Summer Reading 2026

Squeaking in under the wire on this one--the older kids are done with school and the younger ones have one more day left. (I am so.busy.all.the.time.) Excited to discuss all these with my kids!! This gets harder and harder every year to find things that they haven't already read, and Juliet got a jump on me by zooming through my pile of possibles right when she got home. 


Abigail (just finished junior year of college):
1) Lady Tremaine
2) Shark Heart
3) Hamnet
4) James
5) Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faerie
6) Anne of Green Gables (reread)
7) Just Mercy
8) The Women
9) Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow
10) The Will of the Many
11) Red Seas Under Red Skies
12) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
13) Pride and Prejudice (reread) 
14) Demon Copperhead **apparently she read this last year so it's no longer on her list for this year)

Juliet (just finished freshman year of college)
1) Devotions (Mary Oliver)
2) Lessons in Chemistry
2) The Lies of Locke Lamora
4) Troubled Waters
5) The Shell Seekers
6) Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
7) Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faerie
8) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
9) The Hero and the Crown
10) A Sorceress Comes to Call 

Isaac (just finished 11th grade)
1) The Fault in Our Stars
2) A Thousand Ships
3) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
4) A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
5) Circe
6) The Rose Code
7) The Great Gatsby
8) Nine Coaches Waiting

Luke (just finished 9th grade)
1)Assassin's Apprentice
2) Gone With the Wind
3) A Short History of Nearly Everything
4) Agatha Christie (pick one)
5) The Chronicles of Narnia (all)
6) My Life in France
7) The Fault in Our Stars
8) The Name of the Wind

Nathan (just finished 7th grade)
1) Project Hail Mary
2) Elantris
3) Leave Only Footprints: My Journey from Acadia to Zion
4) The Hiding Place
5) Jubal Sackett
6) From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
7) A Wizard's Dozen
8) The Elfstones of Shannara
9) The Chronicles of Prydain: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King

Matthew (just finished 3rd grade)
1) Farmer Boy
2) Charmed Life
3) Time Cat
4) The Red Pyramid
5) The Iron Trial
6) Fablehaven
7) Five Children and It
8) The Hobbit 

Summer Reading 2025 

Summer Reading 2024

Summer Reading 2023

Summer Reading 2022

Summer Reading 2021

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

Summer Reading 2025

 It's time!! As always--books that my kids haven't read that I think they will love (some significant tailoring based on children's interests and what they've read so far). A decent amount of overlap this year with some books I think we will really have fun talking about and dissecting together! 

Abigail (just finished sophomore year in college; every year I am delighted that she still wants a list!):
1) Devotions (Mary Oliver)
2) The Only Woman in the Room (Marie Benedict)
3) The Diamond Eye (Kate Quinn) 
4) Tuyo (Rachel Neuimeier)
5) The Scorpio Races (Maggie Stiefvater)
6) The Lies of Locke Lamora (Scott Lynch)
7) Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (R.F. Kuang)
8) Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths (Natalie Haynes)
9) The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah)
10) The Stepford Wives (Ira Levin) 

Juliet (just finished 12th grade)
1) Island of Ghosts (Gillian Bradshaw)
2) The Rose Code (Kate Quinn)
3) The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
4) Becoming (Michelle Obama)
5) All Systems Red: Murderbot Diaries 1 (Martha Wells)
6) Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths (Natalie Haynes)
7) Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey)
8) The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
9) The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah)
10) The Stepford Wives (Ira Levin) 

Isaac (just finishing 10th grade)
1) All Systems Red: Murderbot Diaries 1 (Martha Wells)
2) A Thousand Ships (Natalie Haynes)
3) Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann)
4) The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
5) Flint (Louis L'Amour)
6) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver)
7) Into Thin Air (Jon Krakaeur)
8) The Hero and the Crown (Robin McKinley)
9) The Elfstones of Shannara (Terry Brooks)
10) Agatha Christie pick (I essentially bought a stack and they can flip through and find one)

Luke (just finishing 8th grade)
1) All Systems Red: Murderbot Diaries 1 (Martha Wells)
2) Flint (Louis L'Amour)
3) Green Rider (Kristen Britain)
4) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)
5) Beauty & Rose Daughter (Robin McKinley)
6) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)
7) Hawk of May (Gillian Bradshaw)
8) The War that Saved My Life (Kimberly Brubaker Bradley)
9) The Elfstones of Shannara (Terry Brooks)
10) Agatha Christie pick 

Nathan (just finishing 6th grade)
1) The War that Saved My Life (Kimberly Brubaker Bradley)
2) The Bletchley Riddle (Ruta Sepetys, Steve Sheinkin)
3) Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton)
4) And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)
5) The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)
6) Over Sea, Under Stone (Susan Cooper)
7) The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper)
8) House of Many Ways (Diana Wynne Jones)
9) Watership Down  (Richard Adams)
10) The Daybreakers (Louis L'Amour) 

Matty (just finishing 2nd grade)
1) Fablehaven (Brandon Mull)

2) Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) 

3) Holes (Louis Sacchar) 
4) The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)

5) My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George)
6) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)

Summer Reading 2024

Summer Reading 2023

Summer Reading 2022

Summer Reading 2021

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

*This post contains affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on my site at no additional cost to you.

Summer Reading 2024

It's time!! As always--books that my kids haven't read that I think they will love (some significant tailoring based on children's interests and what they've read so far). I love taking notes all year on books that I'm reading and excited to share with my kids!

Abigail (just finished freshman year in college):
1) Into Thin Air (Jon Krakaeur)
2) A Thousand Ships (Natalie Haynes)
3) Becoming (Michelle Obama)
4) Troubled Waters (Sharon Shinn)
5) Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (Gail Honeyman)
6) The Rose Code (Kate Quinn)
7) Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)
8) The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
9) The Shell Seekers (Rosamunde Pilcher)

Juliet (just finished 11th grade)
1) A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
2) A Thousand Ships (Natalie Haynes)
3) Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann)
4) Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)
5)Nine Coaches Waiting (Mary Stewart) 
6) Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier) 
7) The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett)
8)  The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
9) Into Thin Air (Jon Krakaeur)
10) A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Holly Jackson)

Isaac (just finished 9th grade) 
1) A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
2) Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
3) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, The Last Battle
4) Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie)
5) The Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)
6) Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)
7) Island of Ghosts (Gillian Bradshaw)
8) A Deadly Education (Naomi Novik)

Luke (just finished 7th grade)
1) Sorcery and Cecilia (Wrede/Stevermer)
2) The Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin McKinley)
3) The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom) 
4) The Sherwood Ring
5) Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt)
6) Jubal Sackett (Louis L'Amour)
7)  Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks
8) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)
9) All Things Bright & Beautiful (James Herriot)
10) The Demon King (Cinda Williams Chima)

Nathan (just finishing 5th grade)
1) The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkein)
2) Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss)
3) Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones)
4) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
5) Banner in the Sky (James Ramsay Ullman)
6) Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Patterson)
7)  Dark Lord of Derkholm (Dianna Wynne Jones)
8) Where the Red Fern Grows (Wilson Rawls)
9) Skyward (Brandon Sanderson)
10) The Thief (Megan Whalen Turner)

Matty (just finishing 1st grade)
1) Fablehaven (Brandon Mull)
2) Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone 
3) Wings of Fire (Tui T. Sutherland)
4) The Chocolate Touch (Patrick Catling)
5) Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
6) Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)

Summer Reading 2023

Summer Reading 2022

Summer Reading 2021

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

*This post contains affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on my site at no additional cost to you.

Summer Reading 2023

Without further ado, this year's lists, since my kids have been asking for these for weeks!

I went back this year and had the kids read some books that I was surprised to realize they hadn't read; I also felt like this had been a really heavy school year for everyone so I didn't pick really any "challenging" books for anyone and just kind of focused on what I thought would be fun for each kid.

Abigail, just graduated from high school (and wasn't sure that she wanted a summer reading list):
1) Desert Solitaire (Edward Abbey)
2) Jubal Sackett (Louis L'Amour)
3) Island of Ghosts (Gillian Bradshaw)
4) Ruins of Ambrai (Melanie Rawn)
5) The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
6) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
7) How the Heather Looks (Joan Bodger)
8) Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier) 
9) A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Holly Jackson)

Juliet, just finished 10th grade:
1) Ruins of Ambrai (Melanie Rawn)
2) Monsoon Diary (Shoba Narayan)
3) Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
4) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver) 
5) Rilla of Ingleside (L.M. Montgomery)
6) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
7) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)
8) Have His Carcase (Dorothy L. Sayers) 
9) Jubal Sackett (Louis L'Amour)
10) Troubled Waters (Sharon Shinn)

Isaac, just finished 8th grade:
1) Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks
2) Beauty & Rose Daughter (Robin McKinley)
3) Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher) 
4) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)
5) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)
6) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)
7) Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)
8) Jubal Sackett (Louis L'Amour)
9) Ruins of Ambrai (Melanie Rawn)
10) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Luke, just finished 6th grade:
1) Johnny Tremain (Esther Forbes)
2) Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss)
3) The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (Maria von Trapp)
4) And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)
5) The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)
6) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
7) Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)
8) House of Many Ways (Diana Wynne Jones)
9) Watership Down  (Richard Adams)
10) Belles on Their Toes (Frank B. Gilbreth, Ernestine Gilbreth)

Nathan, just finished 4th grade:
1) The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
2) Island of the Blue Dolphins (Scott O’Dell)
3) Peter Pan (JM Barrie)
4) Vodnik (Bryce Moore)
5) Farmer Boy (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
6) Calamity (Brandon Sanderson)
7) The Copper Gauntlet (Holly Black)
8) Charmed Life (Dianna Wynne Jones)
9) Cheaper By the Dozen (Frank B. Gilbreth, Ernestine Gilbreth)
10) The Lives of Christopher Chant (Dianna Wynne Jones)

Matthew, just finished kindergarten:
1) First four Magic Treehouse books
2) Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone 
and as many other books as he wants--for our new little readers we just encourage tons of reading for fun!

Summer Reading 2022

Summer Reading 2021

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

*This post contains affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on my site at no additional cost to you.

Summer Reading 2022

 It's that time again!! One of our core family traditions--summer reading! As always, I put together summer reading lists for my kids based on a couple of things:

1) Books I think they will love
2) Books to push their normal comfort zones of reading a bit 
3) Classic books that I think they should read just to be conversant with book culture

Last year we threw in a prize to motivate the kids a little more (well, one specific kid but everyone benefited) and let them pick out a $40 Lego set or the equivalent thereof (Abigail opted for this Metal Earth set instead). 

This year I'm also trying something a little different and having the kids reread a few books that they read in previous years; I'm hoping that they will pick up some different things from the reread as they're a few years older. (I also mourn the fact that some of my children do not love books that I truly deeply love, so this is an attempt to see if I can get them to love those books as well.) One other thing that I'm trying out this year is not only watching film adaptations of the books, but watching multiple film adaptations and then discussing how those different films interpret the original subject matter in different ways. Sounds like a great topic for a master's thesis, doesn't it? 

And the final thing I'm doing this year: including a list of some of the books I'm planning to read this summer. Again, a lot of rereads of books I really love; I saved these old favorites for the summer so I could read some of them in tandem with my kids. 

And without further ado, here we go!

Abigail (just finishing grade 11):

1) Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
2) Emma (Jane Austen) 

3) Mystic and Rider (Sharon Shinn)
4) Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier) 

5) Nine Coaches Waiting (Mary Stewart) 
6) The Maltese Falcon (Dashiell Hammett)
7) The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
8) The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemison)
9)Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks
10) Project Hail Mary
11) Circe (Madeline Miller) 

Juliet (just finishing grade 9): 
1) Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
2) Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
3) Hawk of May (Gillian Bradshaw)
4) Assassin's Apprentice (Robin Hobb)
5) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, The Last Battle

6) Emma (Jane Austen) 

7) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)

8) Mystic and Rider (Sharon Shinn)

9) Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)

10) The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)

11) Drowned Ammet (Diana Wynne Jones)

Isaac (just finishing grade 7): 

1) Sorcery and Cecilia (Wrede/Stevermer)
2) The Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin McKinley)
3) Hawk of May (Gillian Bradshaw)

4) The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)
5) A Year in Provence (Peter Mayle)

6) The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom) 

7) The Sword of Shannara (Terry Brooks) 
8)  The Chronicles of Prydain  (Lloyd Alexander): The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King

9) The Sherwood Ring

10) Tuck Everlasting (Natalie Babbitt)

11) Watership Down (Richard Adams)
12) The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)
13) The Princess Bride (William Goldman)

Luke (just finishing grade 5): 
1) The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkein)

2) Bridge to Terabithia (Katherine Patterson)
3) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain)
4) Vodnik (Bryce Moore)

5) The Giver (Lois Lowry)

6) Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) 

7) The Chronicles of Prydain  (Lloyd Alexander): The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King

8) Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones) 
9) Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites (Chris Heimerdinger)
10) From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Koningsburg)
11) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

12) Banner in the Sky (James Ramsay Ullman)

Nathan (just finishing grade 3): 
1) Fablehaven (Brandon Mull)

2) Farmer Boy (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
3) Charmed Life (Dianna Wynne Jones)
4) Time Cat (Lloyd Alexander)
5) The Castle in the Attic (Elizabeth Winthrop)

6) The Iron Trial (Holly Black) 

7) Five Children and It (E. Nesbit)

8) Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) 

9) Holes (Louis Sacchar) 
10) The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)

Matthew (just finishing pre-K): 
1) Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (Siegfriend Engelmann)
2) We are in the process of working our way through 2 giant 500-page out-of-print British fairy tale treasuries and recording them as I read (everyone likes to listen to these later on car trips or as they're falling asleep, etc.). I wish I had links, but they took me years to source and I can't currently find anyone who is selling them! They are books that my parents brought back from Europe in the 1980s and it took me forever to track them down and get them shipped from the UK. 

Bedtime read alouds for summer (Neil does this with the boys every night; I could not even begin to count the hundreds of books he's read to our kids over the years--always with voices!!):
1) The Tale of Despereaux 
2) The Dark is Rising Sequence (Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree)

Rachael: 

Monsoon Diary (Shoba Narayan)
Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)
The Illiad (Homer, trans. Robert Fagles) 
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) 
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) 
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
The King Must Die  (Mary Renault) 
The Book of Longings (Sue Monk Kidd) 
Crying in H Mart (Michelle Zauner) 
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling) 

Farmer Boy (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) 
Ariadne (Jennifer Saint) 
A Room of One's Own (Virginia Woolf)

Trickster's Choice & Trickster's Queen (Tamora Pierce)

Summer Reading 2021

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

*This post contains affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on my site at no additional cost to you.

Summer Reading 2021

 

Here we go again! As always, I put together summer reading lists for my kids based on a couple of things:
1) Books I think they will love
2) Books to push their normal comfort zones of reading a bit 
3) Classic books that I think they should read just to be conversant with book culture

The first couple of years we did this the kids grumbled about it--now, it's something they really anticipate. We don't get out of school for a few weeks yet, but I've been working on putting these together because the kids have been requesting them! It's always fun to see what books they end up totally loving (Gone With the Wind was Abigail's surprise smash hit last year) and to hear them telling younger siblings, "Oh, I remember my year reading that one--you're going to love it!"

**Everyone: Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks. This is something new I'm trying this year--a book that all of us read separately and discuss together. So far 3/7 of us have read it. 

Abigail (just finishing grade 10): 

1) My Life in France (Julia Child)

2) Better than Before (Gretchen Rubin) 

3) Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

4) Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

5) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)

6) Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher)

7) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

8) The Demon King (Cinda Williams Chima)

9) Spindle’s End (Robin McKinley)

10) Have His Carcase (Dorothy L. Sayers) 

Juliet (just finishing grade 8): 

1) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver) 

2) Better than Before (Gretchen Rubin) 

3) The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom) 

4) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)

5) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Mark Twain)

6) Emily of New Moon (L.M. Montgomery)

7) Tarzan of the Apes (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

8) Furies of Calderon (Jim Butcher) 

9) The Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle)

10) Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) 

Isaac (just finishing grade 6): 

1) Johnny Tremain (Esther Forbes)

2) Banner in the Sky (James Ramsay Ullman)

3) A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle)

4) Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)

5) Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss)

6) The Blue Sword (Robin McKinley)

7) The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (Maria von Trapp)

8) The Daybreakers (Louis L’Amour)

9) And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)

10) Sherlock Holmes: any five short stories 

Luke (just finishing grade 4): 

1) The King of Attolia (Megan Whalen Turner)

2) Island of the Blue Dolphins (Scott O’Dell)

3) The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien)

4) Dark Lord of Derkholm (Dianna Wynne Jones)

5) Peter Pan (JM Barrie) 

6) Over Sea, Under Stone (Susan Cooper)

7) The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper) 

8) The Black Stallion (Walter Farley)

9) Harriet the Spy (Louise Fitzhugh)

10) Inkheart (Cornelia Funke) 

Nathan (just finishing grade 2):  

1) The Iron Trial (Holly Black) 

2) Five Children and It (E. Nesbit)

3) Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) 

4) The Girl Who Owned a City (O.T. Nelson)

5) Holes (Louis Sacchar) 

6) The Tale of Despereaux (Kate Di’Camillio)

7) James and the Giant Peach (Ronald Dahl)

8) The Red Pyramid (Rick Riordan)

9) The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan)

10) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (JK Rowling) 


Matthew (one year of preschool to go before kindergarten):

Continuing our daily hour of read-alouds, mostly picture books, but with a daily chapter of Little House books. 

**Everyone: Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through the National Parks

Summer Reading 2020

Summer Reading 2019

Summer Reading 2018

Summer Reading 2017

Summer Reading 2016

Pandemic beginnings and elearning

Honestly, it's so hard to remember when this all started! Mid-March? It seriously felt like one day everything was normal and the next day the closings and lockdowns and cancellations just all started rolling in. The kids went totally virtual for school for the two weeks before spring break and we thought *surely* they would be back to school afterwards. Hah. Hah. Hah. 

But we started out strong with all kinds of good intentions!

And "Zooms" very quickly became a part of our vocabulary and daily life--it was so dang hard keeping track of when everyone was supposed to be online for which class! 




As you can see, we leaned into the playtime part of things HARD. 

Neil and I started taking long bike rides together on Saturday mornings and Wednesday nights (haha, they seemed long then and it's something we can knock out easily in 60 minutes on the Peloton these days, because of course we bought a pandemic Peloton). 



Bike rides and walks really came in clutch there. 

Me in April: "Aren't we lucky that we are all home together in spring? Imagine if we had to do this in winter!" 

We added more chickens to our flock...

Because you know...pandemic eggs...

Planted our garden (the chickens had the best day!). 


At one point, we were allowed to go pick up everyone's stuff from school, which was a pretty crazy day. It felt so weird to drop the kids off in their masks at our allotted time and wait for them to come back out with all their locker shelves and textbooks and half-finished projects. 

Many many many walks. 

Abigail got really into rollerblading but would get nervous on steep downhills and insist on holding my hand to slow her down, which I loved ("Oh my gosh Mom are you seriously taking a picture of this?").



We had a lot of family movies...

And we got used to using Just Dance and random YouTube videos to fulfill PE class requirements! (We also bought a pandemic giant TV later on because again why not, this is such a weird year.)

One day I decided to pressure wash our deck to see if I could strip off the blue paint from the previous owners and then after an hour I came in and told Neil we were going to replace the deck. Yay! So we ripped out the whole thing and rebuilt it all. 

Lots of cute dropoffs from teachers!

And our new normal going to the store...which now seems so weird to go anywhere WITHOUT a mask (no longer wearing gloves and wiping down every single thing that enters our home, so that's an improvement). 

One day we signed up for a slot to pick some socially-distanced strawberries...

and for some reason we also made applesauce? 

More walks!! Many, many, many walks. 

We baked SO much bread. Banana bread and sourdough like crazy and Juliet got really into making ciabatta. 

After rescheduling it a few times we finally accepted that the pandemic was here to stay and went to the dentist...

Neil settled in to working from home...

We got increasingly creative with our strategies to keep elearning going. This was rough. I honestly have blurred it out just like childbirth. Like I really don't remember it much and if you tell me that we did it for 2.5 months I'll just sort of blink in disbelief. 

This was in the "get dressed for work even if you aren't going to work" stage (now we have all embraced the joggers and yoga pants). 

More walks and chickens getting bigger!

And the bike rides continuing as we edged into spring and summer...

And Zooms. Let us not forget Zooms. 

For date nights!

And game nights!

And church! (As I write this in February we are still going strong with many many many Zooms.)



We got used to "home church," some of us more than others...

And kept going on walks, 

and bike rides, 



And trying to stay in contact with the people we missed and loved, 

thought about how grateful we were to both keep our jobs and keep working from home, 

and life went on. 

Lots more time together and the opportunity to create stronger bonds through this weird crazy time.

And LOTS OF TIME TO READ. (Summer reading lists from last summer, woohoo!)