cuddle time

when the world is extra aggravating, cuddle time with kitten makes it a little better.  so grateful that this guy loves to cuddle us!

love, laurie

i spy with my little eye . . . kitten!

when we were outside yesterday evening admiring our tulip, we looked up on the front porch and saw a cute little head spying on us from inside the living room.  ha!  he's adorable!

love, laurie

a tulip!!!

oh my goodness, we have a tulip in our yard!!!  every year i'm envious of the neighbors' nice tulips and all we get is green leaves without any flowers.  yesterday afternoon we found a flower and i had to take a photo to document it!  

love, laurie

"helping"

leko always likes to "help" me when i strip all the bedding to wash it.  he's always intrigued by the uncovered mattress.  i washed the bedding over the weekend and had to wait to remake the bed until he was done playing/resting on it!

love, laurie

blast from the past

my mom has been sorting through old photos lately in order to date them and organize them.  recently she came across these oldies of me in tap class when i was 7 years old and showed them to me!  it's funny to think that i'm teaching dance to little ones now who are about that same age.  

love, laurie

a much-needed car wash followed by rain and snow

every single time i have driven by the car washes near us in the past few months they have either had lines that were crazy long, were closed, or were out of service for the day for repairs.  in the warmer months i have no problem washing the car by hand in our driveway (i actually prefer it) but it's way to cold to do that right now.  i finally got an opportunity to run the car through the car wash recently and of course it rained and then even snowed (!!!) again.  oh well, at least i got the months and months of winter road salt off it!

love, laurie

the moravian pottery and tile works

after visiting the mercer museum and visiting fonthill castle, we walked over to the moravian pottery and tile works for a tour.  the building is maintained as a working history museum and tiles are still handmade and produced like they were when henry mercer ran the site.  much like the museum and the castle, the building is made of concrete and decorated with the elaborate tiles.  

it was really neat to see how the tiles are made and the amount of work and time that goes into making each one.  (it totally explains why they are so expensive!). a few photos . . .

love, laurie

fonthill castle

after visiting the mercer museum on sunday, we drove a few streets over to visit fonthill castle.  before building the museum, henry mercer built fonthill castle as his home and as a showplace for his incredible collection of tiles, pictures, and books.

much like the museum, the castle is built of concrete.  it has 44 rooms, 18 fireplaces, 10 bathrooms, and over 200 windows!  the interior of the castle is covered (and i mean totally covered from floor to ceiling) with mercer's handcrafted ceramic tiles.

this place also gave me lots of harry potter hogwarts vibes with its narrow curvy staircases and hidden passages.  it was so unique!  here are a handful of the many photos i snapped . . .

love, laurie

the mercer museum

i had the day off work on sunday, so my parents and i took a little drive down to bucks county to visit the mercer museum.  the museum is a six-story concrete castle designed by henry mercer which was was completed in 1916 and is now an affiliate of the smithsonian.

the museum's collection features over 50,000 pre-industrial tools in order to offer a glimpse into 60 different crafts and trades in pre-industrial america.  it was a wild building to walk around and honestly i kept feeling like i was walking through sections of hogwarts from harry potter!  i'm glad i had my camera along for the day.  it took a ton of photos, here are a few . . .

love, laurie

kitten patrol

who needs security cameras when you have the cutest kitten patrol?!  so glad that this guy keeps a close watch over the neighborhood for us!

love, laurie

i'm not a fan of the yellow stripey things that fly!

as the weather starts to get warmer, the insects start to come out.  just the other day in the parking lot of the dance studio where i teach, i opened my trunk and found some type of bee sitting on the ledge of the trunk.  it caught me by surprise and i jumped.  ryan found another bee dead in our garage too.

i'm not a fan of the various assortment of yellow stripey things that fly around when it's warmer.  my friend nicole shared this guide on facebook.  it's both informative and funny (i never thought of bumblebees as flying pandas before, still not sure i would want to pet one).

enjoy the weekend (and beware of the yellow stripey things that fly)!

love, laurie

the cat statues at work have hats now!

i've mentioned before that the theatre where i work is in a building shared with 58 senior apartments.  one of the residents has these cat statues which she often decorates for each holiday.  during the pandemic she made them little masks and they have been wearing their masks ever since.  for easter a few weeks ago, they had the cutest pastel easter bonnets.  this week they got new spring sun hats with holes for their ears.  yes, she makes all of these cat statue accessories herself.  it's always the highlight of my day whenever these guys get new outfits!

and yes, there have been many times that they have caught me off guard and i have thought they were real rounding the corner to go down the hallway.  ha!

love, laurie