Donaldo Cabezzas

While Andrew was in his second area - Apache Junction - he taught a great family - Donaldo & Nancy Cabezzas and their daughter Roxanne. He was full blood Italian and she was Mexican.

He had been raised a Jehovahs Witness and she had been baptized as a little girl, but gone less active before her teenage years. 

They were one of Andrews favorite families to teach - because Donaldo was such a fun-loving, happy, joking guy, and also because he had great questions and really wanted to learn what we were teaching him.  Nancy also loved missionaries because she remembered them playing with her when she was a little girl - so she loved to have us over and feed us.

Because Donaldo had quite of a bit of false doctrine pounded into his head by the j-dubs, he took a long time to take the first step of baptism.

Luckily, it was after Andrew was already back down in the valley in Scottsdale from Snowflake, so he was able to attend.

After his mission, there were a few phone calls, but because Donaldo wasn't on Facebook, it was difficult to keep in contact.

2 years later......

A member of the bishopric in their ward posted a picture of Donaldo and Nancy in front of the Mesa Temple, congratulating them and telling them how grateful he was to be a part of their sealing.

...On October 13th, 2012

Happy Birthday

Saturday was a special day -

We got to play flag football in the mornin, then have a pregame pancake party after, and then go watch BYU play Oregon St. Cammi and Marc got Andrew a field pass for the pregame warmups, so he got to hangout with the players before the game. No big deal.







Paris got dressed up for gameday

When we came home, Lacie had the house decorated

With presents wrapped in Avengers wrapping paper!

And a Cougar ice cream cake

He got Bronco Mendenhalls book from Will,

a throwback BYU beanie from Tyler

Jimmers new book "The Contract"

The Avengers and Mission Impossible on bluray

It was a great day

And he got this card from Paris:

Great Weekend

For Conference Weekend, our good friend Aaron drove down from Rexburg to visit.

We had a blast.

Lacie made BYU-shaped pancakes for our pre game pancake party

We got to see our defense completely dominate utah state (that's three straight games now that our defense has not allowed a touchdown)

We got to relax and enjoy conference

And we celebrated at Tucanos between sessions!

Little Miss Paris was a happy camper

First 5K

Little-known fact about Andrew: he's training for a triathlon in November.

It's just a quick sprint so nothing crazy, running a 5K then biking 10 miles and swimming 400 yards.

With just over a month to go, he ran in his first official 5K. A good friend at works wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer back in May. As a fundraiser they put on a 5K up in Cottonwood Heights Saturday morning.





Andrew felt pretty confident he could finish in under 25 minutes and had been consistently doing that each morning leading up to it. But turns out Cottonwood Heights is higher in the mountains than Provo. Meaning there's less air to breath and even more hills. He still finished in 25 minutes and 27 seconds. 53rd place out of over 450. And 10th in his age division (20-24) of 25. And about 10 of those were UVU or BYU track runners, so I feel okay about it.

Cougar Girl

Yes it's been difficult to cheer for the Cougars this past week - but despite a wasted chance at a BCS Bowl and incredibly annoying yewts - our baby girl is still a loyal Cougar Fan.

One Year Later...

Well, it's tough to believe - but it's been an entire year since that perfect September day.

Thankfully for us, Earth Wind & Fire constantly helps us remember that 21st night of September.

When Andrew woke up to make breakfast for Lacie, he found out he was behind - she had already decorated and had a present waiting for him.

We had a great night with dinner at La Jolla Groves and then a moonlight train ride through Provo Canyon along Deer Creek Reservoir, with live string entertainment and endless chocolate sampling.

Lacie was so so excited for her very first train ride.

It was also the first time she's been away from our sweet baby Paris. She lasted a whole 5 hours - I was actually really impressed - she only called Heather once.

They had a lot of fun train toys and books at the station, and we obviously needed a present to bring back to our little girl the first time we left her. So we have a new bedtime story - 

The Little Engine That Could.