President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney taking summer breaks

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — It's a family tradition that spans a decade, as Mitt Romney's clan — all 30 of them — gathers at his New England lakeside compound for a week of home-cooked meals, sporting events and ice cream outings.

Only this summer, things are a little different: The patriarch is the Republican candidate challenging President Barack Obama and there's a Secret Service detail in tow everywhere Romney goes.

Nevertheless, the former Massachusetts governor is sticking to his routine. He attended Sunday church and let loose on Monday with a little jet skiing. He walked barefoot with his grandchildren, posed for family photos, and visited with friends — just as he has done every other summer. For Romney, this week is a welcome opportunity to unwind from the campaign trail while reflecting on the biggest decision he'll make during this campaign: choosing a running mate.

"It's just so nice to have everybody together," his wife, Ann, said after church on Sunday. "We never get to see them all anymore."

Her husband has been spending most of his time traveling the country raising money and campaigning against Obama. His wife and sons occasionally join him, but they keep separate campaign schedules of their own. This weeklong vacation will likely be the last real break Romney gets before the GOP convention in late August — it's where he will accept his party's nomination — kicks off the frenzied sprint to Election Day.

So he seems to be making the most of it.

Romney spent Monday morning lounging on the beach at the compound a few miles outside of Wolfeboro, N.H., as his grandchildren played in the sand. Then, he and his wife climbed on a jet ski on Lake Winnipesaukee. Ann drove one of the family Sea Doos while Romney sat behind her wearing a life preserver over a T-shirt, shrugging his shoulders and grinning at the reporters who trailed him in a pontoon boat. His Secret Service detail kept watch from a gray boat with enormous outboard engines.

Romney's first trip to the tiny, centuries-old town of Wolfeboro — decades ago, with his father, George Romney — was to visit the family of hotel magnate J.W. Marriott, also longtime Wolfeboro vacationers. Sunday night, Nancy and Dick Marriott dropped by to visit the Romneys after fleeing a Washington home that was still without power after the weekend's storms.

Like the Romneys, the Marriotts are Mormons, and in the summer both families attend services at the same small, nondescript branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Only the Romneys attended the service Sunday, with their family making up nearly a third of the congregation.

Romney sat next to his wife, with grandchildren occupying the rest of the row. He sang along during the service's three hymns, holding his iPad underneath his navy blue hymnal. Some of the kids — they range in age from a few weeks old to 16 years — grew restless during the long service. At different points, several walked over to receive a kind smile and quiet word from their grandfather. At one point, Romney took charge of a bag of colored cereal, offering the food to a grinning blond toddler.

After the service's first hour, some of the children headed home — but not Mitt and Ann Romney. They stayed for at least part if not all of the two additional hours of meeting time after the sacrament service, which offers bread and water instead of bread and wine. That's a variation of the communion service that allows for the Mormon prohibition against alcohol.

The church service aside, Romney's newly heightened political status threatens to transform Wolfeboro, a quaint, classic resort town of about 6,000 people.

Small restaurants, clothing stores and ice cream shops — some, they say, in operation for a century or more — line Main Street, where during the summer the traffic backs up past the grocery store where Romney sometimes shops. If it becomes a presidential summer destination, it could face the same development and crowding issues that have confronted Kennebunkport, Maine, where President George H.W. Bush's family has a compound.