Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake

I don’t mind telling you that I’m not ready to start a new week. Do I have to? I believe I’d like to continue my state of denial at least through Madam Secretary and The Good Wife tonight. You don’t mind, do you?

So first of all, the sun actually shone in Minnesota the entire weekend – this after a week’s worth of dreary, chilly days. (Cue the angels singing, please.) And in honor of our favorite golf tournament of the year – The Master’s at Augusta National – Teacher Man and I grabbed Joe along with a few golf clubs and spent a little time on the driving range on Saturday morning.

The driving range just outside of Buffalo is, shall we say, a little more rustic than a fancy schmancy golf course – and that’s just the way we like it. It’s also on the honor system most of the time – the buckets of balls are always ready to go in the red shed, where we also leave the cash ($8 for a large bucket) even if no one is working.

Apparently Joe grew a few inches since last summer and his own junior clubs are too short for him. I don’t know how we missed that? Here, he is trying out my driver, which was definitely a better fit. (And I have no idea what the story is behind the RV parked by the driving range. It’s just there.)

As if there wasn’t enough golf during the day, Teacher Man got out his indoor putting green, which apparently needed to be ironed so it would lay as flat as possible prior to our putting contest. Joe was thrilled to be a helper.

Next: a cutthroat putting contest ensued with Earl the pug taking his seat in the gallery and providing coaching tips as needed.

I found a new favorite cocktail for our Saturday afternoon happy hour – this one in honor of The Master’s: the Azalea Cocktail. Recipe is simple: 2 parts gin, 1 part lime juice (freshly squeezed), 1 part pineapple juice, and a splash of grenadine. (Put all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake, and pour over ice into glasses.) It was delish – not overly sweet – and such a pretty color!

A post-putting contest #selfie because, well, we can’t help ourselves. And any selfie is always made immediately better with Earl the pug.

And in unrelated news, my garlic made it through the winter and is now sprouting up! I am fairly excited about this – I’ve never grown my own garlic before. I literally ran back into the house to grab my iPhone to snap this picture and sent it immediately to my mother, who gave me the garlic to plant in the first place. Both of us were worried it wouldn’t make it through our winter, which was devoid of much snow cover. So yes, that was me jumping up and down with child-like glee in my garden on Saturday. (You can see what the garlic looked like last fall here before I planted it in early November.)

Today, my day included the following:

• A little bit of garden prep work in 35+ mph winds – which begs the question, why can’t we have one decent 75 degree day without gale force winds?
• A nap. A glorious nap.
• The final round of the Master’s golf tournament*.
• And a new coffee cake recipe. (I am totally obsessed with coffee cake, generally speaking.)

The original recipe called for raspberries but I had frozen blueberries in my freezer so I substituted. It was a winner. How can I tell? Teacher Man had two giant pieces. That’s a win-win in my book.

Are you ready for the weekend, or would you rather be on ignore, like me?

Yep, that’s what I thought.

~ Lara ~

* I must give a shout out to my niece, Audree, who won our family’s Master’s golf pool with her “Hotness Picks.” She also submitted regular picks, but the golf gods smiled down upon her and apparently all of her cute golfers beat out the likes of the more serious picks from the rest of the family.  🙂

Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake

Original recipe courtesy of Tidy Mom