"I know!"

Pretty plants from my mom's co-workers and my brothers friend. Also this cute little bouquet card from someone in the ward. We displayed it with the living flowers.

Wall of cards. There are others cards on other walls too.
Wow! Time flies by way to fast! And with the time change between Idaho and California, I'm ready to call home when everyone has been in bed for awhile. Time seriously slips by. When my mom is sleeping, my dad and I are usually eating somewhere or driving around checking things out in downtown Sacramento. Downtown is surprisingly not congested busy feeling and a lot of fun to check out. The buildings/apartments/houses/townhouses are just so awesome. On our way to the hospital or back from the hospital we do this. Yesterday Brent set my dad up for an appointment at the Paul Mitchell beauty school for a haircut. Oh man, what an experience. It took him 15 minutes of waiting before he saw the girl that was to cut his hair and then he sat down to find out that she has been cutting hair for 6 months and he was the second guy that she has ever done. We were there for 1.5 hours! If I knew that, I would have stayed at the Nordstroms Rack looking around. The girls that also worked there had some pretty interesting hair colors and outfits. They also had to wear black but some of them were pretty skanky. How can you possibly cut hair comofortably with a super short tight mini dress, lacy black nylons and really skinny heeled boots. She was sliding all around the floor. It was cracking me up. It was a pretty great people watching place.
Mom was resting but my dad won't hardly let her rest. He just sits there and stares at her or bugs her by touching her fingers, arms... It drives her nuts.

Anyway, I know that the majority of you are reading this because of my mom, so I better get to that. I am now two days behind in updating and the first details of the two is starting to slip away. We arrived midafternoon on Friday to visit. My dad and I both crashed that night because of the long day the day before. We needed sleep so bad. We were informed that my mom had fallen on the ground about an hour before. She was pretty shook up and kept trying to apologize. For what I don't know because it was there faults for leaving her alone. They thought that it would be a good idea to leave her on the portable potty by herself. We couldn't quite understand that one. You can tell that she was pretty worried about it. We told her that she was alright and got her laughing after that. She has been getting medicine to help her go the bathroom. They finally kicked in on Friday and she needed to go. As my dad and I debated on where the potty needed to go, she was getting a little anxious about it. We finally got her up, dropped the undies to find that she had already started to go poo. (okay so these posts might gross you out but this is so reality of what is going on. This is a fact of life and until you fully go through it, you won't exactly grasp how talking about it is no big deal). Some landed on the floor, a little on the seat and the rest inside. The greatest part was that she started to urinate too! The nurses had been trying and trying to get her to go. The problem, we believe, was that my mom wasn;t pushing the call button and the nurses aren't around enough to help help her. And then when they were they probably had no idea what she was talking about. It used to take my dad and I about 5 minutes to figure it out. Now we know with just one look. Anyway, I was the first to clean up. I gag. I gag bad! You would think with a 2.5 year old I would so get past that, but I don't. I can't! I was gagging all around the room and my parents were cracking up. At least I cleaned it up. Before we got into town my brother was with her alone. She was sitting in the wheelchair and indicated that she needed to go. All of a sudden they started to smell something terrible. Brent then realized that my mom had basically had a blow out. All of you that have had children totally understand. It was everywhere and Brent hid behind the curtain while the nurses cleaned up. What a scaredy. It is your mom but you just get past that...unless you are Brent. Now it is very much a joke. My mom always has this look like, "That's my Brent." Not expecting any different. She did go the bathroom another time that night and we were way more prepared. It was my dad's turn to clean up. We now take turns. That's our rule and my mom just cracks up. Most of the time it results in one of us holding her up and laughing hard while things are being taken care of.
So prior to all of the potty stuff, we were talking to my mom about going. She was really worried about all of it in regards to going home. We told her that she did not have to go before we left for Idaho. We kept reiterating that point but that it would be great if she went. She very clearly said, "I know!" We were shocked and happy and surprised all at the same time. It was great. We told mom to smile. When she is really thinking about it, this is what she looks like. When she doesn't think about it, her smile appears more natural. The right side of her mouth is still affected by the stroke. Her eyes look great and sensation kind of comes and goes in her leg and arm. They are coming around.We helped her eat dinner and helped her to bed. She was pretty exhausted from the day. Honestly I don't remember much more than this. We will go to the next day where I actually took notes for this very reason.
Uploading these pictures, I did realize a little more of what we did. We looked at more of the cards and pictures from the Primary. My mom really enjoyed them.

Before I forget, we did go to this super awesome Italian resteraunt for dinner on the way home. It is called Buca di Beppo. We saw it on the way to the hospital and gave it a try on the way back. This place was huge. It has an upstairs and downstairs and on the way to your table, they give you a tour of the kitchen. We started checking out the menu to realize things were spendy. It just made no sense because everything had a small or large serving and for a large lasagna, for example, it was around $25. What!? Our waiter than stopped by and asked if we had been to one before. We hadn't and she continued to explain that everything is family style. The smalls are good for 2-3 people and then the bigger for whatever. I don't know how many people, she never told us. It is all family style. So my dad and I decided to order the Apple Gorgonzola Salad. That was seriously the best thing that I have ever had. I wanted to figure out a way to ship some home to Idaho. We had enough left over to take back to Brent and Noelle to try. It seriously was soooo good. We also ordered the Quattro al Forno. It was also sooo good! As we were heading home and I was looking at the takeout menu, we realized that we did not get the chicken cannellonis. Oh well, it was all so good that we apparently did not notice until later. My dad wanted dessert. There was no way that I would be eating any of it. So my dad got it to go. He got tiramisu. We were floored when it came out. It was huge! So this is an ode to Ren because I thought that I remember him saying how much he loved tiramisu at Mindy's rehearsel lunch. We even weighed it. It weighed 1 and a half pounds. This sucker was big.
So there you have it. A fine finish to a great Friday. They just need one in Boise!