleasantly surprised to see that the bleeding heart bush was blooming in our yard!  yay!  it's so nice to see flowers again in our yard!

love, laurie

disney songs if they were about quarantine

man, this guy is still at it making hysterical quarantine videos.  i'm all for this.  keep them coming!

love, laurie

judgement filled quarantine workout zone

i have been a member of planet fitness gym for years.  if you've ever seen one of their commercials or been in one of their gyms, you know that their slogan is that they are a "judgement free zone."  while that may be the case for planet fitness, it is far from the case in our house.

the gyms are currently closed, so quarantine means at-home workouts.  i don't mind working out from home, except for one thing . . . the judgement from my furry personal trainer.  it's definitely a judgement filled zone instead of a judgement free zone when we're working out.  he often glares at us, yells at us, walks over our yoga mats, bats around our weights, and yesterday he even drank most of my water!  what a silly kitten!

love, laurie

quarantine construction kitten

staying at home means that we have been doing a ton of house projects that have been ignored for years.  no matter what the project is, we always have the best contractor on the job with our quarantine construction kitten. 

he surveys the site before projects, oversees and supervises all phases of the project, and does a thorough final inspection when each project is finished.  i don't know what we'd do without him!

have a great weekend!

love, laurie

"it's gonna be may" quarantine parody

last week i shared one of the many funny videos from the holderness family.  their boyz II men parody video about toilet paper was awesome. 

since then, i can't get enough of this guy, he's hysterical.  his newest video made me laugh because it's an n'sync parody of the song "it's gonna be me" and as someone who grew up in the 90s with boy bands i'm all for this.  this guy is great.

have a great day!

love, laurie

quarantine treats

we took a break from all of the housework to make some yummy treats the other day.  we made vegetarian enchiladas and a simple mini lime pie.  yum!

love, laurie

quarantine weather cat

if i were a meteorologist who had to do a weather forecast from home during this pandemic, this would totally be me with leko!

meteorologist jeff lyons does his at-home weather forecast with his cat betty and she has become a viral sensation!

check out betty . . .

love, laurie

a well deserved quarantine nap

when mom and dad work on house projects all weekend long which wears you out and you finally get them to sit down on the couch but they are talking too loudly so you have to cover your ears.

then the lights are too bright for your nap so you have to cover your eyes.

poor exhausted kitten!

love, laurie

"end of the roll" toilet paper quarantine parody

i've shared a few videos so far of people getting creative in quarantine.  the holderness family has a ton of funny quarantine videos on their facebook page.  i found this one particularly funny.  happy friday!

have a great weekend!

love, laurie

homemade ice cream in quarantine

it has been forever since we've made homemade ice cream.  we had the ice cream maker inserts in our freezer so we thought we'd pull the ice cream maker out of the basement and make some dessert.  we made plain vanilla ice cream.  we left half of it plain and jazzed up the other half with creamy peanut butter swirls, chocolate syrup swirls, and broken up pieces of chocolate-covered pretzels crisps!  can't wait to give it a taste once it's frozen.

love, laurie

snapshots of life lately (quarantine edition) . . .

a few photos of . . . streaming a straight no chaser concert in our living room for some entertainment, the first time we've ever seen a woodpecker in our front yard, making two mini apple pies to use up some old apples, digging mancala out of the basement and figuring out how to play it on the back porch, and my work-from-home furry quarantine co-worker.

love, laurie

disney characters in quarantine

i mentioned last week that people are getting super creative during this quarantine.  i recently came across this video on facebook of one guy portraying multiple disney characters during quarantine.  i laughed and laughed, then sent this to my disney-loving neighbor katie!  so good!

love, laurie

easter weekend 2020 (quarantine edition)

easter was very different than usual this year due to the quarantine, but we still had a really great easter weekend!

we kicked off the three-day holiday weekend on friday by making easter dessert treats.  we made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and dark chocolate peanut butter eggs.  after making the treats, we loaded them up in the car and drove all around to deliver them to our parents and our family friends . . .

it was so nice to see everyone (from a safe distance) for a few moments on friday to drop off the treats.  my mom made the cutest easter bunny-shaped hot-cross buns and gave us a few to enjoy.  they were such cute and tasty "bunny buns" which paired perfectly with scrambled eggs on saturday morning for breakfast . . .

we were pleasantly surprised to see how the daffodils in our front yard sprung up just in time for easter.  ryan cut some and put them in a vase to make the prettiest little flower arrangement for us to enjoy indoors . . .

on easter sunday, we got out of pajamas and sweatpants and actually put on real clothes.  it was nice to have an excuse to get dressed.  we tried hard to get a family photo with the timer on our iphone cameras.  leko was not wanting to cooperate though . . .

we scheduled a zoom chat on sunday afternoon with our whole family.  we sat down at our dining room table with our easter dinner and propped up the laptop on a box the other side of the table.  it was so nice to be able to see everyone.  it actually felt like we were all sitting around the dinner table together!  we were on zoom together for 3 hours!  it was great . . .

even though it wasn't what we have known in the past as a traditional easter holiday, overall, it was a great easter weekend!  we're glad to be safe and healthy at home and hope this passes soon so we can get together in-person with our family again!

love, laurie

happy (quarantine) easter weekend!

so, easter is going to look a bit different this year because of the quarantine.  we're hoping to be able to get together virtually with our family via zoom this weekend.

have a wonderful easter weekend!

love, laurie

quarantine dinner date

when mom makes shrimp fried rice for dinner and you wait patiently on the table next to her, staring her down, until she gives you some shrimp.

he's the cutest dinner date!

love, laurie

breaking free from quarantine for a hike

the weather was so glorious on sunday.  we decided to skip our normal routine of walking around our neighborhood and got in the car to go walk around the reservoir trail.  even though the trail was a little bit muddy, it was still so nice to be outside and see some different scenery other than our neighborhood.

it has been several years since we've walked this trail.  while walking around the trail we found several little fairy gardens that people set up at the bases of trees.  they were cute.  a few pictures from our outing . . .

love, laurie

a little magic during quarantine

the university where i teach has been getting creative to keep students engaged with the student activities office from a distance during quarantine.  they originally planned to have magician michael kent visit campus, but since we're all at home they decided to do the live magic show virtually via youtube live.  it was pretty neat to watch and i had to hand it to this magician because it couldn't have been easy to do a live magic show virtually!  it was a nice escape for an hour during this crazy time!

love, laurie

hands down, the best thing i've seen during quarantine!

people are getting really creative during quarantine, and i'm loving it.  one of my co-workers sent me this video of a family singing the song "one day more" from the broadway musical "les mis" with quarantine-themed lyrics.  this is, hands down, the best thing i've seen during quarantine.  brilliant!

love, laurie

a little creative project during quarantine

my brain needed to do something creative during the quarantine, so i made matching earrings for my co-worker and me.  we have this thing about having matching jewelry and wearing it together while working shows.  i took a picture and texted to her to show her what i was up to and she loved the earrings.  i can't wait to give them to her when i can see her again!

love, laurie

quarantine porch time

when it's warm enough, we have been enjoying sitting on our back screened-in porch.  leko also loves it.  we have played many rounds of scrabble and yahtzee to keep us entertained.  another board game that we recently dug out of our basement and dusted off was a 1960s parcheesi game.  it was fun to re-learn how to play that game.  playing parcheesi was the perfect way to pass the time while waiting for our baked chocolate doughnuts to bake in the oven before we dipped them in peanut butter glaze.  yum!

love, laurie

quarantine breakfast

even though we are still working remotely, we have so much more free time now than we ever have had before.  ryan and i joked the other day that we have never had free time in our lives, and then we realized that wasn't a joke, it was the truth.

not having to commute to and from work leaves us with extra time for making delicious food.  on sunday, we wanted to use up some apples that we had in our kitchen, so we make mini cast-iron skillet apple dutch baby pancakes.  they were so good!  yum!

love, laurie