Dana Burland

Today was a normal work day. Ben went in to his office and I went in late to mine, after a dermatologist appointment. After work I talked with the construction guy working on our mudroom and then picked up C from daycare. C and I spent the night playing together, including a dip in the YMCA pool. Ben has grad school class tonight, and when he gets home late he has to hop on a work call with coworkers in Australia. Today is also our four year anniversary. We’re in a busy season of life, for sure. A period where vegging out on the couch to a Netflix show together feels special. A season filled with a lot of independent hours and where we sometimes need to email each other to iron out family logistic details. But still, every day, there’s love. It looks different now than it looked four years ago on our wedding day. It’s deeper and wider and a solid partnership. It feels really sturdy, which is great in the face of said busy season where time together is not always available. ...

One of my besties and her boyfriend were in town visiting for an extended Memorial Day Weekend. They’re from Pennsylvania, and while she’s been to Michigan once before, I’ve been dying to show off more of the state. I gotta say, I think I might have two new Michigan converts on my hands! Friday night we got drinks at Founders and wound up at The Bob, which is real hard not to love especially after a game of giant Jenga and shuffleboard. Saturday was the true show stopper, though. We woke up and drove up to Sleeping Bear Dunes, where my Pennsylvanian buddies were just floored by the beauty, vastness and that all that water was a LAKE not ocean. We made it to Ludington for an epic lake sunset and grabbed dinner before calling our busy day done. I mean, take a look at this pic Dave captured: View this post on Instagram memorial. A post shared by dave meyers (@dvmyrs) on May 27, 2019 at 5:55am PDT Sunday we walked out to...

Remember this project ? We’re more than halfway through and the crew is making awesome progress. The framing is up. The drywall is up. Electrical is almost done. The floor is prepped and ready for tile. The crew is over most days working for most of the day. When we get home from work we’re always curious to pop our head in and spy on the progress being made. This spying, I’ve decided, is so beneficial. We’ve been able to poke in a few times and say “what about this ?” or “what’s that ?” We’re staying involved in the project thus there are no surprises. I’ve worked from home a few days and caught the crew to chat about some of the more detail oriented elements of the project. Exactly how deep should the bench or cubby above be? What way should we lay the tile? This is also great. We’re connected and at times modifying our original we-know-best plans with recommendations from professionals who have done this stuff numerous times before. I think our result is going t...

We were up north this past weekend for the annual Zoo-De-Mack bike race . Only my dad and brother were brave enough to weather the low 40 temps with near constant rain to bike 51 miles from Harbor Springs to Mackinac City. While the boys biked and shivered the whole way, the rest of us (C, B and my mom) shopped around town, got lunch and marveled at all the big trucks doing construction work. Well, the littlest among us marveled at the trucks. It really was a crappy weather weekend to be up north. So much rain. So much cold. So cold, honestly, almost too cold to be out playing. In May! But I’ll never care what the weather is like up north. I love being away, I love being there and I love revisiting old memories of favorite cookie shops and stores and making new ones watching C steal G-Pa’s water bottle over and over and giggling the whole time.

I had a really nice Mother’s Day weekend! Family was in town visiting, which meant I got to be with my mom on Mother’s Day, and C got to be with his “Baboosh”, which is just the highest of treats. We stayed busy visiting the farmer’s market, a flower shop for a kid’s “Make It For Mom” event, our favorite bakery (hello, Cakabakery) and Tulip Time in Holland. Speaking of Tulip Time in Holland, the last time we were there was two years ago. Check out this year's picture compared to the old one from 2017.     From an almost mom to a very full mom, I’m so very grateful.

This is the story of a cheese board that never ends–yes, it goes on and on my friends. This past weekend I was in The Middle Of No Where But Still Near A Lake, Michigan with two girlfriends for our second, twice-a-year mom’s weekend getaway . Per tradition, each one of us takes a meal time and preps food for the group. I was on lunch duty, and an early request for grazing/snacks vs a sit down meal lead me to the idea of a cheese board. I’d hardly claim myself an expert at cheese board building, but man did this version turn out (if I may brag) rockin’. We had cheeses and meats and fruit and veggies and crackers and nuts and jam and honey. I let myself be driven by the theme of variety so everyone could nibble at stuff they loved. It was great. We snacked all day. And the next day we came home relaxed and tan and with glowy face-masked skin and me with mounds of cheese board ingredient leftovers. But then I remembered Game Of Thrones Sunday, another new tradition wherein our...

A better late than never post... our first family 5K is in the books! Every April we get a flier in the mail notifying us our street will be shut down one Saturday morning for a local 5K. How can you not run a race that's ON your street? Last year Ben and I ran, and little Cam stayed home with visiting family . Oh man, I'm having a moment looking at how little he was with squishy cheeks in that photo! This year the three of us ran it together, I pushed C in the jogging stroller. Here's our proof photo:   As you can tell with C's get up, it was a cold, winter-feeling-like morning. Thankfully it was sunny and didn't rain as forecasted. We ran almost the whole thing, stopped for a few short walk breaks. C seemed to enjoy himself, especially stopping at the water station to drink out of the cups and wearing our metals afterward.  

Weeeee, here we go! It's big home project time! The Project Of The Season over here is expanding our "mudroom" to be an actual, no quotes, mudroom. What we've got today is a skinny hallway that serves triple duty as entry to the house from the garage, access point to the living room/rest of the house and open pit of danger to the basement stairs. Our plan is to borrow a smidge of space from the garage to bump our 2ft x 3ft (not kidding, actual current dimensions) entry into a 6ft x 7ft space with closet plus bench/hook/shoe storage built in. Because this is Construction, with a purposeful capital C, we've called back the crew that did the fireplace reface for us, and will only be DIY'ing the final painting once the crew leaves. Not only will it be 100% beautiful, but it'll solve for the daily headache we feel getting in and out of the house, and we're so pumped to see it come to life. Semi-related side note–does anyone else have i...