There is a morning every June when I walk downstairs, and my basement has been transformed into a magical world.

Where the couches used to be, there is a tunnel. Where the bookshelf full of board games used to be, there is a doorway with a snowman blanket hung up for a curtain (yes, a snowman blanket, in June, because when you are building something this big, every blanket in the house gets drafted). Every sheet I own is strung wall to wall, and some of them are tacked right up to the ceiling. There are little rooms with little doorways, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, a hammer and a half-empty box of nails sitting on the table like evidence.

That is the morning I know summer has officially begun.

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