Summer/Block Island 2023

Welllll we are back to school as of 3 weeks ago and of course, running into everyone that we didn’t see in June/July/August. “How was your summer?” is the frequent nicety exchanged and the answer for us is always, “Awesome! Too short!” Indeed, summer came crashing to an end so suddenly that the night before school started, Ashton (12!) had a complete and utter meltdown. 45 minutes of wailing that his hair was not right, his shoes were not right, and he hadn’t done the reading he had 3 months to do. Middle school is tough, man.

But before we talk about school, let’s remember the summer! It started right off the bat with golf camp in Vermont, 4th of July in New York, and then our beloved Block Island week, which looked really different this year. Rather than a big house with all manner of family members, the Nills roughed it in a one bedroom condo with a full-over-full bunk bed. Yes. Evidence in the real estate listing and it says queen-over-queen but it was not. We just pretended our bedroom was on a submarine for the week.

Anyway, Lizzie and Owen came just for the day on our first day and then Kari and Ben did come for 4 days but stayed separately. Our crew was little this year, but the view from our condo was beautiful (and so was the weather!), and we did all our usual things starting with the Bloody Marys on the boat 🙂

The boys started off nice and hot which, who doesn’t love complaints on the first moments of vacation?

But once we hit the beach, the rest was history.

Perhaps not, but Alex is easy to ignore so I did.

Cue the surfing, eating, and the rest of the week!

It was another really good one 🙂 Readers, this was our tenth anniversary of our first trip to BI when Ashton was 2, Alex didn’t exist, and Jason had first started at Brae Burn. https://nillfam.com/2013/07/25/block-island-2013/ Here’s to another ZILLION more 🙂

OH, and just for fun…

Yasssss!!

Ya’ll, I have thrown some money at this problem. I’m working on customizing the new site and I have figured out how to add subscribers (I think). One of the wonders of Blogger was that it would deliver emailed copies of my posts to anyone following, and when they ceased to offer that service, I floundered. I was like, at this point NO ONE will read, because who checks websites? Motivation level = zero.

But NOW! If you are getting this, I have opted you in as one of my readers. Boy are you lucky. Real posts start next, but for now please enjoy this video of Bear eating watermelon. Imagine literally not being able to chew with your mouth closed. Not only does it take a long time, things fall out. So hilarious, thanks to Bear for this special content.

Link.

Bringing the blog BACK with our Yuletide Season

Ok all – I admit when I moved on over here to WordPress I got super intimidated by all the functionality. I couldn’t even figure out how to upload a picture SO, I quit. And it haunts me. Because we have SO much amazingness to share and I would be devastated if I came this far only to stop documenting when things REALLY get good. The boys are 9 and 11 and changing by the day. The last time I left them with you, they were a banana and a werewolf. Next notable holiday was Christmas, where one was still a Santa believer and one was not. Let’s dive in.

Here we have our annual family tree selection photo. You’ll notice Ashton comes up to my nose, thereabouts. He also wears bigger shoes than I do.

Now, for the first time ever, we did not wake up at our house on Christmas. Instead we traveled on Christmas Eve, probably THE MOST terrifying ferry ride we’ve ever been on to Hampton Bays. At one point the captain got on the loudspeaker and said “IF you are not sitting down, sit down. And hold on, this is going to get bad.” No joke Alex started praying to Santa.

Spoiler alert: we made it across, went out to dinner and managed to have a nice day with Grandma and Grandpa (COVID hit the other family members, it was so sad we couldn’t see them) and then on the 26th, Ashton woke up puking sooo we headed home a day early. Merry merry! Haha. It was not funny at the time though. Anyway we still got a tree and decorated it and overall the holiday was festive!

Okay those aren’t in order but again with this new website I have to figure out the functionality and frankly I’m ready to move on. We have a lot to cover! It was a very Merry Christmas Grandma and Grandpa!!