Tulip Festival

Everyone that knows my mom knows that she loves flowers. She always has flowers on her table no matter what time of year it is (usually they match with the season). Thanksgiving point was holding their annual tulip fesitval so of coarse we had to go and see it. Here is some picutres of the flowers and how beautiful they were. You may just see some other beautitul flowers modeling with the tulips!

(See the extra beautiful flower)

(More beautiful flowers)

Our motto is "to always have a smile and a good laugh" (not really but I just made it that) so no matter where we are that always happens. If you look at the statue she looks like she is trying to put her foot in the water so MeMe thought she would do the samething but Mom thought it would be more fun to push MeMe in the water so yes that is what I caught her doing. Funny Flowers!

This was my favorite picture!

I WILL SURVIVE!!

For those of you that didn't know I have started working with Life Flight along with working at the hospital. So pretty much on my days off I get go and fly places. Sometimes they are a lot colder than here like Colorado, Wymoing or even Montana or warmer like down south to St. George. I usually perfer to go were there is warmth. But other than flying places, Life Flight also has us train in other areas in case something happens like our plane crashing, which doesn't happen that often I promise! But today we went out and trained for avalanches and how to stay warm if we are stuck in the snow. In other words it was Winter Survival training! Pretty much the day consisted of us doing a like of hiking, falling, and being covered in snow!

Here is my group! We are all the Adult Respiratory Therapist on the Salt Lake Life Flight team. There is only 9 of us total here in Salt Lake area. What you can't see behind us is the trench we had to dig and then cover with branches and tarps and then cover it with snow to see if it would hold. It had to be big enough for all of us to fit in. Just to give you an idea of how deep the snow was I'm actually standing behind the girls in front of me but have sunk in waist deep in the snow!

This is the opening to our trench and I have crawled up in to show that we can fit in. I don't really like being in closed areas so not knowing if this was going to fall on me made me nervous but at least for me I did have life flight people around.

I think the look on face explains it all. Being raised by a wonderful outdoors wildlife father he has taught us many things about being safe while outside. We were learning how to start a fire. Easy right! Well I don't know what she was doing but it wasn't easy! So thanks to being taught by my father I was able to start the fire first and not by doing it the way they showed us! What ever works to stay warm is all I can say!

I wish I had a picture to make my point about this story. But one of the things that we had to do was practice finding people that were buried in the snow. They had these beacons on and we had to use ours to find them. Well like I said earlier the snow was really deep and I'm not very tall. So one of the other girls and I were leading the way when she took a step and sunk waist deep. She wasn't able to get out so I was right behind her and I figured I had pretty good footing where I was standing. I was trying to help pull her out when next thing I knew the ground beneath us went and we were both over waist deep in the snow and unable to get out. If any of you have ever felt the snow shift and then give way beneath your feet it isn't a very good feeling. But I have never laughed so hard as both of us were like swimming, crawling, doing whatever we could to try to get out of this snow hole we were in. Luckily for us we had two guys in our group that had to wade over and half drag half lift us out because there was no way we could get out. So from then on out we weren't allowd to lead or tread the way.

Some of the other people in my group had some more pictures so hopefully I will get those soon and will be able to post some more! But it was a fun adventure that I'm happy I only have to do once a year!

After Summer Comes Fall

The Canyons

I just have to say that I am so happy that I grew up here in Utah! I think sometimes we forget what a beautiful state we really live in! Every year at the end of summer the Standiford family goes up Millcreek canyon and has a BBQ! We roast the hot dogs over an open fire and play in the stream! Well the kids play in the stream because I think it is to cold for the rest of us. But it does make for some fun pictures!

Chase Standiford

Picking up rocks to throw in the stream. Or maybe catching yourself as you fall in!

Brayden Dunn, so cute!

Having fun with the cousins!!

Chloe Standiford what do you say about those cheeks!

Almost all the grandchildren!

(Sorry Katherine didn't think about taking this until after you and Chase left)

State Fair

Utah State Fair

For some reason growing up I have always loved animals! It hasn't really mattered what animal it is but I love them! We have always had a dog in our house and livng by Brother Drake and his farm that made me just love them. So for some reason as a little girl I always wanted a horse (and still do, should have been a country girl). But I use to tell my dad that it was a dream of mine to be a cow girl and be a barrel racer in the rodeo! So to help with that my parents took us to Wyoming when we were younger to go and ride the horses. I didn't have the best experience since I fell off the horse but it didn't make me love them any less. When Travis proposed to me he took me horse back riding at a friends ranch (Walt Christensen). So my love for horses grew! Walt every year at the state fair takes some of his horses and shows them off, also known as show horses. So we thought that we would go and watch!

This is Walt and one of his horses and buggie (however you spell it)

At the fair they have all the different animals like; rabbits, cows, goats, sheep etc. Well they had one of the biggest cows there. She weighed over 3000 pounds! Let's just say she was huge. It was a good thing she was that big since there was kids all around her and sitting on her. She was probably to fat to stand up and get them off. So here she is!!

She probably doesn't look that big in the picture but she was HUGE!!!

July 24th!

Pioneer Day!

Every year for the last many years it has been a tradition for the Standiford family to go out on the parade route downtown and stay the night to save our spot for the parade. So the last couple of years Travis and I have stayed out on the route and saved the spots. For those of you that have never done that it isn't a night were you plan on getting any sleep! But it is a lot of fun to see all the crazy people out and what they do that night! Well this time our night got started early! We had this homeless man come up and ask for money! He gave us this great story about needing the money to go get a room to sleep in that night! Well Travis and I didn't have any money on us but we gave him a gatorade instead. He sat there and talked to us for a while! He was nice enough not to come to close because he told us that he had fleas and he didn't want them to get on us. Its sad to say but he was missing most of his teeth also! After he left we did have a good laugh about the stories that he was telling us. But he didn't leave for long, instead he brought us one of his friends. I was thinking "great, what did we get ourselves into." Well instead of asking for anything he brought his friend to play us some music to thank us for being nice and giving him a drink! This guy just sat right down next to me and started playing music!!

That is the best picture I could get with my phone because I didn't really want him to think I was taking the picture. But he sat there for a good half an hour and played songs and told us stories. Most of the time I couldn't understand a thing he was saying! The blanket that he sat on was quickly removed and replaced by another blanket.

I'm sad to say that we forgot our camera so I don't have any pictures of the parade but I think we were to tired to even take any by the time that it passed! But there was some great floats I guess you will just have to take my word on that!

July 4th

After the baseball game Murray has a big firework show! There was a little time between the game and before the fireworks started so we brought some games to play! One of them is a water game! Let's just say that if you try really hard you don't have to get wet, but even when you try some people don't play nice and end up getting you wet! It may not have all been from the game but from the left over balloons that ended up being used to break on people!

Poor MeMe! She got it the worst! Luckily for us she is nice even when everyone is picking on her! She still smiles and laughs! And lucky for me Travis knows better not to get me wet so instead he and Brandt soaked MeMe!

Just waiting!And waiting!!

Ah here we go!

It was worth the wait!

Not summer without Baseball!!

July 4th!!

Our family are huge baseball fans! Well at least the girls are! We have been and always will be! So of coarse during the summer you have to go at least to one baseball game! MeMe is dating Brandt who is a baseball player but the funny thing is the pictures I took aren't of him but of his brother Tyler! Just happened to be who was playing before we watched the fireworks!
This is our family and the Anderson family! I wasn't able to get a picture of anyone eating a hot dog but MeMe is drinking one of our favorite drinks, slushy Dr. Pepper! Ummm!!

All smiles at the game!! :)