It’s a lazy Sunday evening on Martha’s Vineyard and the kids are loping along a wooded path to a pond, picking blueberries and debating whether “plink, plank, plunk” is really the sound the plump fruits make as they drop into the empty coffee can. The chapter books will be set aside tonight, and Blueberries for Sal will make a comeback at bedtime. It always does in August.

“Will the blueberries still be out when the Obamas come?” asks my daughter.

“Doesn’t matter,” her brother smiles impishly, plink, plank, plunking another handful into his can. “There won’t be any left after we’re done.”

Might be huckleberries by then, I say. Do you think Sasha and Malia would like to go berrypicking?

“Of course!” cry my children, as if I had asked whether the Obama girls might like to see the Eiffel Tower while in Paris.

As a matter of fact, the Obama girls have been to Paris this summer, and seen the Eiffel Tower. And to London, where they met the Queen, and to Moscow, where they toured the Kremlin, and to the Colosseum in Rome. All that after moving house, changing schools and a couple of years of campaign and other public events.

“Whew,” said my nine-year-old, screwing up her face incredulously as I rattled off that list. “I bet they just want to run around, ride ponies and hang out at the beach.”

Which sounds about perfect for making family memories on the Vineyard. Here, it’s best to let the tides and sunrises set your schedule; these remind even the hardest working parents how life has its natural rhythms.

First Lady Michelle Obama thought about sending her daughters away to summer camp, she told ABC News, but instead decided to make her own Camp Obama program. As well as the international travel, the camp has included a luau on the White House lawn, ice cream trips with Dad and some community service, packing gifts for overseas Marines. “The television and computers are off all day until after dinner and right before bedtime,” Mrs. Obama has said.

After dinner at Blue Heron Farm, the Obama girls would probably rather have a campfire and some s’mores, my kids say (adding wisely that the Obamas should check each other for teeny-tiny ticks each night and pull any off so they don’t get Lyme disease).

Or maybe there would be time to drop a line in the water, see if a fish bites, or take a sunset paddle.

“How late is the Flying Horses open?” wonders my littlest, sure that Sasha and Malia will get there one day or night.

The Flying Horses in Oak Bluffs is the oldest operating carousel in America, and the closest thing the Island has to a manmade attraction. The horses are hand-painted, and little gold plaques on the floor tell you their names. Some kids recognize the horses more by the jewels in their eyes, and one horse has a gold tooth (“We call him Chicago,” laughs one carousel worker). More than a century old, they don’t even go up and down. But as the carousel circles, riders reach out to collect small rings from extendable metal arms that reach towards the horses, one on the inside ring, one on the outside. If you catch the brass ring, you win a free ride.

Island kids can grab two, three or even four at a time, so it might be a good idea for the President and First Lady to buy the value 10-ride pass, so the girls can get some practice. “I’d be thrilled if one of them caught the brass ring,” said the carousel’s ultimate caretaker, Chris Scott, the head of the Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust. “But you can’t set it up. It’s all chance.”

The girls can enhance their brass ring chances by sitting one behind the other, he suggests, rather than one on an inside horse and one on the out.

Nearby the Flying Horses are lots of ice cream places. Ben and Bill’s has lobster ice cream with real lobster pieces in it, and they’ll give you a taste before you decide, which is a good thing because you may decide for something more traditional, like vanilla or mint chocolate chip. Mad Martha’s is creating a whole new flavor for the First Visit, so the Obamas might have to make more than one ice cream stop during their week here.

“If they were coming a week earlier, they’d want to work on something to enter into the fair,” suggests my little competitor.

As it is, the President’s official arrival is scheduled for Sunday, August 23. Though that’s too late to enter a painting or cupcake, the fair gates don’t close until Sunday evening and it’s practically on the way to Blue Heron Farm. The family could make a last-hours fairgrounds stop and check out the farm animals, creaky rides and cotton candy (best experienced in that order).

The Obamas’ vacation home is very convenient to Alley’s General Store, which is just that, a general store. The girls might want to stock up on souvenirs there, buy a few Island Grown T-shirts for their friends, or some shark teeth. (They might also search for fossilized shark teeth by combing the red sand cliffs of Lucy Vincent Beach not far from their home in Chilmark, but the taller Obamas will need to explain how fragile the cliffs are, so the kids mustn’t climb them.)

At Alley’s the Obama tweens also can buy nail polish for a rainy day activity, some pop music CDs, toys or jewelry. They could buy a $5 drop line — the best way to fish, there’s nothing between you and the fish but a bit of string. Or the store sells Barbie rods, if the girls want something more professional. Grab a net, too, and head for the dock in Menemsha, the best place to fish, enjoy fresh lobster or clam chowder, and watch the sunset.

Right outside the doors of the Obama vacation home is the Tisbury Great Pond, of course, so the girls could also have the thrill of catching their own dinner. You can dig for steamers in the pond, but even the President needs a shellfish license if they’re going to do that (it’s easy to obtain). However, you don’t need a boat, any snazzy gear or even much skill to catch some blue crabs in that pond.

Just wade along the shore with your net and watch for movement. Then it’s a race, you against the crab, both speeding through a swirling mass of stirred-up sand: the crab moves, the net comes down and every few times you actually capture one.

Dad Obama wrote a letter to his daughters for Parade magazine early this year. Sasha and Malia, he wrote, “came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn’t seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours.”

As one parent to another, I can say: When those girls catch a crab, pure joy is what you’ll see.

(Most folks try to take male crabs only though it’s legal here to take both male and female crabs. The shape of a male crab’s abdominal flap looks like an inverted T; on the female, it’s triangular or bell-shaped. And never keep a “sponge” crab, a female carrying a very visible sack of eggs on its abdomen.)

Finally, there are the ponies. The Obamas will be able to see two horse farms, Crow Hollow Farm and Pond View Farm, just across from their Vineyard boathouse. These are two of many fine horse farms on the Island.

“They’ll definitely want to ride the Crow Hollow ponies,” says my daughter Ciara, whose heart and saddle are there. The stable is run by Samantha Look, a young mother who gives quiet life lessons with her riding lessons; hers is an old family farm, now on the market, property taxes being hard to sustain on land handed down through the generations here on this now-coveted Island. “Sam would take the ponies to Sasha and Malia if they wanted,” adds my rider confidently.

What else would you want to take visiting kids to see? I ask mine. The Farm Institute in Katama lets you feed the pigs and milk the goats, they note approvingly. Gus Ben David would show the Obama girls some very cool frogs and a real bald eagle at his World of Reptiles and Birds, they say, and there are nice trails at Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary. Murdick’s Fudge is a fun stop, especially if it’s a fudgemaking day.

Anything else? The Obamas could get lobster rolls at the Grace Church sale (it’s every summer Friday evening) and let the girls play in Owen Park while they eat them. They could walk around the Cliffs in Aquinnah and learn about the Wampanoag Tribe from people there. The lighthouses are fun to go inside. Oh, and there’s still a current to ride from the Tisbury Great Pond to the ocean out at “the cut” (parent’s note: just be careful of those currents and rips).

“Then again,” my daughter says optimistically, “maybe they would just like to come over for a sleepover.”