Dana Burland

It's been more than a month since we've seen Neil and his babies . I mean, we've seen Neil around the 'hood and casually sitting in a neighbor's bed of flowers, but no wandering our side yard. But I just came in from a run, greeted Ben watching some show about robot people who can't stop laughing and looked beyond him outside to see a pile of fluff on the deck. What's going on here? Neil and Neil Jr. are just enjoying an afternoon cat nap. No big deal. And Ben hadn't even noticed--I did say robot people TV show after all. Neil and babe are snoozin' and exploring. It's adorable. 

This? Thriving plant life? This isn’t normal. Normal for any patch of soil near me is death by I-forgot-you-thus-your-waterings, or even sillier death by I’m-so-proud-you-grew-that-I-won’t-pick-you-and-let-you-rot-on-the-vine. Salad greens, snap peas and soon-to-be (fingers crossed) green beans grown from seeds But look! Life! And color! And health! No one needs to know I bought that basil that size or that’s my second hanging flower basket this summer.

I’ve got two words on my mind—coffee smoothie. I had one at Morning Star Cafe in Grand Haven this past Saturday. Ben and I were out for a day-venture and needed something to fuel us for our walk/run/shop tour of the beach-town. The coffee/Greek yogurt smoothie rocked my entire world. I slurped the whole thing down through a straw so wide it was essentially a garden hose. And I’ll tell you what, that smoothie (plus my brunch, to be fair) kept me full past dinner. So, I figured I’d recreate it! It can be my summer weekend morning treat and I’ll make it and love it and share it with family and friends and they’ll be so impressed with its deliciousness. Great! I bought some Greek yogurt, brewed and chilled a big mug of coffee and made a date with my blender to figure this recipe out. I do this recreation game often, working meals I’ve had before into a new at-home version. I just want the world to know I’ve been successful before, ok? Ok. I whirled around a half cup of plain ...

What they don't tell you when you start wedding planning is how much mail is involved. Good gravy, you could easily spend as much on invites, thank you cards and postage as you do on a DJ. I wanted to do something fun for our thank you cards, so I tossed an idea out to Ben—what if put our wedding clothes back on, crack open some beers and candy and take a post-wedding selfie? Bless this husband of mine who believes in my hairbrained ideas. On our mini-moon, we met up with family who was also up north at the same time. We had a 5-hour wedding-catch-up dinner with my sister and brother-in-law, and also met up with my cousin Jeff, a photographer who was in town for work. In conversation our thank you card idea came out and Jeff said he'd love to help take the picture. Yes, please! So, a week after the wedding I did my hair up big, make-up as loud as I know how to, put on Ben's tie and draped my bedazzled “championship belt” around his neck. We set up Oreos, Cheetos, sup...

Lemme tell you ‘bout making sushi. Yeah! We made sushi! This was our third Downtown Market cooking class after successful pasta making and burger grilling classes. Both times we made real swanky, real tasty, real simple food. Sushi is swanky and tasty, but not simple. The most un simple of all is the rice. Dealing with sushi rice is like wrangling 15 3-year-olds as a day camp counselor on a rainy day. And trust a girl, I know from experience. You have to rinse the rice, drain it, rinse again. Cook the rice—BUT DON’T YOU DARE PEEK UNDER THE LID!!! Then dump the rice, fan it, season it while you fan it, and keep fanning and fanning and are you fanning? You better be ferociously fanning! After that there’s a brief moment of simplicity in building and filling. We lined our nori (seaweed sheets) with rice, which you can only spread three times or else the rice gets tough and the sushi gods put a curse on your home. Ben and I joked about the secret ancient Japanese techn...

I use to play "peak and pit" with my bridesmaids Jill and Elena every week. I'm pretty sure a Kardashian made it up, but this is a blog not a newspaper so we'll overlook accurate attribution. They asked me what my favorite (peak) and least favorite (pit) moments of the wedding were, which might be the most difficult question on the planet. I just can't come up with one, or even a few. Instead, here are a few mini memories that I don't want to forget. After our rehearsal dinner we walked to Founders for a drink. Ben and I tossed casual invites to friends to meet us, but I was so happily shocked to see 30+ of our best, most favorite people chatting and toasting with each other at a big outdoor table. It's not really pulling teeth to ask out-of-towners to go to Founders, but having our siblings, high school, college and out-of-state friends all together? I could have stayed all night. Jill stayed with me in the “bridal suite” that night. The next morni...

My Thursday-before-the-wedding bachelorette party was a true blast. We got our nails done, drank wine that tasted like Kool-Aid and I wore a little green party hat. I could tell you about my new go-to nail shade (OPI's Samoan Sand), or about the life changing artichoke burger we ordered for lunch—or I could tell you about Captain John. My sister/MOH planned a Lake Michigan sunset cruise from South Haven. You can't get more Pure Michigan than that. With wine and snacks in hand, we walked down the marina dock toward a short, older, bearded guy decked out in white plus a bright teal windbreaker. This was Captain John—co-captain of “The Cat's Meow” sail boat. John and his wife/co-captain Barb are retired and now give public cruises on their boat. They were great; friendly, outgoing, accommodating and eccentric. Barb took photos of us as we passed lighthouses and in front of the sunset and made us chocolate covered strawberries. John made sure our cups were always full a...

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