We drove into the mountains to celebrate the 4th of July this year. We spent a long, relaxing weekend at the Snow family cabin at Bryant’s Fork near Strawberry Reservoir.

Going to the cabin more frequently is definitely one of the perks of once again living in Utah. We love it there. It’s a true getaway.

The only thing that would make trips to the cabin better is for there to be a second cabin for anyone under the age of 18 which we could lock-down and walk away from.

Ahh, the joys of parenthood.

Really, the kids are fun (usually). And the time away from civilization is definitely good.

We drove into Heber City on the fourth to take in some of the festivities there, but ended up going bowling and then having burgers and fries with a third of the population at Dairy Keen (too crowded; low quality food).

We had movie night each night. We hung up a queen sheet and used our notebook computer, projector and Bose speakers to enjoy a drive-in type of living room movie. Good times, for sure!

We also took walks around the loop to work off all the great food we ate.

And we took Tank down to the beaver dam pond to play fetch. He was apprehensive at first, but slowly got the hang of it.

He ended up impressing us all with his spastic two-legged doggy paddling to get the stick out of the middle of the pond. Don’t ask me why he doesn’t use his hind legs to swim. Guess that doggy could use some swimming lessons.

Playing fetch in the water with Tank was very entertaining and even produced the side-effect of wearing Tank out, which is no small feat. He was so tired that each night he just curled up and crashed.

We left the cabin this morning so we could make it to our afternoon church meetings where we both had teaching assignments, Vickey in the primary and me in the Sunday school.

Tonight, to round-out our weekend of walking in the mountains, we drove up the street to the Bountiful Temple, parked the van, then walked across the mountainside overlooking the valley. So beautiful!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

We are so fortunate to live in a country that protects our freedom to choose and be agents unto ourselves.