We worship our short summers here in Northern New England, don’t need an agrarian excuse for that. Only one of us is a skier. My kids have had plenty of active summers with jobs, study abroad, and other amazing adventures but the summer before boarding school starts is a good time take a breather from textbooks. But, hey, I have some hedonistic tendencies and I am a big proponent of gap years, too. It’s good to get off the hamster wheel, but I get the sense that your homeschooling lifestyle allows for that flexibility, @laenen.