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.