Summer Reading

When they were little, I’d read aloud to my two daughters on weekday afternoons in summer. We’d all climb onto my bed, and I’d read a chapter or two from a classic like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or The Secret Garden, using different voices for the characters. We continued this tradition until they started middle school. It’s a fond memory we share now that they are grown.
Jenilee Bartolotti
Covina, California

All winter I stock up on books I want to get to. Once my house has had a good spring cleaning and my geraniums are heralding summer, I clean the debris of winter off my lawn chair. Then each day when I come home from work, I don my “at home” clothes, head for the lawn chair, and read, read, read.
Sonya Dixon
Owensboro, Kentucky

Each summer, I sit on a beach somewhere and read Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea. It’s a marvelous book for every woman to read and reread throughout her life. I find new meaning each time.
Jennine Duda
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Family Affairs

To ring in the summer, on the last day of school I bombard my children with water balloons as they get off the bus. Then I run for my life.
Marlaruth Whetten
Thatcher, Arizona

It wouldn't be summer without a trip with my two sons to at least one major-league baseball park we haven't visited before.
Annette Holdman
Santa Barbara, California

Each year, I look forward to planting flowers with my daughter. As a former city girl, I knew virtually nothing about gardening until my daughter and I started planting geraniums and impatiens when she was three. Two years later, we both are still learning, but all summer long we have a beautiful daily reminder of how special the time we spend together planting is.
Pamela Neville
Lexington, Massachusetts

On warm Saturdays, my husband and I get up early, fix big lattes, then go out into the backyard and play a round of croquet in our pajamas. Sometimes we turn it into a two-day tournament: the PJ-Latte Invitational and the Summer Solstice Open. We laugh, listen to birds, and begin our weekend getting exercise and doing something fun. After the game, we have breakfast outdoors, feeling all the pleasures of stepping “outside the box.”
Jan Johns
Boise, Idaho

When I was little, I used to eat watermelon with my grandfather and see who could spit the seeds the farthest from the porch. Though he would let me win sometimes, he could always outspit me. But what fun it was — and he always picked the sweetest and juiciest watermelons.
Thomas Irvin
Washington, D.C.

I take my grandkids on a two- to four-week tent-camping Adventure With Gramma. Since 2003 we have been following the Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail. This year we will cover the last leg: the Columbia River.
Beryl Moon
Lake Forest Park, Washington

My favorite summer ritual is opening my family’s cabin for the season. My grandfather had it built out of cedar and stone on the edge of a northern Idaho lake in 1938. In goes the key to the lock on the massive front door, letting the fresh air in after a long winter. As my mother once did, I draw back the curtains my grandmother made and open all the windows. A number of families grew up together playing in the lake and the surrounding woods; now our children are having children, and the cycle continues. Falling asleep in my down bed that first night is my idea of heaven: the wind in the pines, the stars studding the sky like diamonds.
Elizabeth Poole
Kihei, Hawaii

Each year since my children were old enough to walk, we’ve created a fairy garden out of found objects: a small tree stump, feathers, a bird’s nest, rose petals, pebbles, seed heads, pinecones, twigs. My children use their imaginations and give themselves hours of entertainment.
Laura Bridgwater
Fort Collins, Colorado