Swim Therapy

Swimming!  One of the things Mom used to love to do as a kid.  In preparation for today I have been asking her if she'd like to go swimming sometime and each time she seemed pretty interested.  So after we made plans I was confident that it would be a successful adventure.

David was kind enough to stay home from work today to help me out and I think he enjoyed the break too.  The weather was great at 10am, and the water was 80 degrees...if not warmer.  

As expected Mom mentioned being too cold when getting deeper and deeper in the water, but once she was all the way in she was fine.  I was expecting her to be nervous and just ask to get out of the water, but instead she did a lot of laughing and seemed to really enjoy herself.

Her walking was the same in the water...no improvement.  We tried to get her to float, or to kick her feet out behind herself, or try to "stand" "on her knees so that the water would come up over her shoulders so she wouldn't have to stand all the way up...she attempted each, but we didn't have much success.

All in all, it was pretty fun.  Mom enjoyed sitting outside the pool in the nice weather after we swam too.  We'll be doing this again!

Wii Therapy

There is all kinds of therapy you can do when you really think about it.  David thought of this one.

We played the Wii with Mom after her hip injury, but playing with a brain injury brings a whole new dynamic to the game.  We played Big Brain Academy which I really thought she wasn't ready for...BUT she did pretty well.  One of her best areas was math, and that was a big surprise from this art teacher.

From her point of view:

Another Year

58 years old!

One year and 6 days ago Mom had her traumatic-brain-injury-causing car accident.  Today we were glad to celebrate her birthday.  She was happy too, but mostly because she had a pretty delicious birthday cake sitting in front of her!

Mom was excited to get flowers from her good friend from Rochester, Josie!

Midnight Bliss Cake close-up!  YUM!

Bowling!

On Wednesday we were invited to go bowling with the Kings.  It was fun!  

We didn't know how difficult it might be because of Mom being in her wheelchair most of the time, but the King's are pros at finding ways to do things that most people would think impossible.  Below, Emily demonstrates how to use the ramp to bowl instead of having to throw the ball.

Then Mom tried it with David cheering her on!  She did very well and was able to play for half of the game before getting tired...

...and cold!  Even with all those blankets she was done for the day.  But that was ok because David and I got to finish bowling for everyone.

We had a good time and have already made plans to go back.  Grandma may even come next time!

Gift Therapy

Gift Therapy!  Bet you've never heard of this!  Well, that's because it's not actually real...

Mom got a gift in the mail today from her sisters-in-law.  The gift was from "The Nut House."   Now, we all know that this could imply different meanings, but after a moment of thinking it through we decided that their intentions were for her to have a delicious assortment of nuts and not imply that she's gone nuts!  ...although we thought the other option pretty funny.

The nuts came with packing peanuts too!  ...so clever.

Finally got it out of the box!

We decided to make Mom and honorary member of The Nut House.

They are delicious!  And really big!  I've never seen cashews as large as these.

Gift Therapy will continue this Thursday because it's Mom's birthday!

Everybody needs a friend.

Despite the look of disgust on the cat's face, I usually see these two this close together multiple times throughout the day.  The dog occasionally growls at the cat and the cat occasionally smacks the dog in the face, but these two secretly enjoy each other's company.

Spicy Chicken Goodness

We got to try the new Chickfila Spicy Chicken Sandwich one week early!  We made reservations online and showed up during our time slot.

Dad liked what was written on the sandwich bag.

The breading was the same as the normal chicken sandwich only a little darker because of the spice.  And, it came with a small bottle of water.

To me the taste was similar to the Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich.  I think this is the market they are trying to tap into.  Now all we need to do is a taste test!  It wasn't that spicy, just enough to give it some character.

David liked it.

This picture is for all the American's overseas.  Gotta love waffle fries!

So, the question remains... which sandwich is better?  The original or the spicy?  Well, the original is pretty good!  It will probably depend on your preference, but for me...I'd need to do a taste test so I could compare them at the same time.