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!

Day 1 in Texas!

Well, maybe not the first day we have been in Texas (as we arrived yesterday) but today is our first full day here. Oh, and rest assured, I won't be posting a blog of photos for each of the 21 days we're here! ;-)

So yes, we survived the long journey from Scotland to Texas! We took a train to Aberdeen on Tuesday morning - we had a good trip there and very helpful staff on the trains. We stayed overnight in a Travelodge and then got up at 3:30 am on Wednesday (9th), got a taxi at 4:30 am to the airport, which was only a few minutes away. We were glad we got there as early as we did (1.5 hours before our flight) as just before check in we were told Peter needed an "ESTA Visa" to be allowed to fly to USA. We both panicked a bit thinking the idea of a Visa was a long sort of process! The KLM lady told us where internet computers were at the airport and told us to search for the visa online. We did this and after 10 minutes and $14, we got the necessary visa to allow us to board the plane! So we flew from Aberdeen to Amsterdam, and then boarded a plane for Houston at 10 am. As always, the KLM flight attendants were very helpful and friendly (they really are the best for flying with!). We had paid for our 4 seats (and 2 of the children as lap passengers) but due to there being a lot of extra seats on the plane, they gave us 4 extra seats. It was great to have 8 seats for the 6 of us and a wee bed for Deborah, which she loved to be in for the first half of the flight! It was still a bit exhausting to keep the children occupied - and Benjamin didn't even sleep for 60 seconds! But we survived.

Oh, and I won't bore anyone with details of all the panic attacks that Benjamin and Clement had - basically every time they were going on and off of trains and planes - and Clement screaming for the last 20 minutes of the flight into Houston. At the time of it all, I was wondering why I was so crazy to think of going on such a trip. But now that I'm here, I'm nearly forgetting it all, because it was worth it! :-) ... Oh, and I get nearly 3 weeks before I have to go through it all again.

So, a few photos from today:

My sister Sarah (middle of my 3 sisters) with her 2 youngest nieces, Brooklyn on left and Deborah on right


My "baby" brother Gerrit (who is very much not a baby anymore!) building block towers with Benjamin who is making a goofy face


Gerrit and Benjamin again, with Shona (my oldest niece) in the middle


Clement and my niece Shona - C is two weeks older than S


Clement (looking rather tired, having been awake since 5:30 am here) and Shona


my sister Sarah with 3 of her 4 nieces: Abigail, Brooklyn and Deborah


Brooklyn and Deborah relaxing together! Brooklyn is 4 weeks older than Deborah and it's really lovely to see them playing with each other


a lovely smile from Brooklyn

Brooklyn and Deborah again


My 2 younger sisters, Sarah and Anna, with their 4 nieces: Abigail, Brooklyn, Deborah and Shona

So yes, as you can see, we're having a lovely time here. We're staying here with my sister Leah (Shona and Brooklyn's mama) and the children are really enjoying each other's company.

A post of more photos than I knew blogger could cope with!

I feel as if I've been neglecting this blog considering how many photos I've just uploaded here (31!). I occasionally wonder if anyone even looks at it! But I need to do something with all these photos, so the blog continues - boring as it may be! :-)


Can you spot the Fieldfare hiding in this photo? Last winter we had a number of these birds around here, but this year we've only seen this ONE bird. He frequented our back garden during the many weeks of snow we've had, eating red berries off the bushes. It's a large, heavy bird and I kept trying to get a photo of him. But as you can see, he's quite good at hiding!


Abgiail, Clement and Benjamin with their trains made out of sticklebricks! :-)

Dressed all cosy and wearing a cute wee hat from "Aunty" Nome!

I love her sweet face, if I might say so myself! age around 2.5 months old


Fieldfare again - I've rather enjoyed attempting pics of birds from the windows this winter, while being kept inside with lots of snow!

A beautiful ice formation on some Climbing Hydrangea flowers

icy flowers again! :)

My dear husband and 2 smallest people! :)


Clement has his own unique style of art: he almost always draws in circles! (the giraffes were coloured by someone else, btw) Anyway, as the above shows, there are loads of circular shapes in different colours all over the page. He doesn't usually do the random messy scribbles that so many little children do - it's all circles!

Speaking of Clement, not sure if I've mentioned on here before about him being a chatterbox? He's talking really well now - complete sentences too! He's quite a lot of fun to talk to, though it's a bit crazy when you hear him in the background repeating everything that is said around him, including complicated words! I guess he's trying to practice his language skills, so he copies everything he hears - quite like a parrot! It's really good fun having such talkative children and if Benjamin is anything to go by, once they start talking, they *never* stop! :-)


Out for a walk on New Year's Day - 2.5 months old


Benjamin on a scooter with Peter making sure he doesn't run off!


A cold Clement, all wrapped up (for once! as he usually takes hat & mittens off as soon as he's outside)


Abigail and her scooter


Me looking rather huge, wearing Deborah in the Papoozle, and with a big coat zipped up around her! :)


Me and my baby girl - she's looking a bit grumpy, as she didn't enjoy the cold weather (it was very cold - well below zero)


The beautiful views that we have only a few hundred yards from the house. Can't say Scotland isn't beautiful!


Sheep in a nearby field, with the Dornoch Firth in the background


Deborah *loves* to have a bath! She's very messy tho, as she splashes and kicks like crazy!


Deborah wants to join in with her brothers colouring ;-) (and yes, I'm holding her up!)


such a darling little girl - chewing her favourite blanket


Abigail (complete with messy hair, as always!) wanting her photo taken with Deborah, who she loves to pieces


Looking all grown up here - nearly 3 months


moving about on the floor at 3 months old - a few minutes after I took this photo, I found her about 6 inches further along, with her head off the rug


Picking up some favourite toys. It's quite amazing how skilled she is at grabbing toys and holding them. She's very coordinated and *always* has something in her hands (and mouth!). She's been teething since about 2 months old, as all of my babies seem to do! But if Abigail is anything to go by, the teeth might not appear until she's 8 months! It usually seems as if my babies are teething for a couple of years! :-P


Peek-a-Boo!

3 months old here, and wearing a very special dress, which my dear friend Marilyn in Canada made for her! :-) It's slightly big for her just now, but I was really wanting her to wear it for her baptism, so I tried it on and it wasn't *that* much too big, so she wore it. Oh, and the hat she's wearing in the pic is one that I wore as a baby - still in very good condition, nearly 29 years later! It's great for keeping her ears warm with all the cold weather we've been having.


Modelling the lovely dress again, which is complete with matching "bloomers", which are very sweet looking!


Abigail and her mini snowman


Deborah seems to have skipped right past baby books and board books - she's got rather advanced taste ;-) as seen by her keen attention and excitement as Peter was reading "Harry's Mad" by Dick King-Smith! It was hilarious how excited she was, even giggling! She seems to love hearing books read.


Another one of the happy little girl listening to the book


My dear Benjamin


And the very cheeky Clement