Student Athletes

It is always important to stimulate both the body and the mind. As a youngster, I excelled at Track & Field and Football. Working hard to be number one in sports is always good, but think after awhile I lost site of working hard mentally. Got complacent with getting by easily in classes, instead of striving to be A+ student all the time. Of course there was the unchallenged mind and peer pressure to not think of class as cool, but there was really no excuse to get a B when if a singular book was opened then there would be no stopping me.

Senior year I ended up quitting football to prove to colleges that there was indeed a brain under my helmet and scored exceptionally, earning a scholarship to Columbia. Better late than never, but the point of the story is student is first in "student athlete."

With that said, it has been a blessing to see the young members of the family living this ideal to the fullest. Hasan and Husain are not only football and wrestling allstars, but from what I hear Odyssey of the Mind champions...believe their team is poised to move on to states and even world champions within this mentally challenging arena.

Kailyn-Naddiyah is equally doing well with school and basketball and has already exhibited immense talent in both. Others in the family are excelling as well and it is good to see that our youngsters are positioning themselves to be great leaders of the future with sharp minds and bodies.

"Growing up is easy, it is growing out that is hard."

Name Suggestions

In case you don't know...baby number five (yep, count 'em - 5) is on the way. We have a name we really love, but not sure if we are definitely going with it yet. It is a BOY, by the way...Figured might be nice if we played let's name that kid as a family (even though Z and I are going to name him what we want and totally disregard everyone else, it is still fun to pretend - lol :)).

Let's see what fun names we can come up with. Post as comments.

Happy Birthday Kaleb-Ali

Kaleb-Ali celebrates his 6th birthday today. Ali is doing well and was up at 12:01 to get his birthday wishes and open his first gives...thank you "Big Nana". He really grew up this year from half-day Kindergarten to Washington Township Recreation Center basketball to now full-day Kindergarten. He keeps busy and is a big boy these days. Just ask his brother who is in constant competition to try and weight as much as his "little" brother.

That's right, you heard me correctly, Ali is bigger than Kevin. And fast too! He is gonna be a line backer or a power forward or a sprinter like his...ok, I'll stop living in the past.

Anyway, this is Ali's big day, so remember to wish him a happy day and bring some more joy to his life.

Love always,
The Blog Management :)

Return of the...

We are back in full force. The Cross and Abdu-Shahid families near and far have finally relaunched our sharing site.

As the kids say in school: "sharing, is caring!"

This will hopefully be something that we can keep up with as a family to continue to communicate and grow together. This is the beginning of the beginning, so please stay tuned for more improvements, additional features on the site.