navigating through the fog today

it has been over a week since our dear "doc" passed away and everything has been an absolute blur with all of the funeral planning.  today is her funeral and it feels like a stage production that we've been prepping for a long time.  our hearts are extra heavy today as we navigate through this fog.

love, laurie

is it nap time yet?

tonight starts a crazy schedule of dance recitals, one right after another.  it was a late night in the theatre prepping the lights and the stage.  i need a nap.

love, laurie

gearing up for dance recital season

it's may, which means dance recital season is upon us.  it was a long day and a late night in the theatre last night prepping for several different shows.  the schedule is nutty, wish us luck!

love, laurie

mother's day 2021

we all got together on sunday at our house to celebrate mother's day.  it was so nice to carve out some time for dinner together and to celebrate our mamas!

love, laurie

braving the weather for ballet!

on saturday, we braved mother nature to watch an outdoor ballet production that was originally scheduled to be indoors at our theatre.  the weather did not cooperate one bit . . . it was very soggy, windy, and chilly.  overall we survived and definitely needed a nice warm shower when we got home!

love, laurie

our "mother courage"

last night we lost our dear "doc" and we are left heartbroken and speechless.  

she was our teacher, our mentor, our friend, our colleague, our aunt, and our adoptive mother.  she was family.

words cannot describe what she has done for us in nearly two decades.  she guided us through good times and bad.  she pushed us out of our comfort zones and forced us to grow.  she shaped us into the people we are today.  at times she made us laugh so hard we ended up crying, and other times she caused us to cry so hard that we ended up laughing.  

she was larger than life and she was the life of every party.  she was also the one to be sure to tell us the brutal truth when it needed to be heard.

she wore many hats off stage and on stage.  out of all the roles she played on stage, one of her absolute favorites was mother courage.  she really was our mother courage.

taking one deep breath at a time today

love, laurie

someone wants to stay in bed

the face you give mom when the alarm goes off in the morning and you're not interested in getting out of bed yet.

love, laurie

a few more snapshots from the weekend . . .

in addition to visiting woodbury commons this weekend, we packed a lot into the weekend.  we went out to breakfast for the first time in 2 years (no joke!), cuddled the kitten, cleaned out a family friend's storage unit, saw a student-run show at our alma mater, and had a delicious lunch at one of our favorite spots that always seems to be closed when we're available.  we also mowed the yard, sorted through hundreds of photos for a photo memorial project, met with a new theatre client, and ran a ton of errands.  it was a packed weekend, but it was beyond awesome to actually be able to spend time together!

love, laurie

a little getaway for a few hours

we have been working like nuts lately.  our hours have been odd and we've been bouncing from one thing to another so much that we've had very little time to spend together.  over the weekend we actually had a day with nothing on the schedule which is such a rarity, so we took advantage of the nice weather and drove up to woodbury commons for a few hours to walk around.

we love visiting woodbury commons every so often, but we haven't been there in so long because of the pandemic.  the weather was beautiful for a drive.  one of the things that we were most excited about was that parm just opened up a location at woodbury commons.  for anyone following along with this blog for any period of time, you know that parm is one of our favorite places to eat in nyc.  we've been to all of the nyc locations, so we were thrilled to have lunch at the new one at woodbury commons.  of course, it was delicious.  we shared an eggplant parm sandwich and a burrata caprese salad.

we worked off our lunch by walking around for a few hours and then grabbed some dinner at shake shake before heading home.  it was so refreshing to have some good quality ryan-laurie time!

love, laurie

breezin' out

we've had a few moments of nice weather lately.  we grabbed an opportunity to eat dinner on the back screen porch a few nights ago and leko always loves joining us out there.  it got quiet, and we didn't know where he got to . . . i looked down and saw him breezin' out next to us!  so cute!  what can i say, you have to take advantage of the nice weather when it's available to breeze out your fur.

love, laurie