July 4th

While the weather in SLC has been over 100 degrees for over a week, we've had a nice string of days at the cabin. 
On the morning of the 4th we attended a parade at Brighton Ski Resort with some of our cabin neighbors. It was lots of fun, especially for the kids, who collected a bunch of candy and got excited about riding their bikes (next year) in the kid-bike-decorating and riding portion of the parade. 

Our good friends the Holmbergs came up to celebrate the 4th (and 5th) with us. We did a little biking, hiking, BBQ-ing, beer drinking (adults only), smore's-ing, sparklers-ing and Lincoln Log cabin making. The total Americana package. Luke and Anna were very excited to have a sleep over with their pals Wyatt and Josiah. 
We also experienced three pretty wicked summer storms while at the cabin. Thunder, lighting and rain pounded us for two nights (note: heavy rain on a metal A-frame roof is VERY loud). We got a storm break on the 4th, then on the 5th was a whopper, with a 12-hour power loss, triggered by lightning hitting a neighbor's tree, which knocked out the power line. 

The storm was DIRECTLY overhead at around 6:30 pm, with thunder so loud it made me involuntarily jump and scream (I was standing right at the window), which in turn, freaked Luke and Anna out a little. We promptly lost power and they were very curious about that ("Dad, when will our lights come back on?"..."Mom, I can't see my dinner plate"..."Dad, when will our lights come back on?") They didn't think that our one lantern was adequate light. It was an adventure for them.

Today (Saturday, July 6th--Happy Birthday Billy), Patty came up to watch the kids so Keith and I could go mountain biking on the amazing trails right outside our cabin, to Park City. It was great and I look forward to much more of that this summer.

Anyway, we had some nice family & friends time at the cabin. We'll have many more traditions and memories to create here.

Here are a few random photos (from my phone) from the weekend:

Pretty great mountain biking from the cabin... Here's Keith on the Wasatch Crest trail...

 Claire wants to move! Since she can't actually move yet, her next favorite place is the Baby Bjorn on the front of me...(just like her brother and sister)...

 My view from the front deck...

 Dinner "picnic" on the back of Dad's truck. As Anna (Daddy's Girl) says "I love Dad's truck soooo much"...

 July 4th parade at Brighton Ski Resort. As if the kids didn't love fire trucks enough, this one was throwing candy!!

 Let's take a break from parade candy... for a bite of nature's candy...

 Hiking with pals is always fun (Josiah Holmberg, Luke, Wyatt Holmberg (Luke's best pal), Anna--who thinks she's one of the guys)...

 Daddy & Claire on the front deck...

 Then napping late... or at least one person was napping...

Again, it's a pretty nice view from the mountain bike trail. It'll be equally spectacular when this become a ski trail view...

 Biking the neighborhood...

 Hiking...

 Clairey, getting bigger and more interactive every day...

 Mountain girl, biking in a dress :)

 Night time wind down with Kristi Holmberg reading stories to the boys and me playing with Claire. Superstar-sleeper Anna was already in bed...

 Tim Holmberg telling the boys how to do the sparklers...

What a fun long weekend in the woods!