Spend the First Week of Summer With Me in Vermont!

Loose and easy days featuring all our favorite summer activities, pool and lake day trips, lots of fresh veg, and allll the pics.

My children had their last day of school last week (hard to believe for my southern friends, I know!), and summer immediately began to unfold. Over the years, I’ve grown increasingly hungry for slow summers. I find I can manage the heat—and four little ones—much better when our schedule is loose and we can ease into the days.

We make a family summer bucket list filled with our favorite things, pick out books and movies for joy and entertainment, and keep a running list of local activities and library happenings that we can turn to. We get a season pass to a nearby pool, enroll the kids in a few swim lessons, and let our two older boys each choose a week-long camp (this year, it’s hockey for my 8-year-old and baseball for my 7-year-old).

I want my kids to experience the bliss of leisure—to get lost in imaginary games, spend as much time outdoors as possible, and strengthen their relationships through boredom and unstructured time.

Our first week of summer was a lovely preview of what I hope the rest will look like. Of course, I anticipate feeling overwhelmed by endless snack requests and sunscreen applications, but I also know this season will wear me out in the best way. At day’s end, with the sun still out and my freshly showered kids tucked into bed, I find so much satisfaction curling up with my book and letting my tired body drift off before 9pm. Resting a sun-baked body at the end of a summer day is its own kind of hard earned reward.

So today, I invite you to glide on your strawberry SPF lip balm, hit play on Noah Kahan or Caamp, sip an iced maple latte, and come along for our first week of summer in Vermont.

Oh! I found this playlist on Spotify and it earned my approval:

The kids’ last day of school was a half day, and my husband kicked off the fanfare by escorting our older boys to and from school in his Jeep with the doors and roof off. The kids (and my husband) think it’s the best thing ever—cheap thrills!

After lunch, while our 2-year-old napped and my husband worked from home, I surprised our boys with a trip to the theater to see the new live-action Lilo & Stitch, we all loved it.

Later in the afternoon, I laid a blanket under the shade of our maple tree and pulled out pony beads and elastic string. We made OKC Thunder bracelets in anticipation of game 5 of the NBA Finals, plus some rainbow and other inspired creations.

We closed out the day with celebratory root beer floats— our first and last day of school tradition.

The next morning started with Pilates (for me) and we kicked off our first full day of summer break with smoothie bowls topped with mango, banana, kiwi, and shredded coconut.

My 2-year-old had her first dentist appointment while the older kids basked in the freedom of an unscheduled morning. That afternoon, they watched a movie while I worked on my two Substack posts scheduled for the week.

Another day, another Pilates class, followed by a trip to a local kids' consignment shop to sell a few of my baby carriers and ring slings. While there, I picked up some secondhand summer clothes for my daughter. In her two years, I’ve probably purchased a total of eight brand-new clothing items for her—everything else has been secondhand, mostly hand-me-downs from friends or her big brothers.

Back home, we spent the morning in the backyard. I laid out a blanket again and dipped into my current book, but mostly just watched my kids play. My older boys spent the majority of their time on the swings, singing songs and making each other giggle. Watching them brought a wave of nostalgia for those breezy childhood days of summer.

That afternoon, we visited the community pool for the first time this season. My husband joined us after his work day ended. We typically go from noon to mid-afternoon, but this spontaneous late afternoon visit with him included felt especially wonderful.

I was up early for Pilates again and then spent the morning running errands and prepping food for the family in advance of a work trip I was set to take. I did some packing and finalized my second Substack post of the week: 14 Coastal Grandma Ways I'm Taking Care of Myself This Summer which was a lot of fun to put together. My husband took the kids out to ride scooters and bikes in the neighborhood and then they worked on some fuse bead crafts (always a hit!).

Dinner was fries (a frozen Costco bag) loaded with cashew queso, beans, walnut-mushroom meat, and lots of fresh veg, which we enjoyed while watching game 6 of the NBA Finals. Then I headed to bed in preparation for my early Friday flight.

I woke at 3:45am, got to the airport by 4:30am, made it through security—only to learn my flight to Philadelphia had been cancelled at 10pm the night before. I’d received one email (no text), which I hadn’t seen. After two hours on hold with the airline, I had zero success at rebooking. My return flight was for the next night, and nothing could get me to my destination before Saturday afternoon. That was that. (Burlington is a tiny airport and I suspect that when the flight was cancelled the night before, the other travelers filled in the spots on the few remaining Philly flights….)

I returned home with a $12 airport latte and a $3 parking fee. My husband was already off work for my anticipated travels so we decided to make the most of the day and go strawberry picking. And let me tell you, there is something about a warm, sun-ripened strawberry plucked by your own hand to make you forget you’ve been up since the wee hours sweating in an airport. Or maybe I was just delirious. Who’s to say?

That afternoon, we laid low. I unpacked (womp womp), we watched a movie, tended to the garden, had a backyard fire, made s’mores, and started Charlotte’s Web as our next family read-aloud.

Saturday morning, we picked up our first CSA box of the season from a local farm run by our amazing babysitter’s family (oh, Vermont!). She studied nutrition and environmental studies at UVM and now helps run her family’s CSA program—it was so fun seeing her in her element.

Back home, I washed and chopped everything and made the most glorious summer salad: red lettuce, romaine, beet greens, radishes, red scallions, garlic scapes, and tomatoes, dressed simply with good olive oil, balsamic vinegar, sea salt, and black pepper. Nothing beats a fresh, tender salad.

Then we packed up for our first lake trip of the season! We packed a cooler with drinks, Field Roast hot dogs, my easy tofu everything bagel dip with ruffle chips, and a container of strawberries and yellow watermelon chunks. The weather was perfect (mid-80s), and we spent the whole day swimming, playing frisbee, snacking, and splashing. Our favorite lake spot has a large stretch of shallow water, perfect for kids.

That night, my husband and I started the original Jaws, which just felt right (even if I hadn’t considered how sad some parts would make me).

Sunday morning, I whipped up a breakfast featuring our CSA veggies: tofu scramble with garlic scapes, sautéed beet greens in garlic, tomato slabs sprinkled with sea salt, and toasted Ezekiel bread. Delish!

My 7-year-old redeemed a coupon from his birthday coupon book for a nail salon trip. He chose fluorescent green, purple, and black; I went with Thunder orange.

In the afternoon, our nerves were on edge waiting for game 7 of the NBA Finals. We set the kids up with a movie on the projector downstairs and watched the rest of Jaws—we haven’t watched adult content during daylight hours since before having kids!

I made strawberry shortcake with our hand-picked berries, vegan whipped cream, and homemade biscuits. We ate leftover hot dogs for dinner and walked to a local spot for fries and creemees (aka what Vermont calls “soft-serve”).

can you spot the Oklahoma state bird?

It was finally time for the big game where we watched our favorite team win the NBA Championship! Tears of joy were shed.

Heatwave! Monday brought serious heat, and in Vermont—where most homes lack A/C—it’s rough. The kids had swim lessons in the morning, and to manage my own heat stress, I took them to Pingala Cafe, our favorite vegan spot, for a rare lunch out. Then we spent the rest of the day at the pool, rarely emerging from the water.

We came home sun-drenched and waterlogged and collapsed on the couch. To avoid cooking anything hot, I made teriyaki sesame cabbage bowls, inspired by this, and veganized with tofu (baked in the air fryer, then sautéed with teriyaki sauce). It was 10/10! After dinner, the kids played with reusable water balloons in the yard. Rest came easy that night. I climbed into bed with my book and was asleep before 9pm, ideal!

The kids have also been working their way through their summer reading BINGO (available in my summer reading kit!) and teamwork challenges. And I too have been enjoying lots of summery audiobooks—Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez and The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand—as well tackling my summer reading TBR with Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau and now The Glow by Jessie Gaynor.

Vermont shines in every season, which is one of the many reasons we chose to live here, and summer is gorgeous. A friend of ours who moved from NYC the same year as us summed it up perfectly:

“Vermont is just so beautiful in the summer, we don’t even need to travel—we just stay right here.”

I love seeing how others live during different seasons (please leave a comment and let me know your favorite thing to do in the summer!), so I hope you enjoyed coming along for our first week of summer in Vermont. We did a little of everything we love, and I hope the rest of the season continues in a similar fashion.

Take care, stay cool, and see you soon!