the cat statues at work dressed up as elton john!!!

i've mentioned before that one of the highlights of my work day is seeing these cat statues.  i just about lost it when i saw that they got dressed up as elton john for our elton john tribute show this weekend!!!

love, laurie

"yellow brick road" - a tribute to elton john

on saturday we had an awesome elton john tribute show at our theatre called "yellow brick road."  this show has been a long time coming and was postponed 4 times due to the pandemic.  i'm so glad we finally got to have the show because it was incredible!  we had an awesome turn out and the band was unbelievable!  here are just a few of the many photos i took during the show.  you can see more of my photos on the theatre's facebook page here.

love, laurie

please, everyone, just behave

we're finishing up the first week of school and seriously keeping our fingers crossed that we can stay with in-person classes and that our scheduled shows for the theatre don't get interrupted.  every time we turn on the news it's worse and worse.  (at least the holderness family keeps us entertained.)  please, everyone, behave!

have a lovely weekend (and behave)

love, laurie

sketching away

we been hard at work recently focusing on an upcoming show this fall at our university.  in addition to building the set, ryan is also doing the lighting design and the audio design for the production.  i'm thrilled to be in charge of wardrobe.  i'm designing the costumes, make-up, hair/wigs for the show!  

the show is set in 1899 norway, so it has been fun to research that era and location.  there are some great characters in this show with some cool costume opportunities.  i've been sketching away (it's been years since i've had a reason to break out the colored pencils) getting all of the designs ready for tonight's rehearsal which is the first rehearsal where the cast will come together for the first time to read through the script as their characters and the designers will present their designs to the cast/crew.  it will be fun to see how all of these initial designs morph and change over the next several weeks as we see which actor/actress is playing which character.

away we go!

love, laurie

well lit kitten

we were waiting for ryan to come home from work the other day and i texted ryan this picture of leko.  ryan said that he loved the lighting on leko.  it's true, leko always knows how to find the best lighting in the house to illuminate his fur!

love, laurie

fingers crossed that classes can stay in person

the holderness family is keeping us entertained as everyone is heading back to school.  please people, behave so that we don't have to put classes back online again!

love, laurie

back to school!

it's the first day of classes for the fall semester at the university where i teach part time and where ryan now works full time.  

i can't believe i've been teaching college courses for 13 years now, wow that time flew by.  ryan's teaching his first college course this week and i'm so excited for him and crazy proud of him.  he's teaching theatre tech classes and i know the students are going to learn so much from him!  

i snapped these photos of ryan in the theatre when he started his new job and i love them so much!

love, laurie

all stretched out

we have a basket chair in our living room which we keep a cozy blanket draped over because leko likes to curl up in it.  the other day leko balanced himself on the edge of the chair and really stretched himself out.  he's never done that before and it was so funny.

a few days later he did it again . . .

love, laurie

the marilu henner show

we had the nuttiest experience on sunday, honestly it was such a whirlwind . . .

when we saw my parents on saturday for ryan's birthday party at knoebel's, my mom mentioned that marilu henner was starring in a show at the bucks county playhouse in new hope, pa.  marilu henner is famous for many different things (television, movies, broadway, books, etc.) and we've watched her most recently in the aurora teagarden movies on the hallmark channel and on dancing with the stars.  

on sunday morning we were talking about how neat it would be to see her in person so we looked up the details of the show online.  we were surprised to see that the show was only running for a few days and that sunday was the last day.  it was already mid-morning after breakfast and the playhouse is a good ways away from where we live.  we knew that we would have enough time to make the 2pm curtain which was the very last show of the run.  i quickly purchased tickets online, we got ready, packed sandwiches, and jumped in the car.  

only a little ways into our trip we got suck in the most ridiculous traffic.  we were practically at a standstill for the longest time.  when we finally got onto another highway, we were shocked to see traffic backed up there too.  what on earth was happening on all of the highways on sunday?!  we lost so much time sitting in traffic backups, but we knew we'd still make the show in time because our estimated time on the gps was still long before the show was scheduled to start.  

once we finally made it down to the town of new hope our jaws dropped when we saw the nightmare of traffic congestion there.  it was absolutely insane and i've never seen anything like it.  the whole town was bumper-to-bumper on the roads and people were shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalks.  i was only three-tenths of a mile away from the theatre but had no way of getting there because every street was like a parking lot and there was absolutely no where to park, turn around, or pull over!  

we finally decided to have ryan jump out of the car and walk down to the theatre.  at this point it was show time and i was so upset that we had driven all of that way and we were going to miss the show.  ryan walked down to the theatre and called me to say there was truly no parking anywhere in town.  the box office staff confirmed how insane it was and said that there was a huge car show in town which was to blame for the insanity.  i drove around as he talked to the staff.  they held the curtain as long as they could, but they eventually had to start the show.  (the playhouse parking lot attendant said not only were they full, but they had shoved 80 cars in a parking lot with 50 car spots, good grief!)

i kept driving around praying for a parking spot to open up with no luck at all.  i convinced ryan to ask the playhouse for a refund because i couldn't get out of the car!  they gave us a full refund for our tickets because they felt so badly for us.  

i circled back around in front of the theatre to pick up ryan.  we started driving out of town and crossed the bridge over the deleware river to new jersey in order to head home.  once we got into new jersey, we found a hotel that had a parking lot with one spot left.  i ran into the hotel and explained my crazy story, and they felt bad and allowed us to park there.

let's pause a moment to appreciate that fact that we had to park in another state!

we ran over the bridge (gosh it was long) and down the streets to the playhouse.  i definitely have shin splints now.  the box office staff were a bit surprised to see us.  we quickly repurchased tickets and got to see the rest of the show.  

wheph!  it was such a crazy adventure to get there.  

after the show, the box office staff asked us "well, was it worth it?"

honestly, it was.  the show was so good!  we were so incredibly close to marilu (even though the theatre was packed, i don't know how we got such good seats because they weren't our original seats).  she was incredible and i'm so glad we got the opportunity to see her in person.

our heads were spinning after the show and we were famished (because our packed food was over in new jersey) so we found a little restaurant a few doors down from the playhouse and sat outside to share sandwiches.  before driving home, we walked up and down the main street for a little bit to stretch our legs. 

the things we do for theatre!  ha!  (one day i'm sure i'll laugh about all of this, i'm just not quite there yet!)

love, laurie

a birthday present helper

after we came home from knoebel's on saturday night, ryan opened up his birthday present before going to bed.  he had a very cute furry helper who insisted on helping him unwrap it!  so cute!

love, laurie

ryan's birthday trip to knoebel's amusement park

we celebrated ryan's birthday on saturday by taking at tirp to knoebel's amusement park with our families.  we reserved a picnic table in the pavilion so that we had a home base for our food all day.  we packed brunch which we were able to eat before the park opened and then came back to our table later in the afternoon for dinner and cupcakes.

the weather was great and we were able to get on a bunch of rides.  it was a great way to celebrate!

happy birthday, ryan!

love, laurie

dancing on the baseball field

last month, the dance studio that i teach for performed on the field at the scranton/wilkes-barre railriders baseball stadium before the game, and it was a lot of fun!  we were asked to come back and perform again before the game on friday.  we had a few different dancers this time than last time and they performed a number from this year's recital.

it started raining right as the dance started, but the girls were able to get the whole dance in despite the rain drops.  after the dance, the weather cleared up and we all watched the game followed by fireworks.

love, laurie