We got a chance to spend a lunch with Joe before his departure last week . . . this shot before we had to say 'hasta la vista' to Joe. Bethany is due next month--she brings the Abeyta name into the line of tough Shahas. Be careful out there, Joe. You are always in our prayers, as are Dan and Jake.

Looks like Lucy wasn't sure about Steve's haircut--she had to check him out a few times. Steve got to come see us on leave as he prepares to deploy to meet up with his unit in Afghanistan. Another tough Shaha.

This weekend Wendy and Dave came to town to run the Kansas City Marathon. The rest of us slugs in the photo are along for the ride--to watch others suffer. As bad a photo as this is, the other takes I got in the Panera just before the run were even worse.

Before shot of Wendy and Dave walking up to the start line.

Dave at mile 24--still smiling if you can believe it!!

Finisher Dave--at about 3:18!!

Finisher Wendy who, if you notice the pacer in front of camera, actually qualified for the Boston Marathon with a run time below 3:40. Congratulations to both Wendy and David for surviving, much less turning in such outstanding times.

Yep, we're strong. Nothing can stop us. Who's got the graham crackers?


It was another great weekend! We love you all and you are all constantly in our prayers for your physical, spiritual and, yes, mental welfare.

Love, Mom and Dad

Conan

I'll go ahead and follow up Bethany's awesome pictures with the new Conan clip. Different genres, I know.

"Conan" TBS Ad - Conan O'Brien Drives a Car Off a Cliff @ Yahoo! Video

Treasured Moments

These two are my favorite. I haven't seen all the pictures we had taken. I'll get them next week. I just thought I'd show a preview.

I'm so grateful we were able to get these done three days before he left.

Lucy and her dad

Joe made it safely to Kuwait. He left around 0545 on Sunday morning. I thought I would post this picture because the other one of me and him looks like a halloween picture. I look awful as you can only imagine why. We've been able to talk every day so that has been nice. Thanks Marinda for your email. I am going to write you back.
PS
You better watch out Steve, Joe has been going to the gym twice a day. They're obviously keeping him really busy.

New Blog

We started up our own blog as well... mostly because we didn't want to monopolize this blog with all our pics, so feel free to check it out. It has many of the same pics I already posted on here, but also lots of others you haven't seen. Of course, we will still contribute/participate in the familia shaha blog.

The web address is:

http://www.benandmarindashaha.blogspot.com/

BTW, Ben broke his foot today. We've kind of had a bad day, to say the least. He was rushing home from school so he could get back here so I could go to Polish class and he totally biffed it on the sidewalk. He has a cast and crutches. Totally lame.

Joe will like these... and it's set to some Polish rock

THE BIGGEST NEWS OF THE CENTURY

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Hawks and cars and stuff

Saturday morning as Wendy and I were walking out the door we were greeted by a certain aviary predator in our garden. We didn't even notice him at first but when we were going to take the newspaper back in we turned and saw him staring us down like food. We didn't get a picture of the "are you food?" face but these aren't bad. He kind of lost interest when we came back out with the camera. He just hopped away and rested on our rain gutter and pretended to ignore us. I think he was just sore that we weren't food.

We also went to see Devil this weekend which was awesome. There was this part at the end that totally spooked me out. Anyway, there was a sweet car show in the parking lot outside the theater and I tried to take some pictures with my phone. Here's a 1968 camaro, 1978 Shelby Mustang, and a 1963 split window corvette if I remeber right. Wendy was impressed with the Shelby as you can see. I forgot to mention the car show at the conference call. It was pretty amazing and aweosme and stuff. As are you guys.