toes on toes

we sat down the other night to watch dancing with the stars (our favorite show and leko's favorite show too).  leko wasted no time jumping up on our laps to cuddle as soon as we sat down.  he stretched himself out so long that he had his front paws all the way down by my feet.  the next thing i knew he was hanging onto my toes with his little toes.  it was the cutest thing and felt so good because his paws are so darn soft!  what a cutie!

love, laurie

saturday in nyc

saturday was one of those super rare occurrences when both of us didn't have work and there were no shows happening.  we made the last-minute decision late on friday night to take a trip into nyc on saturday for a little date together.  we haven't seen each other in so long because our schedules have been crazy and we feel like we haven't had a chance to do anything fun together in a long time, so it was really nice to be able to escape to our favorite city together for a few hours on saturday.

the weather was absolutely perfect, so we decided to skip the subway and walk everywhere all day (we walked over 175 blocks).  we spent the morning down in soho walking around and taking in the city.  while we were in soho, we visited the first-ever united states birkenstock store!  i've been a birkenstock lover for the past 15 years, so it was really exciting to shop in the first u.s. store (the company is based in germany).  i was on the hunt for a certain type of birkenstocks and i found them there, so i was thrilled.  the store didn't officially open until 2 days later on october 1st, so it was fun to be one of the first people in there!  (i'll share more on my new birkies soon!)

we grabbed our favorite eggplant parm sandwiches at parm in soho for lunch before heading back to midtown to catch a matinee of waitress the musical on broadway.  the show was awesome and we had great seats (especially for buying them the night before)!  if you're a fan of waitress the movie, you'll love the broadway show.

after the show, we took a stroll over to sweetgreen on the east side because i have been craving a sweetgreen salad for weeks!  we took our salads to go to eat on the bus on the way home and grabbed a classic black-and-white cookie from junior's in times square too for the ride home.

all-in-all it was a great little getaway and a good reminder that we have to take some time out for ourselves once in awhile!  some pictures from saturday . . .
 

love, laurie

fall bucket list 2018

happy october!  we are now a week into fall and we've moved into wearing warmer pjs at night and this past week made a large batch of quinoa chili with corn bread for dinner.

we're embracing fall, so i figured i better get around to sharing our fall bucket list for this year.  i'm hoping to do better with our fall bucket list than we did with our summer bucket list this year (this summer was a total nightmare).  luckily, we're already off to a somewhat good start . . .

1. go apple picking at the local apple orchard

2. visit roba family farms

3. decorate the house for fall

4. take a trip to our local apple cider mill

5. pick out a pumpkin and carve it for halloween

6. make apple, pumpkin, and maple desserts

7. use some vacation days to take some time off work

8. take a day trip with ryan to get away

what's on your fall list this year?

love, laurie

fall cuddles

it's now officially fall, and the weather finally feels like fall.  leko wasted no time with the new cooler weather.  it's like we flipped a switch and he's ready for fall cuddles.  of course we're not complaining one bit!

have a great weekend!
love, laurie

furry little helper

when ryan's parents were away on vacation a couple of weeks ago, we hung up some peg board and a light in their basement for them while we were catsitting.  ryan snapped these pictures of pepper as she helped out with the light hang project.  what a cute little helper!

love, laurie

pancakes!!!

it's national pancake day today!  we absolutely love pancakes.  we just made a delicious batch of apple fitter pancakes on sunday morning with some of the apples we picked when we went apple picking.

here are some of our favorite pancake recipes . . .

pancakes:
- almond poppy seed pancakes
- apple cider doughnut pancakes
- apple cinnamon pancakes
- apple pancake rings
- banana bread pancakes
- banana pancakes
- buckwheat, banana, and oatmeal pancakes with dark chocolate
- carrot walnut pancakes
- chocolate pancakes
- cinnamon bun pancakes
- cinnamon swirl pancakes with coffee maple syrup
- coconut pancakes
- coffee pancakes
- cornmeal pancakes with rhubarb sauce
- cranberry brown butter pancakes
- greek yogurt pancakes
- honey and oat pancakes
- hot cross carrot cake pancakes
- key lime pie pancakes
- oatmeal yogurt chocolate chip pancakes
- old fashioned pancakes
- orange chocolate chip pancakes
- peach cornmeal pancakes
- peanut butter pancakes
- poppy seed pancakes
- pumpkin spice pancakes
- raspberry oat pancakes with toasted hazelnuts
- sweet summer corn pancakes
- whole grain buckwheat pancakes
- zucchini bread pancakes

dutch babies / puffed pancakes:
- dutch baby with fresh berries
- german apple puffed pancake
- gingerbread puffed pancake
- nectarine dutch baby
- spiced apple puffed skillet pancake

crepes:
- lemon poppy seed crepes with lemon blueberry cream cheese filling
- strawberry crepes

you can even make your own chocolate chip pancake mix to keep for yourself or to give as a give to a friend to celebrate national pancake day too!

happy pancaking!

love, laurie

nosey kitten

there were live flowers used on the set of the show on saturday and none of the crew wanted to take the flowers with them so they offered them to us.  i didn't want to see those pretty flowers end up in the garbage, so i gladly took the bouquet home.  we put them in a vase and secured them safely on top of our china cabinet because that is the one place leko cannot jump.  on sunday morning, ryan pulled them down and put them on our kitchen table for us to enjoy during breakfast.  leko was curious, so ryan picked him up to show him the bouquet.  his little nose was so cute smelling the flowers.  (and he only bit one flower, so we'll call that a win!)

love, laurie

another weekend, another show . . .

this weekend at the theatre we had a neil simon play called "rose's dilemma."  it was the largest set we've had on the stage in a while, and it took a lot to get it all pulled together.  we started loading in the set late on friday night, and then spent 17 straight hours at the theatre on saturday for the lighting, cueing, rehearsing, performance, and load out.  we crawled into bed well after 1am not even knowing what day it was because we felt like we were in a time warp in the theatre.

i never managed to get any photos during the show, so this was it.

this was ryan's view of the sound board for most of the day . . .

on to the next show

love, laurie

happy fall, y'all!

it's so hard to believe that sunday is the official first day of autumn.  i'm not sure if the weather feels like summer or fall because it can't make up it's mind.  it's really throwing me off. 

we have a show in the theater this weekend, so fingers crossed for a good show!

love, laurie

hys-terical

have you seen the news about these two guys who played a great prank on a texas mcdonald's?  i mean, this is genius.  to make it even better, they were on ellen this week and got a nice surprise.  epic.
love, laurie