Caramel rolls... mmmm....

You can thank me later. I am about to share with you quite possibly, the BEST caramel roll recipe I have ever had in my life. My mother-in-law, Lisa, gave it to me, and it is just delicious. Best part is - it's super easy and takes less than an hour from start to finish.

Ingredients:

2 packages refrigerated biscuits (Hungry Jack, Pillsbury Grands, etc.)
1/2 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. maple syrup
1/2-3/4 c. chopped nuts

Instructions:

Melt butter. Add brown sugar and syrup. In a greased bundt pan, spread nuts, pour 1/2-3/4 of butter mixture. Pop open biscuits and spread them on end around pan. Pour remaining butter mixture over biscuits. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and then turn pan over onto plate. Remove rolls and enjoy!

Bastille Day 5K

Last week I ran my first 5K (which is 3.1 miles). Now, it doesn't really compare to Luke's half marathon - but it was still fun! And the best part was that we got a cupcake at the finish line... I could get used to more races like that ;)

(r. to l.) My friend Kim and her friend Colleen, and my friend Jane from grad school.

Twins Win!

Even though we have a special baseball channel so we can watch all of the Twins games while we're living in Chicago, it's still not the same as watching them at the ballpark. Lucky for us, we were able to catch a Twins game this month while they were in town playing the White Sox. And we won!! I'm pretty sure there were just as many Twins fans as Sox fans at the game, which made it really fun.

And to make it even better - there was a fireworks show after the game (not to mention they had veggie dogs at the stadium).

**I've noticed that Luke is conspicuously missing from a lot of these recent pictures. Not sure how he got away with that - but I will make sure to get some shots of him up here soon.

(Belated) birthday post

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of blogging lately - but we have been enjoying the summer and keeping busy. I wanted to share a couple of pictures from my birthday last month because it was SO fun. Luke took the day off from work (what a guy!) and we started out the day with breakfast at the Original Pancake House. For those of you who don't know - breakfast is my favorite meal and this is my favorite breakfast restaurant. It's the only place that doesn't take me 20 minutes to figure out what I want... because I get the strawberry crepes every time :)

After a long breakfast, we walked home, went for a bike ride, watched the Twins game and then Luke took me out for drinks at the Hancock tower. We actually haven't been there since moving here almost a year ago. Let me tell you - it was AMAZING! We went to the restaurant on the 96th floor (it was a long elevator ride) and the view was incredible.

Then we went to a seafood restaurant for dinner and had cupcakes for dessert back at our apartment. It was the perfect birthday!

Luke also told me that night that we had "tickets" for a special event that Friday. Even though he told me not to try and figure it out - I went straight to Google and investigated. But I still couldn't figure it out.

On Friday morning, I got a call from the front desk saying that there was a package we needed to sign for. I was still in my PJ's, so I threw some clothes on and went downstairs. I had no idea what the package could be and figured it was some obscure motorcycle part Luke had ordered. I turned the corner after getting off the elevator, and stopped in awe. Could this be real?
Is it really her?

My very best friend in the whole world, Miyong, was standing in the lobby!! I was so confused and so happy, I just started crying :) Turns out, she was in cahoots with my sneaky husband and surprised me for my birthday! She actually was there for work, but got to take a bunch of time off to hang out with me. And the show we went to that night was the comedy show she was there working on. Now THAT was the best birthday surprise EVER!

So, year 26 got off to a pretty great start...

Stormy night

We had some crazy storms here the other night. Luke shut off all the lights in the apartment and opened the windows so he could take some pictures (of course). However, his photo session was cut short when it started to hail and he had to move the Jeep into the covered part of the parking garage! Here are some of his photos:

All these pictures were taken within a few seconds of each other - so you can see how much the color of the sky was changing with the lightning and clouds passing through.

And this was the hail that hit our car (no damage though!).