A Hodge Family Update

Saying bye to Grandpa. :)

In case, you've been sick of looking at the same old pics on here, and wondering why I never updated, well, there has been a lot going on here. To briefly summarize, John returned on Sunday night 2/13/11, couldn't wait to see me :)

(*funny sidenote- the day before John flew in, Grandpa and I had In & Out Burger, which is like the best burger joint in the west. So the morning John was flying in, Grandpa said, "I have a sneaking suspicion John's going to be getting some 'In & Out' when he gets here."...I couldn't stop laughing...grandpa's mind was so innocent, Susan had to explain it to him! He laughed and said we had dirty minds!)

Can you tell Lucas was ecstatic to see daddy?


We had a busy week, packing things, visiting family and friends, and we made a crazy decision to take a risk. Since we rented our Williamsburg home, and were tired of burdening other people in their homes, we chose to take a little road trip again, and drive to Houston Texas, where John interviews with a company called Air Products on thursday 2/24. We are going to stay in a weekly rate suite, and hope either the TX or GA job gives him an offer. It's a lot cheaper to live in TX or GA than CA and we are still getting paid by the Navy for a few more months. I am confident he will find a good job by then, but I am hoping for the GA one :) John flew to Augusta GA on thursday to interview the next day with a company called Southern Nuclear. He feels he did very well and they said they would let him know within this week either way. Then he flew back friday night, and we rented a Uhaul trailer for all our accumulated stuff, and headed out on the road.

SO....our current status is: eating Pizza Hut and watching TV in a Sleep Inn Hotel in Fort Stockton, Texas. We stayed in Blythe CA at a Days Inn Saturday night...where we had the free entertainment of nasty bikers having loud sex in the room, CONJOINED to ours. Then we stayed in Lordsburg NM last night in a Comfort Suite which was very nice. The babies are handling the driving and hotels as well as could be expected for their age and the fact that they have been uprooted so often. I feel bad for that and am anxious to find a job for John and a home ASAP.

Our fate right now is in God's hands. Doing lots of praying. Overall the hesitation and fear, we are both very elated to know that John is never going on another deployment or underway again, and that he will have so much more freedom and paid overtime! lol. I haven't been taking many pictures as my hands have always been full or I didn't have my camera easily accessible, but these were taken with my phone. Very pleasant drive after getting through the snowstorm ironically in California!





This was El Paso...RIGHT on the Mexican border...scary!

Texas Sunset


Hope to update with some GOOD news soon. Thanks for reading!:)