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12:34:56 7/8/9

A hundred isn't all that big of a number for us big kids anymore...A hundred dollars, a hundred minutes, a hundred pounds, a hundred friends. They all seem so big to a little tot, but those things are relatively small once you grow up, or get bigger. Ok, maybe that last one is harder to come by. I think I'm up to about 7 friends now, but I can feel 100 coming! I started thinking about this because I got a tweet (yes, I do love twitter) informing me of something that will be happening tomorrow, or tonight, depending on how you see it. Shortly after midnight tonight something will happen that only happens once every century, it will be 12:34:56 7/8/9. It may not seem like a big deal (and it's really not), but when you think about how it has to be the right time down to the seconds in the right month of the right year it really is kinda cool and interesting. I am somewhat of a nerd so dumb things like this are interesting to me. Will i stay up late tonight and have a party to celebrate? No. I have to work tomorrow.
This did get me thinking though. What else happens once in a century? How rare is it for something to happen only once every hundred years? And somehow I got to thinking about my family and my life. EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE will only happen once. I was reminded of a saying, "Kids won't remember their best day of watching TV" or something along those lines. The point being that I should help my kids to make the most of their childhoods. I knew a wise, well-to-do, financial planner once that said not to waste money on things, but to invest in memories. Take trips, go places, do things with your family that you will remember. So, I'm trying to take that to heart and help my family become stronger through activity with each other. I've seen families that are good examples of this and families that aren't. I know which type I want to be.

Take me out to the ballgame!

We decided to play softball this year on a coed team and it has been so much fun! I get frustrated with myself sometimes because I am pretty competitive. If if I have a bad game or can't swing the bat I get really angry with myself. I think I do OK for not playing any baseball or softball for 10 years or so....Erika is an allstar though. She's catching pop flies like it's goin' outta style! I must say that we look pretty good out on the field too. Enough about us though....
Jakson is playing soccer and he starts baseball this week too. Saturdays are getting crazy with all of his different games. He's a stud though! He's learning a lot about the game. I try to help him with soccer, but that's the one sport I never played. Xander is dying to get on the field and play too. Xander runs out on the field during halftime and plays soccer with Jakson team. He helps them during practice too. I can't wait to see both of my boys in action!
We have missed a lot of what's going on. Geez!I took a trip to Moab with the boys that was a blast! Rock crawling all over the place. We also took our annual trip to Bear Lake with Travis, Bev and fam. That's always a good time! On the way back we took the boys to lagoon and they had a good time there. I'm honestly not a big fan of hot crowded places. I'm more of a sit in the shade against a tree with a fishing pole next to you and relax kind of guy.
Also, Spencer is doing awesome in case anyone is wondering. I totally look up to him for being such a stud. He's probably pretty P-O'd that I haven't written him yet and it's been two months already. Erika does a good job of writing him at least once a week tho and of course Trav and Bev take good care of him in that way too. I'll get around to it...

Where did March go?

Well, Xander had a birthday. He's 5 now. Jakson is signed up for Soccer. That begins the end of this month. Erika and I have signed up for a softball team. that should be entertaining. Spencer left on his mission and is still currently in the MTC. These seem like pretty major events and you can understand how taking time out to post all of that information on our blog would be hard to do. Nevertheless I do want to try and keep this blog updated. The Gonzalez family has a fun and exciting Summer coming up and we are looking forward to good times and good friends!I got a new BBQ grill for my birthday so we are DEFINITELY going to be putting that to use. We are also building a firepit in our backyard to have fun with. We plan to do some camping, but when we can't, or just don't want to, leave the house for a weekend we can still make a fire in the backyard! Hopefully we will post up pictures of our good times and we hope a lot of you will be in them! If I could just get organized about this then it would be so much easier. I always make posts from my computer that doesn't have our pictures on it. Sorry about the lack of pretty things to look at. Enjoy the complimentary muffins and cocoa!

Home Again...

As promised we finally got some pics of our new home. I know, it took us just a shade under a decade to get these, but here is A pic of the new Gonzalez Pad! We may add more in the future!

New Kids On The Block!

No, I'm not talking about the pop group of the late 80's and early 90's. Although I will grudgingly admit that I did enjoy some of their stuff. There I said it. Go ahead and take my man card. Anyway, we just wanted to let everyone know that we are moved in to our new home and we LOVE it! Our first house was more of a "pig in a poke" and we wished we wouldn't have rushed into it. After a year of looking and analyzing every home we came across we decided on the one we're in now. After owning a house you start to realize what you WISH you had. We are extremely happy about the house we have now. We feel so comfortable where we are now. We've got room to swing the cat now! Unfortunately I don't have pictures of the house with me so I'll have to post some pictures later. Our neighbors are great so far! We actually had some people come help us move in. It was nice. Within the first two weeks we were invited to a couple different parties. And our neighborhood has boys! Jakson and Xander will have more friends here that aren't girls. Not that girls are bad, but I'm glad my little buddies have other like-minded (sports, video games, monsters, running around, throwing snowballs, causing just a little bit of trouble, that type of thing) kids to play with now. It seems that we're still 10+ years younger than most of our neighbors, but we're hoping to benefit from their wisdom. Some of our best friends are 10 years older than us so we have no problem with that!
We moved in the week before Christmas so the holiday season was pretty hectic. We did manage to get a Christmas tree on Christmas eve so Jak-Attak and X-Man got to put up some decorations and wake up to presents under the tree. We stuck with our tradition of leaving tacos for Santa as well. That Santa sure likes Mexican food! Keep it coming amigos!
Since Christmas we've been slowly unpacking boxes and getting all the rooms setup. We're mostly settled in now and we've got some things up on the walls. Everyday we live there we love it more and more. We are so thankful for the opportunities we have had so far in life and plan to take make the most of whatever comes our way. Thanks to all our friends and family who have helped and continue to help us out. I don't know what we would do without my family and Erika's family. We are blessed to be loved by such wonderful people. We come from the type of families people wish they had. We love you all!

We're still here!

Wow, has it really been 3 months since my last post? That's pretty bad, but not unexpected. A lot has happened in the last three months. Jakson and Xander started school for one. I started a post about way back when they actually started, but it's kind of lost some of it's relevance now. In case you're wondering they both love school and they are both smart little guys. Halloween was a blast. I got to scare lots of kids with my freakish costume. Unortunately, I didn't get many good pictures. I think my brother Steve got some. If you read this send me those pics! Thanksgiving was also great. I filled up twice, got sick, the boys played with cousins of all sorts, Erika got to hang with less-frequently-seen family and it was very laid back. My kinda day. I guess the biggest news and most frustration comes from selling our house.
We sold our home in Provo about 2 months ago. We weren't really expecting it to sell, but it did. At the last minute. We had stopped looking for other places to live and planned on fixing up our home more to our liking. Then a family came through and offered what we were asking so we sold it. Since we didn't have another place to live we had to start seriously looking again. We found a place we really like in AF, but that has been the up-track(crappy part) of a rollcoaster one too many times so we said forget it after trying to work it out for a month and a half. we decided on another home in East Lehi that we really like as well and if all goes well we will be moving in next weekend. We have been living in Travis and beverly's basement so we are excited to have some room to roam again! We are VERY thankful to them for letting us stay with them and be a nuisance while we sort out the house situation. We only meant to be there for a month or less, but they've been very accommodating and we're grateful for that.
I thought I'd just catch everyone up on what's going on in our lives. The stress is always here, but the joy and love is here with it so life is good!
....oh yeah. I also added a few new songs to the mix on the left. I don't filter my music as much as others so I can't promise you'll like it, but I do. And I will be better about updating this once we are in our new home!

Boyz to Men, ABC BBD

If you grew up in my generation you know who Boys II men is. They are the original boy band. Back in the day (and even now ;)) theirs were the songs we made out to. I remember singing karaoke to their songs a few times even. So, when we heard they were coming to perform Erika got us some tickets. I wasn't sure what to expect. Honestly, I'm not a huge concert-goer. I wasn't super excited to go, but erika sure was. I have to say that it ended up being a blast! The concert was at the Scera in Orem. Outdoor concerts are so much more fun than indoor ones. We showed up half an hour early and the place was PACKED! I was surprised. Once we got in we met Caesar and Sarah there. We were lucky enough to find some decent seats in the middle. The only annoying thing about our seats was the Asian family in front of us. For some reason the dad felt the need to hold his 6-year old son on his shoulders the whole time. Luckily I sat next to a college girl, Leslie I think was her name, who was cool and ended up becoming my best friend ;)LOL.  She got the Asian family to sit down out of the way. Problem Solved.The first few acts were honestly pretty gay except for seeing a 12-year old girl just wail! It was amazing to see this little girl fromAlpine sing her heart out better than all the other performers she was competing against. It was a sort of Utah-Idol type thing and this little girl represented!Once they were done I was fully expecting to see the Boyz II Men guys roll out in their wheelchairs and serenade everyone their with raspy old voices. I mean, c'mon. They were old when I was young. Realistically they are probably only 10-15 years older than me so when they strolled out onto the stage unassisted by wheelchairs, crutches, or canes I wasn't as surprised as I originally thought. They put on a GREAT show! They had everyone singing and dancing. It's not often you see big acts (once upon a time anyway) nowadays that synchronize their dancing and harmonize their singing so well. It was such a great show that they even came back out after it was over for an encore. After they show we took some pictures with Caesar and Sarah and headed home. Unfortunately for my new friend Leslie she eventually realized that Erika is indeed my wife and she would have to go home alone. Would I do a Boyz II Men concert again? Fo Sho.

It's always sunny

WARNING - the above clip contains hilarity of a vulgar manner. Do not watch the above clip without parental permission.
I found a new favorite show. There's not a lot of TV I like to take the time to watch. but I do enjoy a few shows. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a show that I've wanted to watch since it came out, but it's never on at a good time. Thanks to hulu.com I can watch it whenever I want. I'm a very generous pserson and like to share little nuggets of joy with others when I can even though I know a lot of you out there will just find this particular show offensive. Maybe that's what draws me to it. I'm not afraid of political incorrectness. Enjoy!

Best Vacation Ever

Joe has been slacking, so I decided I better take over and post some stuff. We recently had a great trip down to Moab and Goblin Valley. I had never been and had no idea what to expect. It was so beautiful down there, the mountains and the arches are amazing! We camped out one night in goblin Valley and then went to Moab. I wasn't to excited to go Camping on my birthday so went to a hotel the 2nd night to make me happy. But, the camping was great! We bought a huge blow up Queen size mattress to put in our tent :). The dutch oven cooking was so yummy and of course we had to make some smores! My Dad, Step mom, brothers and sisters and Sage, Skyler's wife came along with us and it was a great family vacation. We we pulled up home from the trip and Jakson said "This was the best vacation ever!" It was real sweet! Here are some pictures you can enjoy!

Days of '47 seconds of excitement!

Yes. Me. Joe. At the rodeo. For those who know me you know that you're about as likely to find me at a rodeo as you are to find a dollar in a dogs butt cheeks. I use that analogy because I actually did find a dollar on a doggy bum once. But that's a different story for another time. Erika did get me to go to the rodeo. Beverly is all bout horses and I thought it might be cool to see a cowboy impaled by a a bull horn. It ended up being a decent experience.
It seemed a bit overpriced and not quite as exciting as I was hoping. Nobody was even injured. Oh well. The highlight of the show was a cowboy getting a couple buffalo to climb on top of the his trailer. I'm sure it takes a lot of patience and know-how to accomplish something like that, but it's not the most exciting thing to watch.
The crowd was pretty entertaining though. I even saw one lady, er, woman entertain herself for the whole 2 hour show with what she could find in all of her different holes, crevices, and cracks.
I must say though, horses are pretty magnificent animals. Humans are very strange. Will I ever go to another rodeo? Most likely. I'm an easy-going guy and can find fun pretty much no matter what I'm doing or where I am.

Skyler and Sage Together Forever

My Brother Skyler Just got married on Friday. We are so excited for him and Sage. Its such a small world because we knew some of her family already but had never met her. Me and Joe went to school with her brother. And I went to School with her sister in law. And Sage was best friends with one of Joe's neighbors. It's kinda funny to think about how we never met her.

Skyler and Sage met on a blind date and she almost stood him up. They have so much fun together and they make such a cute couple! I am so glad to have another sister.

The wedding was beautiful! They got married at her dads house in Lindon. It was so nice having my mom and Cliff and all our cousins and family. Joe and Spencer had a good time decorating the car actually a little to much fun! AS you can see from the pic.

SLOGGER

It's amazing how much happens in a month. I have so many updates to make to the Gonzalez Family Blog and I am being really slow about it. I am just the usual blog slacker. I guess that we could call me a "blocker" or a "Blacker," no, wait, I think I like "Slogger." That's it. That's me. I am a Slogger! I don't feel too bad though because lots of us are. SLogger. Good term. You all heard it here first. It could mean SLow blOGGER. Or SLacker blOGGER. I should trademark the term. Be looking for new blog posts soon!

X-Man

I didn't want to leave Xander out. As I was looking back through the posts I realized that I failed to mention Xanders birthday. His big day was the end of March. He is 4 years old now. He also finished his first year of preschool a couple of weeks ago. He's enjoying sleeping in. He must get that from Erika because I have a hard time sleeping when the sun is up. Xander likes to tag along to Jakson's Tee Ball practices and games. He usually tries to tackle the other kids. He's good at teaching the team concentration. It's hard to focus with Xander around, but he's a load of fun! Oh yeah, he threw up last night.

Slackers-R-Us

I am really getting bad at this! There is so much going on to consume my time that it's hard to find time to write anything on here! So, what has happened....Jakson had a Birthday. He's a big 6-year old now! We went to Bear Lake over his B-Day weekend with Erika's family. We go up every year for memorial day and it's always a great time despite being cold. It usually rains while we're up there and nobody dares get close to the lake for fear of hypothermia. One year it even snowed when we were there. Come to think of it, it snowed a little bit this year! We always bring home some yummy raspberry something or other. This year we got some Raspberry honey that would make a great piece of toast even more delectable!
Jakson also finished Kindergarten. Time for that boy to get a job! I kid, I kid... He is definitely excited for Summer. He made a bunch of friends through school and is excited to hangout with them over the break. He's also in the middle of Tee Ball season. He's one of the better players on the team. What would you expect from Joe's boy? Xander is also happy to have is brother around as well. He would get bored in the mornings with nobody around to beat him up.
Let's see, what else? Spencer graduated. I'm sure he paid off a few teachers to do it, but he made it! Skyler is donning the metal shackles next month. I think that's it for now. I'll have to add pictures later.

Congratulations! Screw you!

We made an offer on a house we loved back in January. We listed our house for sale about the end of January as well. After many months of waiting we get a call saying that our offer has been accepted! Unfortunately they said we had 2 weeks to close. We hadn't even sold our house yet so it wasn't looking like it was going to happen. After talking to a few brokers we figured a way that we could get the house. After a lot of thinking we decided that it would be too much of a pain and too stressful to have to worry about both houses. Long story short, we are still in the same house and someone else has moved into the house we love. We were a little bit upset about it at first, but we are confident that we can find other houses that we will like just as much. Life goes on and we have plenty of other things to worry about. In fact, it's almost like a weight has been lifted because after waiting and worrying about this new house for so long it's suddenly not an issue anymore! Lemonade my friends...lemonade.

Wham-O!

So after I got off work I picked up the boys from my Mama's house. They were hungry, as was I, so I took them to Taco Bell. On the way home we came to a round-about. I hate these things anyway. What is this? Paris? So, we stopped in the circle of death because the car in front of us stopped for someone crossing the street. We were stopped for about 10 seconds and just as I took my foot off the break....WHAMM-O! Apparently the girl who hit me was looking down another street and didn't notice we were stopped.
Luckily everybody was OK. Xander cried for minute because it scared him. The crappy part is that I was in the Mercedes at the time. It ended up at the shop for about 3 weeks. The shop did a good job, but we had to take it back like 3 times because they kept missing small things and leaving important parts of the car unplugged, like the radio antenna. If you need body repairs in Provo, Utah there are better places to get them done than University Collision. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the damage. Progressive was the company that was processing the claim and they did a fantastic job. The end.

B-Dogg, Susie, introducing Nate-O

It's been a while fo sho! We got a nice visit from some of our best friends from Cali. We got introduced to Nate Do-O-Double-G for the first time and he definitely lives up to the pics we've seen. He's a good lookin', healthy fella. Just like his parentals. B represented on RockBand and showed us how it's done. Susie could be the next American idol. And we'll lend them Jakson to be their bassist and throw Xander on the drums. It's always great to see old friends. Especially when they're Brandon and Susie!

Time to roll out!

We have officially listed our home for sale! If you know anybody that's looking for a nice home in the Provo area send them our way! We love our neighborhood, but it's time to move on. We only planned on being there for a few years. Since I work in Lehi and Erika works in SLC we thought we'd move a bit farther north. Since we're buying new gold rims for some guy in Saudi Arabia we want to try and cut back on gas usage. We won't be going too far though. We're planning right now on moving to the Lehi/American Fork area. We have an offer on a home in AF right now so hopefully that will work out. If not there's other fish in the sea. We figure it's a lot harder to sell right now than to buy! You can checkout the listing of our home on UtahRealEstate.com or BlueRoof.com.

Also, I've been wanting to post more frequently, but things have been crazy at work and that's usually when I try to throw some quick posts on here. More to come!

Rock out when you clock out!

I've added a little Guitar Hero 3 tribute to the music section. I wasn't sure what to change the music to since valentines is over. I added a few of my fav songs from Guitar Hero 3. I'm not saying I'm good at this game because I'm not...yet. I just don;t have time to play games. Jakson can kick my butt. Xander probably can too. I'll have to practice up a little bit and show those suckas who the king is! Bigg Poppa gonna represent! I'm gonna take these kids to school, the school of ROCK! I gotta teach 'em a thing or 2 about shreddin' a guitar. I might even bite the head off of a bat. You're right, I would never do anything like that. Ozzie didn't even mean to. He didn't think it was a real bat or something. Maybe he just said that later in life because he realized how disgusting that really was. You've got to have I dark soul, I'll tell you what! Anyway, enjoy the Guitar hero songs and don't forget to make any requests!