Our final trip on our vacation was to Philadelphia. We went to independence hall, saw the liberty bell, Franklin's printing shop, and the first post office, which is still functioning. It was really neat to stand in Independence Hall. You could actually feel the spirit in there witnessing that the Declaration of Independence was divinely inspired.

That pretty much wraps up our trip. I'll post some family photos I took next time. Now onto what has been happening around the house. Rachael had her prom this past weekend. It was the Priest/Laurel Formal on Saturday. She was suppose to go with Jovence Vital, but he ended up having to work, so she called up Dante Clark and they went together. Dante had asked her to the Mormon Prom, but she had already told Jovence she would go with him. I haven't downloaded my camera yet, so I will post photos later.

Also, Rachael got her driver's license today. We tried to get it last week, but every time we went, the computers were down. Stan took her today and they finally had success. She drove herself to dance this afternoon. I haven't gotten a call from her, so I am assuming she got there ok. I'm not as nervous about her driving as I was in the beginning. Teaching a child to drive is a very nerve racking process. She has turned into a pretty good driver. She is very cautious when she drives. She never speeds, although sometimes she is guilty of going too slow. It is kind of nice not having to take her to dance. I will still need to driver her out to St. Stephen's next week for tech week for their dance show as she has never driven there and she doesn't think she can find it on her own. I don't want her getting lost. I drive with her on the first day and hope she can find it after than because I have a schedule conflict on Tuesday and won't be able to get her to tech. I may have to find a ride for her if she doesn't think she can find it alone. That is my biggest fear with her driving is her getting lost. She isn't very good with directions and knowing where she is going. She can easily get herself to and from dance going multiple different directions, but that is pretty much it. I know it will get better as she starts driving more.

Days 4 and 5

I didn't forget to finish our vacation post, but things just got a little busy. I'm trying to get the boys room painted so Stan can get the new floor installed. I have about 1/4 of the room done and lots more to do.

So, day 3 and 4 were spent in Washington DC. My biggest regret was that I completely forgot that a high school friend of mine lived in DC. I'm sorry Michelle. I wish I would have contacted her prior to going so she could have met up with us there. We had a great time. We got there about 1 or 2 pm and walked around the monuments. We saw the WW II, Vietnam, Korea war monuments, the Lincoln memorial, the Washington monument and the Jefferson memorial. It was a lot of walking and I was really worried about it. I really only had trouble with the last leg of the trip when my bad leg started spasming and it became difficult to walk. I was actually pretty proud of myself for being able to push through the walking.

We stayed the night in a hotel in the Washington area, in Virginia actually. We decided we wanted to go to the Aerospace museum that was in Virginia since it held the shuttle. Stan really wanted to see the shuttle. It was about 30 minutes into Virginia but it turned out to be a good choice. My parents said the Virginia museum was way better than the DC one. We drove back into DC and went to the aquarium. That was a waste of time and money. We have way better aquariums here in Texas. Next, we went to the Natural History museum. That was pretty cool. I was so tired after those 2 days of walking every where. We got home at about 10pm that night and crashed pretty much right away.

Day 3

I know what you are thinking, what happened to day 2. Day 2 was a Sunday, so we went to church and hung out around the house and did nothing. Day 3, we went to Hershey. I would have loved to been able to do the amusement park, but it wasn't opened yet. We did a trolley tour of the area, saw Mr Hershey's home, the school he and his wife opened and the town he built. We learned a lot about Mr. Hershey. He was a very generous man and worked hard to build his company after going bankrupt several times. After we did the trolley tour, we went back to the main area by the factory and did a little ride that showed how chocolate is made. It was pretty cool. We also toured through a museum about Mr. Hershey's life. Andrew surprised me while we were there and bought a cook book full of desserts. He is interested in learning how to cook more, especially how to make desserts. He made some cookies while we were at my mom's from a recipe in the book. They were really good. We are thinking about signing him up for some cooking classes at Young Chef's academy.

Our vacation

We just got back home from a 10 day vacation to Pennsylvania. I had planned on blogging while I was there so I could keep you all posted on our trip, but I forgot that my mom was on dial up and it was so slow managing any type of photo. I also didn't have a lot of time. We were on the move constantly during those 10 days. I am going to start with the first day and post about a different day each day I blog. I don't want to create a ridiculously long blog post by giving you the details of our vacation all at once.

We got there on the 13th. By the time we got to my mom's house, we had been traveling all day (we flew) and it was almost 10pm. We were exhausted. My mom rented a camping trailer for us to sleep in since she lives in a small home. It was a little cramped, but not bad since all we were doing was sleeping in there.

The next day, we went to the Crayola factory. It was about an hour away from my mom's house. The kids had a blast, and so did we. It was cool to see how they made the crayons. I had no idea they did it that way. They heat up the wax, then pour it into a mold that will make like 100 crayons all at once. They mix the wax around then drain it off and scrape it, cool the crayons off and dump them out. It was cool. Here are a few photos we took at Crayola .

In loving Memory

My mother-in-law passed away this week, on Monday. She was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago in March. For the last 11 months, she has been fighting for her life even more than the previous 2 years. The cancer had spread to her brain. She underwent radiation and more chemo and they were able to shrink the tumors some, but they came back with vengance and there was nothing they could do for her. She spent the last 6 weeks in a lot of pain.

She will be dearly missed. She was the most amazing, caring, loving, generous person that has ever lived. I hope I can be like her some day. I know she is in Heaven with her husband and I know she is happy. She is free of pain now and she is with the person she loves the most. She has missed him dearly. I know that we will be reunited when our time to leave this earth comes. We are an eternal family. My inlaws were sealed in the temple before my husband was born and Stan and I have been sealed in the temple. We are sealed as a family for time and all eternity through the power of the priesthood. I am so grateful for the restored gospel in this later day so we have the opportunity to be sealed together in the temple.

I made a slide show of photos from her life. I hope you enjoy this. You can find it at www.hodgefamily.net/elizabeth/ .

A big milestone

I have been doing Weight Watchers for over 2 years now. I have not been 100% on program the entire time, but I have been on program most of the time. My medications have the side effects of weight gain. I could tell that I have been fighting that side effect because when I started the medication is when I noticed I was having to work very hard for every little ounce I lost. I am very happy to announce that I have now lost 50 pounds. When I started WW, I was hoping to lose 50 pounds my first year. It has taken me longer than I had hoped, but I am still proud of this accomplishment. Here is a layout I made showing me and my WW leader, Jamie, taken the day I reached the 50 pound mark. Now, onto the next 50 pounds.

Good weekend

This has been a really good weekend. It didn't exactly go as planned, but that is OK. Stan and I were suppose to go to the temple yesterday, but Rachael ended up having a last minute dance rehearsal, so we had to postpone our temple trip. We are going to try to go on the 20th now instead. Saturdays are just so busy for us. It seems to be worse the older the kids get. We got some cleaning done around the house and a few errands taken care of.

Rachael and I got to go to a baptism yesterday evening. Her friend Natalie was baptized. She is the sister of the woman who directed the Savior of the World production. Natalie started coming to rehearsals to help her sister out. By the time it was over, Natalie had a testimony. Her parents didn't let her get baptized until yesterday though as they didn't want her to rush into a decision like this at such a young age. The baptism was wonderful. There were a lot of people there. I felt the spirit so strongly. I am so grateful for Natalie, Casey and Jane and the friendship they have with Rachael. She is so happy when she is around them. She is like that at dance too.

Speaking of friends, things are going so much better for Rachael at church. The girls are all getting along again. Rachael hung around after New Beginnings last week talking with the girls she previously hadn't been getting along with. It was good to see them talking like that again.

On Thursday night, we had a visit from Ben Parker. When I first moved to Austin, I started baby sitting Ben and his little brother Danny. Ben was 3 years old. Now, he is married and has a child of his own. His family left Austin in 1996 when they moved to Denver. I lived with his family for about 6 months when I was in high school. It was so good to see him again. I really miss the Parker family. I miss the long talks I would have with Jera. Their youngest child, Maegan, was my baby when she was little. I took care of her, did her hair and taught her all kinds of things. Maegan is all grown up and has 2 children now. It really makes me feel old.