The Tree Hugger Hartleys

Winter Is Here

2010-11-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of the new house is having a full fireplace in the living room. Kate and Ethan.

Isabelle, Kate, Natalie and Ethan could not wait to get their snow gear and head outside.

Tr-Cities Fever Football Game

2010-05-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

TRI-CITIES FEVER - ARENA FOOTBALL GAME

If you haven't ever been to an indoor arena football game, it is super fun! Some consider it the minor leagues of the NFL, others consider it a different kind of sport like Canadian Football, but I (Clark) think it is fantastic!!

This Memorial Day weekend we are visiting the Laura's family in Kennewick, WA. Along with Richland and Pasco, it makes up the Tri-Cities.

The Tri-Cities Fever beat the Fairbanks Grizzlies 50-21. This was my first indoor arena game and some of the most notable differences: padded walls, hockey checks over the walls, multiple players in motion, only 8 players, 25yd line is mid-field, unsportsmanlike conduct not called for dancing to the surround sound music...

During the game, I noticed a player (new to the team) last name Mulitalo. His name is Cyrus, cousin to some family friends we had in Maryland. It was fun to talk with him after the game, he just signed with the Tri-Cities Fever and this was his first game. He did a fantastic job on defense and took home Defensive Player of the Game.

I wish I had a picture of this, but at half time they had a fund raiser for a local dance team. For $5 you could throw 6 baseball size soft golf balls at empty garbage cans on the middle of the field. If your marked ball went in the can you could win a 19 inch LCD TV. There was a barrage of golf balls from around the arena and my last ball hit its mark and went in the garbage can. Our section went wild! I was a little disappointed that 5 other people (out of a few hundred balls) also hit the garbage can and they only picked one of the balls - and it was not mine. Oh well! It was super fun, high scoring and our team won...can't wait to do it again.

Vegas Baby!

2009-09-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

Clark had to go to Las Vegas for a few days so Brad & Destenee and Marshall & Stephanie agreed to watch our kids so I could go with Clark. We had so much fun!!! We stayed at the Belagio and watched the fountain show from our room. While Clark was in meetings I explored Vegas, took naps and lounged by the pool. One evening we went to a Cirque du Soliel show called Ka, it was awesome!! We ate at In & Out Burger and had frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity.

Summer Trips

2009-09-06T20:13:00.000-07:00

We've made some fun trips this summer. We've visited my parents quite a few times, while there we've been to the water park, met our new niece and cousin, gone boating on the river and seen lots of family. In fact, this summer the kids have seen every aunt, uncle, cousin and grandparent they have.
In July we went to Utah for a Hartley family reunion. We had fun visiting with everyone and the kids had a blast playing with their cousins. While in Utah we got to see our good friends from Maryland, the Clausers. It was so good to see them, we really miss them! We celebrated Isabelle's 7th birthday while in Utah and went to Leatherby's for ice cream to celebrate.
We got to visit with my brother David and his wife Sarah and their cute little girl and Aunt Cherie while in Utah. It was fun to see them as they are now all on the west coast.
We had the opportunity to go to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house and we visited BYU campus and of course the BYU bookstore.

Finally, an update

2009-09-06T19:27:00.001-07:00

Okay, I know it's been a while since we've updated our blog, but we've been busy having a fun summer. Here are a few of the things we've been up to.

We've had lots of fun exploring Seattle. We been to the fish market quite a few times, we've been to the Seattle Aquarium and the Woodland Park Zoo a few times, we've spent a lot of time on Vashon Island where we love to play on the beach. We have been to a few Mariners games, the last one we went to the girls got to run the bases which was pretty cool.
For our 9th anniversary Clark and I went to the Space Needle and had dinner at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle.
We've been to the sculpture park and the gum wall (the gum wall is a building near Pike Street Market where people have stuck their gum over the years. The wall is covered in gum....gross! The kids love it though).

Ya...it's May! Sorry! Blame FACEBOOK.

2009-05-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

Mothers Day - Laura was pampered on Mothers Day. Highlights included a 2 hour nap, dinner and a movie (Sleepless in Seattle). The girls each gave her a gift and a card. Laura got some "bling" from Isabelle, a potted flower from Kate and a chocolate bar from Natalie. Ethan and Clark gave her a new set of scripures (with her married name).

Picnic - We live by a very cool park. There are trails, kids play areas and a lake. We took Grandama & Grandpa Jones and Hartley for a picnic. The wind was a little cold (in the shade) but the weather was otherwise beautiful. The girls loved watching people fish.

Baby Blessing Sunday - The Hartley's and Jones's made the trek to Seattle for Ethans baby blessing. He was a very happy and cooperative boy the whole time. Wearing his white tux, Ethan was quite the ladies man! (Don't ask about the bonet Clark confiscated and threw away never to be spoken of again!)

Sorry for the delay in updates...we have been enjoying Facebook.

Clark, Laura + Kids

He's Here!!!

2009-02-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

Ethan Grant Hartley was born on Feb. 9, 2009!!! He weighed 8lbs 14oz and was 20 inches long. He is a very sweet and mellow baby, the only time he really cries is when he is getting his diaper changed. His sisters adore him and are constantly showering him with hugs and kisses.

We're a little late getting the news out because his birth was followed with some complications for me which resulted in an extra week in the hospital. But we're all home and healthy now and we're excited to have Ethan in our family!

Pictures of Ethan

2009-02-22T20:57:00.001-08:00

Hello Seattle!!

2009-02-06T12:20:00.000-08:00

We are just about settled into life here in Seattle. Clark has been at his job for about a month and loves it, we found a great house in a great neighborhood, Isabelle started school and we're starting to make some friends in our ward and neighborhood. Here are some things we love about living here:

-The neighborhoods are wonderful! Everything is so clean and nice and there is a park or a playground on almost every block.

-Half day kindergarten. I LOVE half day kindergarten. Isabelle is in the afternoon class so we don't have to wake up and rush out the door. We walk her down to the bus stop at 11:15 and she's home by 3:20. I am amazed at how much she learns in just those few hours at school, it seems like she does more in those few hours that she did all day in her previous school. Isabelle loves it too. She loves her teacher and her class and has made lots of new friends.

- We are so close to Costco!!! Oh Costco, how we've missed Costco!! Since moving here we have spent a lot of time and a whole lot of money at Costco.

-The people are so nice here! I went to Target and an employee came up to me and asked if I needed help and then actually took me to the aisle I needed! If you've ever been to a store in Owings Mills you would know why this made me so excited. And it's not just the people at the stores that are nice, it's just the people in general here are nice.

-The cost of milk. Wow. In Maryland we were paying $4 a gallon, here it's $1.98. We'll be able to go on a vacation with all the money we're going to save on milk!

-The bus system. Clark has gotten familiar with the bus system here and has found it to be a great way to get to work. He doesn't have to deal with traffic or parking, it's great.

We found a fabulous house to rent until we find something we love enough to buy. Things we love about our new place:

-So much space!
-2nd floor laundry room (I'm never going back to laundry in the basement!)
-2 1/2 baths, we've never had more than one bathroom!
-Walk in closets. Wow. I've never had this much room for clothes, now I need to go shopping!
-A walk in pantry in the kitchen
-A garbage disposal (I've never had one, now I don't think I'll be able to live without it)
-Gas stove. I've always heard how gas stoves are so much better than electric and now I believe all the hype.
-My absolute favorite thing about the house is that it has a huge soaking tub in the master bath.
-It's in a great neighborhood with lots of kids that are the same ages as our kids, in fact there are 2 little boys on our block that are in Isabelle's kindergarten class and one of them has a sister Kate's age.

Here are some pictures of our new place.

Good-bye Maryland!!!

2009-02-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

Good-bye Maryland, Good-bye Owings Mills! Here are a few things we're really going to miss:

-All of our great friends (how will we live without the Clausers?)

-Being so close to Aunt Cherie (luckily Southwest runs some great sales so she can visit often)

-The wonderful Hampstead ward

-Being close to DC and all the great stuff there

-The metro (yeah it could be scary but it was so convenient!)

And of course we're going to miss our house. 15 Walk Ave. was our first house, we put a lot of work into that house and we had some really great memories there: pool parties, campouts, birthday parties and holidays. We were lucky enough to sell our home quickly to some great people, hopefully they'll enjoy it as much as we did! Here are some of our last photos of Walk Ave (I can't figure out how to get the pictures to post where I want them so the post starts with our last pictures of Walk Ave., you get the idea).

PODS

2009-01-17T19:26:00.000-08:00

So we moved our stuff out of our Walk Avenue house between Christmas and New Years. We rented shipping pods to send our stuff (aka junk, worldly possessions) to Seattle. It was too difficult to get the pods up our street so we made 2-3 trips by truck/van/SUV to the pods shipping center in order to pack our stuff.

Thank you Derrick Stark, Matt Clauser, David Taylor, Paul Anderson, and Cherie Jones for all you hard work! It was fun to have so many well educated people trying to figure how to pack pods efficiently. Let's just say at times (during pod packing) we looked at each other and laughed at "how many graduates do you need to figure out how to pack a pod?"

Laura and I decided that we would only take to Seattle what would fit into the two pods. The rule became "If it doesn't fit, it doesn't go". This rule really helped us both 1. dejunk and 2. replace old stuff that we should have replaced long ago.

Once the pods were filled, we sent them on their way. Clark followed a few days later (Jan. 1st) in order to begin work on Jan 5th, 2009. Laura, the girls and Grandma Jones followed on January 8th, 2009.

Seattle, WA!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

Well, it's time to go WEST! After 7+ years in Maryland, it is now time to say good bye to our Friends on the East Coast and make new Friends on the West Coast.

This week, Clark accepted a management position at Harborview Medical Center in downtown Seattle, WA. It was a rather large promotion and an exciting position that will allow him to work with senior level leadership at a Harborview, local hospitals and the Seattle Emergency Medical Services (Fire & Rescue). Together they will be planning, organizing and executing a plan to reduce the overcrowding of the emergency departments at Harborview as well as 20 additional hospitals in the greater Seattle metropolitan area.

We are beginning the packing process, so you can imagine the next post will include plenty of "moving" pictures.

DisneyWorld

2008-10-12T14:19:00.001-07:00

We just returned from our fun family vacation at DisneyWorld! We stayed at a DisneyWorld resort and spent 9 days going to the Disney waterparks, Animal Kindom, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot. We had such a fun time it was really hard to come home!
We had a fun time going on all the rides and Splash Mountain was Isabelle and Kate's favorite, they could ride that over and over. Natalie and I were somewhat limited when it came to rides. Pregnant women and kids under 35 inches can't go on most of the big rides but we still had lots of fun ( I did go on few of the milder rides that said no pregnant women allowed. Clark was waiting for some brave Disney worker to ask if I was pregnant and kick me off, but no one did!) Natalie loved the Small World ride. I love going on Small World with the girls because even though I think it's very simple and somewhat cheesey they love it and it is so fun to see them oooh and aahh over all the dolls and watch them with wonder and excitement.
When we booked our vacation Disney gave us the dining plan for free which meant that we could eat anywhere in the park for free! We did lots of character meals; we ate breakfast with Cinderella at her castle and we went to a storybook princess breakfast where we met most of the princesses. We also had a couple of meals with Mickey. By the end of the trip we were really glad that we didn't have to pay for our food because the girls hardly ate a thing! They were so into the characters at every meal that they didn't bother to eat. I would have been pretty upset if I had paid $25 a plate and those plates were hardly touched!
We planned our trip with our good friends the Clauser family which was lots of fun. We had all of our meals with them and we would meet up at the parks every now and then and go on rides together. We love having the Clausers as our travel buddies! My sister Cherie also came and joined us for the last couple of days we were at DisneyWorld. The girls loved taking Aunt Cherie on all their favorite rides.
We really enjoyed the Disney waterparks! It was great to be in sunny, warm Florida and we spent lots of time at our hotel pool and at the waterparks. Isabelle and Kate loved the wave pool, that is where they spent most of their time along with Clark. Natalie loved the water slides so I took Natalie on the water slides over and over again. We also spent some quality time in the lazy river.
We had such a fun time it was really hard to come home and get back into real life, but we're already planning our next trip to DisneyWorld!

Aunt Cherie joined us for a couple of days

The Clausers and the Hartleys

At the end of a fun filled day at the Magic Kingdom

It's a ............

2008-10-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

So we had our ultrasound yesterday and found out that we are having a boy!!!! It's a miracle!! We had them go back and check numerous times just to make sure, but it is a boy and we have lots of ultrasound pictures to prove it. We are super excited! Clark is already busy picking out the perfect name (he thinks he gets to name this one because it's a boy). The girls are excited about having a brother, Isabelle was super excited, Kate was kind of mad..she wanted a sister (I reminded her that she had 2 sisters already)but she's excited now, and Natalie really doesn't care yet.
So, that's our big news! We just got back from DisneyWorld so we'll be posting lots of pictures soon!

#4

2008-08-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

Most of you know this already, but just in case you missed it we are expecting baby #4!!! We are super excited to welcome the newest member of our family in February (Feb. 15 to be exact). This news also accounts for my less than stellar blogging lately. I am so tired that I am usually in bed and fast asleep by 9:30pm. But other than being tired I feel great! We don't find out the gender until Sept. 30, but we assume it's a girl until we are told otherwise.

8th Anniversary

2008-07-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

On July 1st Clark and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. Wow! 8 years! It really doesn't seem like it's been that long, it seems like just yesterday we were newlyweds living in Provo. I guess time flies when you're having fun!

So here is our anniversary in numbers, in our time together we have :

-3 weeks of dating (!!!!)

-4 months of being engaged

-8 years of marital bliss

-3 kids

-lived in 2 different states

-had 3 apartments and 1 house

-had 6 cars

-earned 2 undergraduate degrees and 1 graduate degree

-been to 10 different Caribbean islands

-6 trips to the ER

-seen the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean

-1 speeding ticket (not bad! Only 1 between the 2 of us in 8 years!)

-1,547 round trip train rides to East Baltimore

-Countless memorable moments

-Tons of fun!

The big trouble

2008-06-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

Whenever Natalie does something bad she comes to me and says "Mom, I the big trouble, come look!" So the other day she came in announced that she was the big trouble and brought me into the bathroom and told me that she had put a princess toy in the toilet. I didn't see the toy so I figured she had flushed it. I noticed that when you flushed the toilet it drained really slowly, so I was pretty sure there was something down there.

When Clark got home we called the plumber. He tried all of his tricks and could not get the toy out. He took the toilet out into the front yard and tried to flush the toy out the other way with the hose. He still couldn't get it out, but we did get a glimpse of it. Natalie has a Sesame Street doctor kit with a Bert thermometer (well, it used to to have one) and it turns out she flushed the Bert thermometer down the toilet and we're pretty sure princess Belle was down there with him though we never actually saw her.

The plumber tried his best but could not get the toys out, so we got a new toilet. It needed to be replaced anyway. But poor Bert and Belle, what a way to go.

Tagged by Kristy!!

2008-06-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

A--Attached or Single? Very attached

B--Best Friend? My husband

C-- Cake or Pie? Cake with lots of frosting....yum

D-- Day of Choice? Sunday. We spend the whole day together as a family, we don't have to be anywhere, I love it (and I get an afternoon nap!)

E-- Essential Item? My water bottle

F--Favorite Color? Red, it's always been red

G-- Gummy Bears or Worms? Bears, worms are gross!

H-- Hometown? Kennewick

I-- Indulgence(s)? Cinnamon bears, when I can get them (I have yet to find a store here in the east that sells cinnamon bears)

J-- January or July? July

K-- Kids? 3

L-- Life is Incomplete Without? My family, the gospel and a trip to Disneyworld

M-- Marriage Date? July 1

N-- Number of siblings? 3 (older sister and 2 younger brothers)

O-- Oranges or Apples? Apples, but only crunchy ones

P-- Phobias or fears? Flying, snakes and something happening to my family

Q-- Quotes? Every person's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers

R-- Reason to Smile? I get to see my parents and all my siblings this summer

S-- Season? Fall, there is nothing more beautiful than fall on the east coast!

T-- Tag 5 People? all of my sisters-in-law

U-- Unknown Fact? I'm addicted to hot chocolate, I have to have a cup every morning.

V-- Very Favorite Store? Target

W-- Worst Habit? Ummm, I can't think of any, I guess I must be perfect! :)

X-- Xray or Ultrasound? X-ray, they just look cool

Y-- Your Favorite Food? Mexican

Z-- Zodiac? Leo (I think?)

Our beautiful girls

2008-06-04T18:26:00.001-07:00

I have so many cute pictures of the girls I just had to

share some of them!

Other fun things we've been up to

2008-06-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

Our neighbor plowing down our bamboo. Yay! We were so
glad to see it go!

Clark attempting to drive the tractor

We went for a walk on the NCR trail and had a picnic
along the way.

We went to the Baltimore zoo and saw the giraffes and
the new baby elephant

Isabelle with her teachers

Isabelle finished preschool and Nana and Papa were here to see her preschool graduation.

The Graduate

2008-06-04T17:38:00.000-07:00

Dad & Mom Hartley, Clark, Lela & Everard Cox

A celebration dinner at Don Pablos

Clark can finally sign his name with the letters MBA after it. He graduated!!!! We had fun celebrating his big accomplishment with him! We are sooooo proud of him!

Isabelle and Nana at graduation

Why I hate breakfast cereal

2008-05-11T17:32:00.001-07:00

To think I pay $3 a box to have it end up like this!

Oldest Mom ever

2008-05-11T17:28:00.000-07:00

Isabelle filled out a questionaire about her mother for her preschool's mother's day brunch. It asked simple questions like what is her name and what is her favorite food and how old is she. Some of the kids guessed their moms were 18 or 25 or 6. Isabelle guessed that I was 72.
I think it's time for me to invest in some good anit-wrinkle cream.

On Vacation

2008-04-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

Old San Juan

On the ship

Our taxi driver giving us the tour of St. Thomas

At the fort in Old San Juan

On our way to the pirate caves in Tortola

The fort in Old San Juan

Amanda, Matt, Clark and Laura and dinner

Clark on the ship

Our waiter Damian and assistant waiter Nhiel

On the ship

On St. Thomas

In Puerto Rico

We went snorkeling in the pirate caves in Tortola

So, I haven't posted on our blog in a while, but I have a good excuse! Clark and I were busy relaxing on the beach in the Caribbean.

Clark is graduating in a few weeks and all he wanted for graduation was a vacation, so we brought Grandma Jones and Great Grandma Kerr out to Maryland to watch the girls while Clark and I went on a cruise. Our good friends Matt and Amanda Clauser came with us and we all had a great time!

Our cruise started in Puerto Rico, then we sailed to St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Tortola and Bermuda. Here are a few pictures from our travels.

Cherry Blossoms

2008-04-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

We went to see the cherry blossoms in DC on Tuesday. It was a beautiful day, we walked around the tidal basin to look at all the blossoms, we also saw the Jefferson memorial and the Washington monument. It was a fun afternoon!

I'm a blogger

2008-04-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I am finally giving in and joining the blogging craze. Enjoy!