Video Clips

Ellis showing his 'emotions' he learned in school.  'Funny' is my favorite.

Watch out Ludakris, Justin Bieber may have just found your replacement.

Beach Pictures

The whole family got to go to the Outerbanks this year. All four Hartley's, Kirsten, Mom and Dad, and Aunt Chris and Uncle Tom. It's been a really long time since we (or I) got to spend some quality time with Aunt Chris and Uncle Tom and it was just so awesome to have them there. I felt like a kid again when we used to spend summers together or every Thanksgiving our families were together. It's a lot harder now with the kids and their many grandkids, etc. Weather was perfect, not too hot, evening thunderstorms (check out cool pics below). Mike and I even got away on a date night!!!! Tessa loved the surf, but didn't want to actually go in the Ocean. Ellis was scared of the surf at first, but then loved it and even loved going into the ocean (with his swimmies on of course). He even wanted to swim by himself in the ocean. YEAH RIGHT, like I would let my sweet little boy go in the water.

We had two units which also helped. Last year was a tough week since there were six of us crammed in one unit and Ellis didn't sleep the whole week. Everyone was cranky except Tessa. I think Omi is still recovering from that week. It turned out that Ellis had Hand Foot Mouth and I didn't know it (bad Mommy) until the last day when I finally took him to the Doctor. But this year worked out perfect, so well in fact that we have even gone ahead and reserved the unit for next year already. The other fun aspect of the OBX is that with a timeshare you always see the same people and it's so nice to have that to look forward to as well. You know you're going to have good company.

Every evening we had Nachos (courtesy of Opa) and wide selection of adult beverages. With Uncle T present, Bloody Mary's were my drink of choice, but Dad was blending up his Margarita's as usual (yes, his girlfriend Rita joined us) and we had a whole case of Kim Crawford to enjoy as well.

Thank you so much to my parents, Kirsten, the Sowers and Mike for making it such a wonderful vacation. I just love that family vacation and the Outerbanks so much!!!


Tessa discovered Sand Critters this year. I'm pretty sure that is NOT their scientific name, but it's what we always called them. Ellis liked to look at them, but not touch. He's not big into bugs, especially when they start moving.



Lots of chairs for lots of people. We had such an awesome time.

Mommy's little workers

This is what happens when you leave your hard hat, safety glasses and vest in the back seat of the car. They have literally been fighting over the hard hat for the last two days.

GA Pre-K

Today was Tessa's 1st day in GA Pre-K. The school she has been attending since she was 4 months old, West Cobb Prep Academy, offers both Private Pre-K and GA Pre-K. We went back and forth and ultimately decided on GA Pre-K (aka free) since we are planning on sending her to public Kindergarten anyways. I've had my doubts about this decision, but she's very bright and adapts to any situation with ease.

On Friday we met her teacher, Ms Raquel and learned that her class is one of the three classes that is part of a Georgia program that has foreign students as Assistant Teachers and they are immersed in the language throughout the day. Tessa's Assistant Teacher is Ms An Chi and she is teaching Mandarin. Tessa has already had some Mandarin with Ms Lee in her previous classes, but those were the 1-hr type classes. I'm really interested to see how much Mandarin Tessa will be speaking here. I might have to learn some myself since I know ZILCH about Mandarin. Also, the way the program works is that West Cobb families who have been in the daycare have 1st choice of the GA Pre-K slots, after that it's lottery driven for the local families. That being said, Tessa will also have some excellent Spanish skills, which is another great plus.

The other piece of good news was that when talking to one of Tessa's teachers on Friday, she had asked who Tessa got and I told her it was Ms Raquel and she said that she is by far the best one over there (there are 7 GA Pre-K classes vs the two Private School ones). She said all of the staff members that have kids all want her and all of the kids really like her. That bit of information, combined with actually meeting Ms Raquel made me feel a lot better about our decision. We'll probably have to do some practicing at home as well to keep her challenged since she seems to master stuff fairly quickly anyways.

I'm so excited to see what this year brings for big T and I'm so proud of my little booger butt.