Work the good, and teeny bit, of bad

The good:  I love my job!  LOVE IT!  Who knew I would enjoy working on teeth so much.  People always say "it would gross me out to put my hands in someone's mouth!" Before I was a dental assistant I might have said that too.  But I LOVE IT!!  I enjoy the patients and the office I work in and the day literally flies by.  The pace is fast but the work isn't too physically demanding.  It is a great fit for me!  I am so happy to have been given the opportunity (literally given! -no application needed).  On top of all that I get to be a PRN which means I just fill in when they need me.  I am thankful every time I go to work to be learning so much and enjoying it. Plus they pay me to be there! Bonus!  I also get an hour and a half for lunch which is amazing.  Today I got to talk to Lana for an hour of that. It was the BEST!  How blessed I am to have served with she and Becky in the Suitland Stake.  And now the teeny bit of bad for today.  I am lucky that it doesn't happen often (because I don't work everyday) but tonight Haylee gave me her schedule of events for next week's "Fine Arts Night" at the middle school.  She is in drama and they have been rehearsing a play for a couple of months. They are doing the Seussified version of Romeo and Juliet.  And the play is at 4:30.  I don't get off work until 5!  Hopefully I will be able to leave a bit early but if our schedule is full there is no way I can go.  With patients in the chair, ya gotta be there.  (I just made that up, I am hilarious) I will be so sad if I have to miss it.  Thankfully Grandpa and Grandma Huhmann are coming so they will get to see her perform for sure but I feel terrible especially since Joe is out of town.  I am not a mom who misses things.  Such a bummer!  I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will work out. I am also very thankful that Haylee understands if it doesn't.  

In other news:  it rained cats and dogs today which is nice because we haven't had much moisture through the winter and my allegries have been giving me heck this week.  The rain should help keep the pollen down for a few days. I have never had allergies before but I am allergic to Missouri it seems.  Lame.  Thankful for Allegra!  :) side note: my knees were hurting all afternoon and this evening.  Is this a side effect from the rain?  Apparently my body thinks it is 87 years old.  So rude. 

Last news to report, I love my bathtub!  I am an -almost daily -bath taker and the tub at this house is a big soaker tub with jets!  Double bonus there is a window right above the tub. On cool nights I open the window (while hiding my nakey bits of course!!! Lol) and enjoy a warm bubble bath with some fresh cool air.  It is heaven!!!  This is my nightly view:

Ahhhhh.....I could stay in here for hours.  

Night friends! 

Girl time

Joe is away for work for a bit so Haylee and I are having some girl time.  We had a great weekend and are enjoying hanging out and spoiling ourselves a bit.  Friday night I had a Camp meeting from 5-11 so Haylee was home alone.  She enjoyed it though and watched Netflix and played video games.  The camp meeting was fun I enjoyed visiting with Mary (1st counselor in the stake YW) and planning with the YCLs. It is wonderful to feel like a part of the stake here as I loved that so much when we lived in Maryland. I remember going to things after we first moved here and being so sad I didn't know anyone, especially the young women.  I missed "my girls" and hated not knowing these cute new girls at all.  As I arrived at the meeting the other night I was greeted by several excited shouts of  "Hi Sister Huhmann!" And a couple hugs from those cute girls whose names I now know.  What a difference a year makes! I am thankful for the love of this new group. Saturday Haylee had guard practice from 9-1.  I did some tv watching and some organizing.  It is a great feeling to have things in order.  We have very few Saturday's free -maybe one!- in the next six or seven weeks so we declared this Saturday our DOF (Day of Fub).  I picked Haylee up and we got lunch at Sonic.  We came home and did a few more things then headed out to the soccer fields as it was a gorgeous 68 degrees.  We both had headaches but it was so nice to be out in the sunshine.  Then we got dinner from McDonald's came home and watched some of the Harry Potter marathon on tv, then decided to take ourselves to the movies (see? Definite spoiling going on).  We saw  Zootopia.  It was really cute and we both enjoyed it a lot.  We picked up a few Sunday necessities at Walmart and came home. Today I had a ward conference to attend in Odessa.  I think this makes the sixth one so far? We have two more to go but not until May.  I had not been to the Odessa building before. It was a beautiful chapel and the drive there was beautiful country.  We even came across the biggest house we had ever seen!  Haylee and I both decided we could really get on board with country living if we could live there.  Next time I'll take a picture!  The conference was wonderful and uplifting and I felt the spirit so strongly during a special musical number of "His Hands" I had never heard the song before and was overcome with emotion listening to the words.  The other parts of the meeting went well, as did our training afterwards.  It is always nice to meet with the sisters that serve the young women and counsel together with them.  Driving home I realized I had forgotten to buy butter yesterday and everything we had planned on making needed butter.  Instead of breaking the sabbath I had Haylee text Amy and see if they had some butter we could borrow, she said "yes!" Saving the day!  The rest of Sunday we spent laying around and enjoying the day relaxing.  I had a worse headache today than yesterday but it seems to be gone tonight.  Hopeful that tomorrow is a headache free day.  I'll try to add some more pics to my next post.  :) 

ER

Today was a mostly nice day.  Most days are mostly nice I suppose.  This morning Haylee had a dental check up and cleaning.  

She had an awesome dental assistant to polish her teeth.  She thought I did "ok" but she didn't like me flossing her teeth at all and reported my mean flossing to Dr.Heath who said "hey, that's her job!" Haylee got braces 4-5 months ago. Right before she got them she needed her last two baby teeth pulled.  Those guys were STUCK!   At her last dental appt she had a panoramic X-ray done and it showed her adult k-9 teeth pointing inward toward her middle top teeth.  I took another pano today to see if we had made any progress 

This one is from six months ago 

And this one from today:

Sadly they haven't moved at all.  She had about an 80% chance of needing oral surgery on the one on the left because it overlapped #9 so badly.  The right side may come down yet but I would say her chance of needing oral surgery went up to about 95% today's. I like to think positively but ya gotta keep it real. The rest of her visit was uneventful although she was not an easy patient. ;) again KIR. 

None of this tooth news has to do with my post title which is ER.  Just wanted to document Sierra's issues for myself.  She is on her way to the ER -again- this is her 6th trip in less than four weeks.  She has kidney stones.  Those are all the reasons for the ER visits.  She throws up from the pain and after two or three times puking in a hour she goes in, they give her morphine and she goes home.  It is a process she should not have to repeat six times but sadly is how things have gone.  On the upside tonight she was throwing up because of knee pain.  That's not the upside lol. The upside is that hopefully they can put her knee back in place while she is there for her kidney stone pain which started after all the throwing up. Super fun.  Her poor body is just breaking down.  Not sure what to do.  Not sure when we wave the white flag.  Well I actually do know that.  We have been waving it for a few weeks.  This is hard. 

One year later.....

A whole year has passed since that last post.  So many emotions then.  We still miss Maryland.  A piece of our hearts will always be there.  We don't even miss the area that much, just our friends and best neighbors.  One year.  365 days since I blogged.  I don't know if I can cover a year in one post but I would like to record my feelings on the happenings of the last year.  March was hard, Joe was my only friend besides sweet Amy who probably thought I was a little whiney and kind of a downer at the beginning of our friendship.  Lol.  Thankfully she hung in there!  :) I was looking for jobs and not finding anything.  Joe was concerned about my sad-ish state and encouraged me to get out of the house and meet some people.  I felt like I had tried at church but hadn't gotten very far.  So I decided to volunteer at the only place I knew of which was the thrift shop on base. That decision changed my whole last year!  :) I met new friends and had something meaningful to fill my time. Mostly I met new friends.  What a blessing!  I became a co-chair (think assistant manager but without the pay) ha ha!  I am on the thrift shop board and also sit on the spouses club board to represent the thrift shop from time to time.  These 4-5 women that I work with at the shop have become some of my dearest friends here.  I am so thankful for them!!!  In April I was called to be the ward camp director and was then given a stake assignment to be the head YCL counselor at camp.  SO FUN!!!  Loved all the ladies and girls I got to know through that time of serving the Lord.  July brought a new job!  I landed my dream job as a newborn photographer with a company called Mom365.  It was a dream!  Photography and tiny babies?!?  The best!  One drawback I had to work every other weekend at least Saturday and  Some Sunday's though I never had to miss church it wasn't my fave.  After not working for 14 years it was hard to get over not having my weekends full of family time. Got called to work in nursery at church wasn't thrilled but was happy to serve where the Lord asked me to, ended up loving it.  Those littles are so dang cute! 

  August we traveled back to Maryland to pick HD up from his mission!!!!  So fun to see our friends and to get to hug my sweet boy!  He was as awesome as ever and it was so near to hear his stories and to have him speak fluent Portuguese for us.  I am sure he felt a bit like a circus act when he first came home.  :p. 

He and I at the airport

Our family back together! 

Same sense of humor came back from the jungle.  :)

We spent two and a half weeks with the kids and enjoyed every minute before they were both back off to college.  Darn successful people anyway.  Lame.  Haylee also started 8th grade and joined a million activities.  Ok only like 4 but it seems like a lot. September was just school as normal busy volunteering and working.  Fun high school football games and loving small town life!  At the end of September Haylee and I were in sacrament meeting and imagine my surprise when they are reorganizing the stake YW presidency and they read my name over the pulpit asking the ward to sustain me as the 2nd counselor in the stake YW!  I almost fell over.  They had motioned for me to stand and I did and I tried to stay composed and not freak out.  When I sat down Haylee said "you didn't even tell me!" I told her "news flash they didn't tell me either!"  She thought it was hysterical and could not stop her shoulders from shaking with silent laughter.  I was just shaking!  Lol.  I had no idea what to do.  Do I tell someone? Do I need to tell them now that I had no idea? Did they read the wrong name? A hundred thoughts raced through my mind as I tried to focus on the sacrament. During the sacrament the stake high counselor and one of the stake presidency members realized their mistake so they got up and explained to the congregation that I had not been formally extended the calling and then asked me if I could meet with them after sacrament meeting. That's when I realized they did mean to read my name and that they sustained me all across the stake that day!  It was a lesson in attending your meetings people can you imagine if I hadn't gone to church that day? No one would have known that I didn't know!  It was a unique experience for sure.  :). In October my friend Amy asked if I would like to come work for her and her hubby (out stake president and dentist) they needed a dental assistant that could fill in for sick people and when someone took maternity leave.  I said yes and then a few days later said no.  I felt I couldn't give my all to that job while working at the hospital and I wasn't ready to give up my baby job (it didn't really occur to me that I could).  In November Haylee made the winter guard team (flag spinning) and I realized if I was working on a Saturday I would miss her whole competition!  I am not a mom who misses things.  The dental office gig would be super part time and at most a Monday -Thursday 8-5 job.  Also, it was a "real" grown-up job!  They would train me and pay for me to get certified plus cover all of our dental costs not paid for by insurance!  Deal!  I have been working there since December and I LOVE IT!  Who knew I would love teeth? Crazy but it is such a great fit for me.  I love the work and the patients and my boss is pretty awesome too.  ;) 

December both kids came home for two weeks and my dad came to visit.  Joe's sisters were both at the farm Christmas Eve so we spent the day there.  We had a blast.  It was so great to have everyone here.  January was dental office work and guard competition for Haylee along with her landing the role of Juliets nurse in the school production of Romeo and Juliet.  She is really excelling here and I love the things she is involved in. Look at the young women in our ward!! 

There are so dang many!  It is awesome! Our ward is huge and definitely feels like our family now.  Joe's closest friend just happens to the the stake president (yes also my boss) which is an awesome thing.  We love the Heath's and are so thankful they befriended us when we moved here!  (I tried to get their middle kiddo hooked up with HD but that smart girl decided to serve a mission!) :) February is going well.  I went home for my moms retirement.  She flew for Delta for 45 years!!!!  Amazing.  She loved her job and it was hard for her to leave but it was time.  She felt peaceful about her decision and it was wonderful to celebrate with her.  

Getting her queen robe, crown, flowers and scepter.  Rick even rented a red carpet and a limo!!  

Mom with her sisters

So much fun!  Sierra has had a rough February but I won't go into that in this post. To sum that up 5 trips to the ER in 3 weeks with kidney stones, partially dislocated jaw, and a hard scary fall on some ice.  It has been TOUGH.  Through it all though we have both seen the tender mercies of the Lord and we are so thankful!!!  

I was able to be at one ER visit with her. Poor girl. This kid spends a lot of time at the docs.

Today Haylee competed in the Science Olympiad regional tournament.  She competed in three events.  Picture This -didn't place, Mission Possible -she had to build a Ruth Goldberg? Machine. She placed 4th and will compete in state and her third event was Reach for the Stars and she took FIRST! -she will compete at state in that event too!  We were so proud of her!!!!  She loves science Olympiad and works really hard.  

Ok friends you are caught up.  We'll sort of, this is the best it's going to get!  :) maybe I'll keep up on this now and maybe I won't.  My hope is I will.  I need to document things better.  Hugs to you all! 

Two quick happy pics to end: 

D and sis while I was in Utah last weekend. 

5172 B Sijan Court

Oy, moving. I do not recommend it.  Emotional. Exhausting. Exciting (kind of) - One of the last nights in our Andrews house I spent several minutes on the porch reminiscing about the 10 years we had spent there. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought of all the wonderful memories we had at that home. So many wonderful people had come into our lives during our time in Maryland. People who will forever be considered our family. Just a few memories I thought of:

*bringing Daisy home

*the days spent recovering after Joe's face was broken. 

*Haylee's carnival birthday party.

*both HD and Sierra's graduation parties.

*sitting in the yard chatting almost every single night of summer with the best neighbors.

*that time Joe and Matt recorded their own version of Bruno Mars "Bilionaire" 

*when HD tossed his scriptures down the hall and put a big hole in the wall at the end of the hallway. 

*Bob and Joe hauling a pinball machine up the stairs and back down.

*Bob and Joe hauling an elliptical machine up and back down and then doing it again since the one that went up the first time was broken. 

*giving Sierra her 16th birthday present (tickets to see Wicked) best birthday  gift reaction ever! 

*when HD sort of choked on a sunflower seed while we were playing a game with grandma Chelle and her laughing so hard  she couldn't breathe which made us all laugh so hard. 

*falling down the stairs whilst looking behind me admiring my own handiwork of putting Christmas clings on the landing windows. 

*dance parties in the living room. 

*Sierra singing and singing and singing. 

*so much laughter. 

I am so thankful for the ten years we spent there.  That is a rare thing for a military family.

 We will miss you 5172 B Sijan Court.

Meeting the POTUS

Hello! It's me - Tara! After such a long lost time. Last Friday was an epic event in our lives and I must get it down in all the craziness that is life right now...

On January 30th we were able to go to the White House and meet President Barack H. Obama in the OVAL OFFICE!!  For the last ten years Joe has been in the PAG which is part of the White House Military Office.  When it's time for you to depart WHMO you are invited to go to the White House and have a departure photo taken with the president. It was seriously the coolest experience ever. We had to wait outside for a while in the surprise crazy snow fall for about an hour then we got to go inside to a second holding area and wait a bit more. When it was time to go further inside the WH we came to an area that looked familiar, we

Realized we were on the opposite side (than we had previously been on) of a red partition that is put up so the first family can move about the WH without anyone who is on a public tour.  Once when we were visiting we were on the east side of the partition and one of the aides there told us President Bush had passed by just a minute before. This time we were on the west side of the partition -fancy! We waited in a foyer for a while then an aide said "we need to move you guys for a minute" and he shuffled us all into the kitchen hallway and closed the door. There was an event at the WH that day so the kitchen was a busy place. We were lining both sides of a maybe four foot hallway and staff were pushing through is with big bouquets of flowers and trays. We were right by the dummy waiter and elevator. Cool! After 10 minutes or so they came back to get us and ushered us all back to where we were.  I am so curious as why we had to be moved out of sight. I am sure I will never know. After 10 more minutes or so of waiting we were moved out one door and walked outside down the west wing colonnade as pictured below

See the brown desk inside? We walked thru those doors and right past that into a hallway to wait our turn.  In the hallway Joe and I were chatting and I told him I was going to make sure and say "Mr. President" somewhere in our meeting just so I could use that phrase. When would I ever get to say that again?? In the hallway we were in were some family photos blown up and framed very nicely. There were a couple of photos of the President getting off the airplane and one of him on board. The aides and the secret service were very, very nice. When we were about 2 couples away from going inside the aide said "don't be nervous" for the record we weren't nervous at all "the president will make you feel right at home, like he's known you forever. Relax and take it all in.  Then it was our turn to go inside!! We stepped into the Oval Office and stood to the side with a mil aide who would announce is. There was so much to look at!  The rug,

the desk, paintings and statues.  And then there was the president himself! I remember thinking "holy cow that is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!" The real deal!  how cool is that???  We had about 20 seconds -seemed like 3- to take it in and then we were being announced to the POTUS. It was surreal to see him standing there just like a normal regular guy in front of his desk.  The president smiled and reached to shake Joe's hand. Joe said "Good Afternoon Mr. President." I said "It's nice to meet you Mr. President." The POTUS said "come on let's take a picture" he put me in the middle of him and Joe (they told us where to stand but the pres. Guided me to the spot) as he did he said "you stand in the middle, a rose between two thorns." He put his arm around me and I ended up with my arm around him. Between that and the rose comment (which is oddly not the first time someone has said that to me) I don't even know if I was smiling for the photo!  I didn't suck it in or make sure my sweater was in place or anything!  It happened so fast!  I hope I don't look like an idiot!  Lol before we went inside we were briefed about what was appropriate -don't make any requests of the pres. Don't give him anything, no political statements etc. I had really wanted to tell him about the kids but you literally only have like 40 seconds in there. After the photo the president stepped in front of us and asked "what's next for you guys?"  Joe replied "we are headed to Whiteman Air Force Base, sir" the pres said "that will be great, love the Midwest" or something like that that part is a little fuzzy lol - then he asked "do you have any kids?" In the .0000002 seconds that I had to decide how to respond I decided just saying "Yep!" Was dumb so I said "we have three. Our oldest is 21 and serving a mission in Brazil" the president didn't hear the mission part as soon as he heard 21 he held up his hand/pointed at me and said "wait, wait, wait. You have a son who is 21??!"  Points  at Joe and says "him I believe it but you? No" And shakes his head. Joe said "she ages well sir". Ha ha ha we cracked up about that later. I knew our time was up and I didn't want to not mention the girls so I said "we also have a 19 year old daughter in college at BYUI and a 13 year old daughter at home and she would want us to tell you she says hello." He kindly replied "you tell her I said hello!" Then he said "so she will be making the move with you. How is she doing?" I said "she is excited, though it is hard to leave after

10 years"  he said "I am sure it will be

good" and put his hands on the outside of mine and Joe's arms and said "thank you again for your service."  And we walked out.  Joe said "geeze chatty Kathy!" I was like hey he asked me a question!! Lol we knew some other couples that had their pictures taken that day and when they came out they said "he talked to you guys forever!!" We probably had about 60 seconds as opposed to everyone else's 40.  I can't help it if I am easy to talk to!  Lol it was such a great experience!!!  Can't wait to get the photo back!!!! 

Here is what we wore. It was SO windy that day! 

This is what the Oval Office looked like that day 

It was AMAZING!!!  Hands down coolest thing to ever happen to us!  

Puppy love and happiness

This girl likes to lay my her momma.  It makes me happy. 

It is snowing today that makes everyone happy :) 

We are getting out the tree.  That makes everyone happy too!  :)