1.5 weeks in Texas...

It's surprising that I've got so many photos here from the past week, considering that Clement and Deborah have been poorly and it feels like we nearly lost a week of our holiday!

Last Monday Clement woke up in the early hours of the morning with terrible croup. :( The retractions in his chest were pretty bad and his breathing wasn't good. I was afraid we were going to have to take him to hospital or something but after putting him on the bed near the window, the cool air helped his breathing calm down a lot. We bought a humidifier later that day and that night he slept much better without any breathing problems. He still had a cough for a few days but it didn't seem dangerous anymore.

Then on Tuesday Deborah developed a fever. It got up to 101.1F (over 38.3C) at one point. She didn't have any other symptoms - just a temperature. She was quite miserable too and would cry a lot if she was moved or bumped. After 3 days of fever without any other visible illness, I was worried what was wrong with her. So we took her to a sort of urgent care clinic (they call themselves an emergency room but aren't connected with a hospital). The doctor checked her all over and said she looked OK, so she said it was probably a virus. Then the next day (Thursday) while we were driving to the Houston Zoo I noticed she was getting covered in a rash. :( It was rather random sort of blotches and spots (almost looked like more than one kind of rash). She was even more unhappy with the rash than she was with the fever and the warm weather made her worse. But thankfully after 3 days of fever and 4 days of awful rash, our lovely happy Deborah has returned today! :-) It's wonderful to see her back to herself again. But it's a shame we've had a week of our holiday spent with poorly children. Now just hoping our final week is a bit better, but it's going to be *busy* trying to make sure we see everyone over the next few days!

Ok, some quick descriptions of photos here!

Shona looking after Deborah and showing her toys


Clement and Shona


Cousins having fun in the back garden: Clement, Benjamin, Shona and Abigail


Brooklyn


With Grandpa (my dad)


My sister Leah with Brooklyn (though I seem to have cut off part of the baby's face!)


Some monkeys at the zoo - don't ask me the name, as I was rather taken up with a sad Deborah that day...and trying to keep her cool! I think it was the hottest day we've had so far.


Watching monkeys: Clement, Gerrit with Shona, and Anna (my step-mum)


Monkeys


A monkey having a look at us! :-)


Some of my children with Stephanie (wife of my cousin Carl) and some of her children


and again


Carl Jr and Claire (Carl and Steph's oldest two)


My cousin Jett and his boys Owen and Aaron


Boys looking at goldfish in the Orangutans' enclosure


Sharon (my sister Leah's sister-in-law) and her boys Elijah and Noah


Mercy (married to my cousin Mark) and her youngest daughter Charlotte


Jett and Evelyn and their boys


a sleepy lion


Deborah who wasn't feeling very well


A giraffe


Benjamin in the petting zoo


More giraffes


Benjamin loved the fish best of all at the zoo - especially the Clown Fish!


And despite being poorly, Deborah loved the fish too! :-)


a rather blurred picture of some of the fish

On Saturday morning we went to my cousin Carl's house. All 7 of my boy cousins were there, along with the wives and children of the 5 who are married! So 14 children for my children to play with! :-) They had a lot of fun together.


Carl with Carl Jr and my boys


My cousin John and Clement


Julia (my cousin Joseph's oldest) and Benjamin


My cousin Mark and his son Matthew


Clement looking at books with Olivia (Mark and Mercy's little girl)


Clement playing with a phone with Cameron and Alex (James and Hayley's boys) and lot of other children in the background)


My cousins Jett, John and James, along with various children


Clement and his great-grandma!


My Grammie and Grandpa (my dad's parents) and Uncle Ernie (dad's brother, and father of my 7 boy cousins!).

So, that's enough photos for now! My camera has some pics from today, but they'll have to wait to be uploaded another time!