cookie dough for breakfast

parents of the year!

little miss-chievous

no, she can't walk yet.

but it seems she can climb to the top of the toilette.

for your amusement

okay, one final family adventure to share from our desert trek, and then it's back to the races. (though, if bryan ever deigns to grace the blogging world with his presence, you might hear about some utah biking excursions.)

so for ken buds' big birthday, twenty-four style, we headed to amusement central: lagoon.

summer's first ride.

nothing can capture that girl's attention quite like water can.

summer's second ride.

having had her fill of the "kiddie" amusements,

she tries her hand at something a bit more exciting.

on the timeless logflume. love emmelie's action hair.

as always, we enjoy our share of physics lessons.

what goes up:

must come down:

(that's right, bryan, scream like a man!)

on a side note, sometime during the day, summer and i were separated from the group without a cell phone. and while i shan't bore you with the hairy details, let's just say that when we met up again with the fam, a certain someone who is not afraid of "public" confrontations and a certain other someone whose defense mechanism is to laugh when his wife is upset had a pretty volcanic one-sided exchange outside pioneer village (if you were there at lagoon that day, yes, that was us). tears were shed. maps were ripped up, crumpled, and thrown. and there was a general weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

then my dad bought everyone icees, and all was well and right again with the world.

as a bonus, we have now originated the saying "pulling a lagoon." which i think refers to that same certain somebody's tendency to, uh, not remain calm.

who, me?

psst: yes, afton *was* at lagoon with us. she just spent most of the day being pushed around in the stroller by opa d, resting her pretty little head.

another day, another zoo

it's true: the wheelers love zoos. astute readers may have noticed that wherever we go, we go to a zoo.

so, in keeping with that tradition, here is our visit to the mighty hogle zoo in utah (and its two main attractions: the carousel and the bird show).

summer circling the carousel to be sure and pick

just the right animal on which to rest her precious little hiney:

hang on, cousin kellyn, we're moving at light speeds here!

afton petting the giraffe. i think her baby camelopard likes it.

summer awaiting the bird show with anxious trepidation:

but in the end, (and after a few shouts of "don't eat me!")

she liked it so much that she donated another dollar.

(for a brief recap of her first donation, go here.)

packin' heat

huh.

not really sure that's what the boppy is for.

plus, plus

here are some more graduations pics

for those of you who are in to that sort of thing:

pomp and circumstance

a central reason for our westward journey was to attend the college

graduation of my middle brother, kenny, and his wife, emmelie,

who are now off to law school at the university of chicago.

congrats, grads!

but graduation, while important and all, came in a close

second to byu bakery's hot bread and honey butter.

yum.

hit the road

did you miss us?

we just returned victorious from our summer vacation in utah.

much more to come on our adventures.

like this one:

at the beginning of our 14 hour trek down south,

summer vomitted in the car (not but 20 miles from home).

good times.

alki beach

ah, july 31st. never a day that i really worry about the weather.

i can almost always guarantee that it will be sunny on my special day.

even in washington.

but not this year. fuh-REE-zing cold.

still, alki is a lovely beach (as pacific northwest beaches go).

but with the winds and the waters so chilly, we only lasted about an hour.

then, we de-sanded for thirty minutes

while our little ladies explored the back of the pilot.

and then, i spent the next four hours at the spa.

the warm and cozy spa...

seventeen again

let's travel back ten years to a time of prom and parents. boybands and britney and blue (da ba de). youth and beauty (SIKE -- what's up with that perm?) it's the year 2000, end of junior year, school's out for summer, and lisa and i (sorry about the picture cut, yo) spend our days baking and decorating ginormous cakes.

seventeen-year-old emily sits on the above left with twenty-seven-year-old emily by her side. a decade of difference between them. (i.e., seventeen-year-old emily wore only mascara; twenty-seven-year-old emily wears mascara and eyeliner. where *does* the time go?).

and if these two rather bodacious babes actually met, what would they talk about? what would they still have in common? what could they learn from one another?

perhaps their idea exchange might go a little something like this:

from emily the younger:

read your scriptures every day -- the fire of faith takes fanning the flames

eat ice cream for breakfast every once in a while -- just because you can

keep dancing -- you are a fiiiiiine booty shaker

give more people the benefit of the doubt -- a little guilelessness never hurt anyone

from emily the elder:

stay out of the sun -- your creamy pale skin is delicious

love the mole -- pretty soon photographers will start editing it out, and that will make you sad

for heaven's sake, eat less greasy food -- your digestive system can't handle it

don't cry so hard when you don't get the Hinckley Scholarship -- you will marry into it

and puh-LEEZE give your parents a break -- raising kids is friggin hard

now hug it out ladies and go your separate ways. seventeen-year-old emily to be frozen in stretch mark free (yet ghastly coiffed) perfection forevermore, and twenty-seven-year-old emily to infinity and beyond!