This is my bio page. For more current, up-to-date information, visit my Blog pages.

I am currently 31 years old. I grew up in upstate NY. My mom was divorced when I was only a few months old, and didn't remarry until I was 17, so for most of my growing up years it was just me and mom. Shortly after my mom was separated from my biological father, she moved in with some friends of his from the Army. The Atherton's were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and introduced my mom to the gospel. When I was just a few months old, my mom joined the LDS Church.

Throughout my life, I've had plenty of ups and downs, and had friends in good crowds and not-so-good crowds; but through it all I've had the gospel of Jesus Christ to rely on and to guide me.

Shortly after high school (in 1993), I attended Ricks College (which is now BYU-Idaho) for 3 semesters. It was wonderful for me to be able to be around so many young adults who believe the same things I believe. And being away from home really helped me realize that I really did believe all the things I had been taught throughout my life.

I came home from Ricks in the spring of 1995 so that I could earn money to go on a mission for The Church. I really wanted to go on a mission, but my parents wanted me to earn at least half the money, so they wouldn't have that burden, and also so the mission would mean more to me since I earned part of the money. In August 1996, right after I turned 21, I received my mission call to the Chile Vina del Mar Mission. I was to enter the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT on 23 October 1996.

My mom told me that my grandmother was really against me going on my mission, until she found out the day that I was to enter the MTC. My grandmother told my mother that her mother, my great-grandmother, was very religious and that she died on the 23rd of October. My grandmother felt like her mother turned her life to the Lord the day she died, and she felt like I was also turning my life to the Lord by going on my mission. After that, my grandmother accepted my mission and decided to write to me every week of my mission.

Although I didn't know it then, the 23rd of October became even more special to me, since that is the day I met Richard. I had a boyfriend at the time I left for my mission. And Richard had a girlfriend too. We just became best friends in the MTC. It was pretty amazing the friendship we were able to form in the 2 months we were there. And even more amazing how our friendship grew over the next 2 years. Since we went to different missions, both in Chile, we could still write to each other. If we had been in the same mission, it would be against mission rules to write. We truly got each other through the mission. It was pretty amazing. When I would have a bad day, I'd end up getting a letter from him, and he said the same about my letters. Through our letters, our friendship continued to grow.

Since Sister missionaries serve for 18 months and Elders serve for 24 months, I came home 6 months before Richard did. My mom had heard that the best thing for a returned missionary is to keep busy. So, a little over a week after I retuned home, in April 1998, I went to Southern Virginia College (now a University) and started a summer term of school. I continued to write to Richard, while I adjusted to life after the mission.

As I mentioned on the home page, and our wedding page, I went to TX to see Richard for Thanksgiving 1998, and he proposed that weekend. I went back to SVC and finished the semester out. Then in January 1999, moved down to TX. We were married 23 March 1999 in the Dallas Texas Temple.

I got pregnant with Faith in August 1999. She was due May 12th. However, she was born 10 weeks early, being born on March 4th 2000. She was born at exactly 30 weeks along. They tried to prepare us for how small she would be, and told us she would be between 1.5 & 2.5 pounds. We were all amazed when she came out and was 4 pounds 8 ounces and 21 inches long. They then told me that if I had taken her full term, she would've been between 11 to 13 pounds. GEE, I was then glad she was early!!!! Well, not glad for her, but glad for me. Richard gave her a blessing soon after she entered the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and she did wonderfully. Every once in a while, she would be so hungry that she'd forget to breathe while she ate. But other than that, she did great. She stayed in the hospital for 6.5 weeks and then we were able to take her home. We had to take her home on an apnea monitor in case she forgot to breathe again. But it never went off once she was home. We lived with Richard's parents for about 10 months after that.

Ever since Faith was born, we have tried to have at least one of us home with her, and now with Samantha too. We feel it is very important to have the parents home and not to use daycare, if at all possible. There have been very few times we've had to use daycare, and I feel our family is stronger because of that.

Skipping ahead some.....

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to move in February 2004. We could go back and live with Richard's parents again, or we could move to upstate NY to live with my family. My parents had a house that was a duplex. They had spread their stuff over both sides, but said that we could move into one side and they would move their stuff into the other side. We decided that would be the best for us at the time. We were blessed in that Richard was able to find a job within a week of us moving here, and I was able to stay home which was good because I was pregnant with Samantha at the time.

I ended up having gestational diabetes with Samantha, and she was also going to be a big baby anyway. So, they were planning on doing a C-section if I went to 38 weeks without going into labor. They didn't want her to get too big. I went into labor at 37 weeks, and Samantha was born at 37.5 weeks. She was 8 pounds 3 ounces and 19.5 inches long. She was born on 25 May 2004. The 25th of May was also Richard's dad's birthday, and now that he is in heaven, we feel it is even more important for her to grow up knowing how special he was.

A few months later, in November 2004, we found out why we had really come to NY. My mom found out that she had stomach cancer. In February 2005, she went in for surgery and they found a tumor that hadn't shown up on any of the scans before. She was told she would have 6 to 8 months to live if she didn't have treatment. And if she did do treatment, she would still only have about 10 to 12, maybe 14 months at the most. She decided that she was going to be sick anyway, and that the treatment wasn't going to prolong her life much, so she didn't do treatment.

In April 2005, my mom took our family on a trip to Cancun, Mexico for one last trip as a family and to have one last fun time together before she became really sick. We had tons of fun there in Cancun and Faith actually started to want to learn Spanish then. Before that time, she never really cared about learning it.

To make a long story shorter, my mom progressively got worse and died on 26 July 2005. She was 52 years old, and it was a week before my 30th birthday. Needless to say, I was devastated. I was also very grateful to a loving Heavenly Father that made things happen so that we would move here and be here for my mother. I don't think that I could've handled her sickness and death if we were still in TX.

Of course, we never thought that within a year of my mom dying that Richard would lose a parent also. His dad had bypass surgery and got a staph infection because of it, and ended up dying on 5 May 2006, 20 days before he would've been 62. And right during Richard's finals for school. He was able to postpone his finals, and we were able to go to TX for a week for the funeral and to visit family.

A few days after returning home, and after 6 years off and on of school, Richard got his Associate Degree in Computer Science. I'm sure his dad was watching from heaven that day.

In February 2006, I started a program to learn Medical Transcription. I finished the Career Step program & graduated with High Honors (97% on both parts of the exam) on February 9, 2007. I sent out about 60 resumes and took about 10 employment tests. I received my first job offer on February 28, 2007 -- exactly 1 year after signing up for the course. It ended up that the first company wasn't a good fit for me, but I had received some other offers that same week too, so I was hired on March 12, 2007 by InHealth Transcription Services in Atlanta, GA & started working for them the following week. I can say now that I do truly love being an MT!

Once Richard finishes his Bachelor's in December 2007, we are planning on moving back to Austin. We both love it there and there's not much keeping us here now that my mom isn't here, and all his family is there. We've told my father that he is welcome to come with us, or move down there later, if he wants to, because he doesn't have much family left in NY either.

Right now, I am just enjoying being a mom, and wife, and MT.

Home - Richard's Page - Michelle's Page - Wedding Page - Faith's Page - Samantha's Page - Family Pictures Page

Stanley M. Hodge Memorial Page - Michelle's Medical Transcription Page - "Grandma" Hodge's Famous Recipes Page