Mateo’s 2nd Birthday

Posted by Jay in Baby

Mateo got a birthday surprise when his Tia Carmen flew out to visit him here in Columbus and celebrate his transition into Toddler-hood :) Well this year the decorations were all Diego all the time with tons of Diego-themed presents and sports gear.

Before the birthday, we took a fun day-trip to the Columbus zoo and this time around was a lot more interactive for Mateo this year.  Along with lions, tigers and bears oh-my – the most fun was watching the Penguins jumping and swimming in the pool which he enjoyed a ton.

Back at the birthday party – In addition to getting his first baseball glove, Mateo also got a tee-ball and bat to practice out in the backyard. He had lots of fun knocking the ball off the tee.  So now that he’s tried Golf and now baseball, if it doesn’t work out – we’ll try football next year :)

As always.. more pics in the gallery here.

Day at the Beach

Posted by Jay in Baby, Ohio

Finally the weather has changed for the better and it was a nice sunny and cool Labor day weekend.  We decided to take a short trip up north to visit Alum Creek Lake and the beach at the state park. Since this was Mateo’s first time at the beach – he was a little hesitant at first but warmed up as soon as Mommy decided to go in and wade her feet with him as well.  Then he started to run around like a crazy-man along the beach so I definitely think we found an activity he likes and will have to come back to.

But before the summer is all gone and winter sets in we’re going to have to go visit a few other “beaches” around the Great Lakes and there’s always Niagra Falls which is about 5 hours away and may be well worth the drive up north.

More pictures can be found here in Gallery under the Columbus section.

Gonzo Family Reunion – 2010

Posted by Jay in Vacations

Another year gone by and the time has come for another annual get-together of all the Gonzalez family brothers and their families. Last year we roughed it by camping in the hills of central Pennsylvannia – this year we decide to go extreme roughing it by renting a family-sized cabin in the mountains of West Virginia :) It was tough I tell ya.

Needless to say, we were very well comfortable and there was room for all 14 of us to sleep and play throughout the huge cabin. Most of the family arrived on Thurs afternoon-evening but Rene & Rose could get in till later Friday due to work. But after everyone staked out their place to squat – we began the weekend’s activities of eating, drinking, playing and catching up on the year’s events.

Friday we ate a hearty breakfast and then took a family hike from the cabin down to the nearby fishing ponds. Going down was much much easier than climbing back up. Everyone was on the lookout for the local area bears and wildlife but alas, no luck this year. We came back, played some horseshoes and ate lunch and settled in playing relaxing while the teens played video games down in the media basement. We corralled some wood nearby and then chatted the night away by the campfire drinking Jr’s Happy Juice concoction.

We all woke up on Saturday to the smell of a good Dominican breakfast that was followed by an army-sized pot of Sancocho that Rose cooked up for lunch that could’ve fed half the mountainside.  That is going to have to be a recurring meal from here on out it was that good. We relaxed on the hammocks and the hottub was getting good use most the day while Jr. and the boys went off adventuring looking for the local swimming spots by the river.  More horseshoes, dominoes, foosball and other fun was the order of the rest of the day while we got a roaring campfire going for that night.

All in all it was a blast and all the kids and family had a great time.  The drive was long but well worth it and the cabin was pretty much perfect and had everything we needed. We will definitely be back again and can’t wait till next summer where we’ll meet again for our annual gathering.

All the rest of the photos can be found Here within the Gallery.

Thanksgiving ’09

Posted by Jay in New York

Off we went to NY and PA for our annual trip home for Thanksgiving to celebrate the holidays with family and eat some of Grandma’s good food. It was good to see our nieces and nephews once again and Mateo had a chance to play with them all laughing up a storm. It was definitely great to have all the family sitting together again at the T-Giving table (we missed you Charles Jr.!)

Grandma cooked up tons of food, pies, deserts and side dishes – all of it was delicious. I think she started this year making homemade pies 5 days early – that may be a record.  We had traditional Dominican food most every morning, which alone was well worth the trip :) But after a whole week back home – there were a few more notches to use on our belts.

And to top off the fun weekend – we got to celebrate the Baptism of Olivia and Lily on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The girls looked very pretty in their white dresses and through it all – behaved well having the priest bless and baptize them during the ceremony.

We took lots and lots of pictures throughout the whole weekend. All are posted here in the NY section of our gallery.

Break it Down Mateo!!

Posted by Jay in Baby, Home

Words can’t even describe – I won’t even try. It actually went on for about 5min, but here’s a snipet of Mateo jamming to Hey Mickey at the end of the Bring it On movie: