When my mother-in-law extended the invitation for my son to join her annual summer vacation with the grandkids, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity. Every July, she gathered all her grandchildren for a two-week stay at her grand lakeside estate.
It was a tradition my husband, Matthew, remembered fondly from his own childhood. He spoke about those summers with the kind of nostalgia that made me think of laughter echoing across water, marshmallows roasted by the fire, and secret hide-and-seek games that stretched long into the twilight.
