Cardon Reunion and the beginning of July

Here I am having to catch up again! Jon, Veja, and I went to Utah for the Cardon family reunion (Jon's mom's family) June 30-July 3. The theme of the reunion was "Be Amazing" and we had an Amazing Race! It was the funnest idea for a reunion that I have ever heard of! Ever seen the show "The Amazing Race"? Take that and modify it for a family. We split up into teams with each sibling and their spouse being the head of the team. So we had 10 teams! It was a ton of fun! Each team was given a clue and then we had to follow that clue to go to the next site where we would have to preform a "task" in order to get our next clue. I had a ton of fun and really enjoyed getting to know all of the Cardon's. This was the first time I had met all of them aside from those who came to our wedding...but to be honest I really don't remember ANYONE I met that day. Let's just say I was slightly distracted and there were a LOT of people there!

Here's a picture of Veja in a hat and her reunion shirt

Here we are at the Bean Museum at BYU. One of the places we had to go. We had to find the answers to a bunch of questions by going around the museum. 

On Saturday night (July 2) we went to Jon's cousin Brandon's place and hung out with him and his wife, Justin and Chelsea, and Ben and Heidi. We even walked down to the Stadium to listen to a little bit of Brad Paisley during the Stadium of Fire. We headed back before the fireworks began and sat and watched  them on the Missionary Field across from the MTC. Veja really enjoyed the fireworks.

Grandma and Grandpa gave us a gift for Veja. :) This is how Veja got her first baby doll. She's still not quite sure what to do with it, but she's pretty darn cute! She'll appreciate it more as she gets bigger.

We drove home on the 4th of July. Luckily we left early enough that we were able to get home at a good hour. We showed up just as my family was putting dinner away. Then we headed off down the road a little bit to watch fireworks. It was a great show! I was so happy to be able to see a whole fireworks show! It's been at least 5 years since I've seen one on the 4th of July! Veja was tired, but she still enjoyed the show.

Jon hiked Mt Whitney (the tallest mountain in the continental United States) with my dad, Brandon, Shad, Savio, Eric Hakes, Rachel Hakes, Ben, Josh, Kyle, and Nicole June 27-29. Sadly they didn't end up making it to the summit because of 80 mph winds! Jon was excited to go, but he wasn't excited to leave Veja and I...especially Veja. Here he is trying to put her in his backpack so he can "take her with him."

She was OK with it until Jon actually put the pack on...then she started complaining!