Laurie Toft was born in the wrong time and place. Instead of 20th century small-town America, her soul is much more suited for 18th century Imperial Russia. As a child, she dreamed of living in the palace at Peterhof. As she grew older, that dream changed to moving to Russia and working as either a diplomat at the US Embassy, or obtaining access to all of the dungeons of the Kremlin.

Dreams set aside (at least temporarily), Laurie's feet currently remain planted firmly on American soil where she spends the 9-to-5 at MDM as Project Manager. Additionally, she enjoys being a mom to her two beautiful girls, being a wife to her "techno-twit" computer programmer husband, being a pen-pal to her family's former Russian foreign exchange student, or being a long-distance mom to the young Moldovan orphan boy who has become the son their family didn't know they needed.

She continues to refuse to teach Michael any dirty words in Russian, no matter how much he begs.