Of Nurovirus and Food Poisoning......

I guess its that time of year again. It gets cold and we all start getting sick. I have not been able to update for sometime now, hence the three post in a row, :) because of illness in the family 2 1/2 weeks ago my son came home with the vomiting bug. Oh I hate dealing with sickness.....I can deal with blood, guts...but not sickness I will be sick too. Well my poor son said he felt sick when he went to bed and then woke up being sick laying down and it went EVERYWHERE!!! Thankfully my husband was still awake so he took care of it (stripping the sheets, bathing my son as he was covered in it etc) 

We get him back tucked into bed and he goes back to sleep. 15 minutes later he does the same thing!!! And by this time my husband is asleep and once hes asleep you cant wake him for anything. So with the help of my daughter we changed sheets, bathed disinfected his bed again and got him tucked into his bed. 15 minutes later......AGAIN!!! 

And he did this for the next 6 hours!!! Poor thing was so tired he really did not wake up till after the fact.....By the next morning he was finally holding down some "special" water (consisting of a pinch of salt and pinch of sugar) it works great when you have been sick. So he then nibbled on toast etc. He still feels so tired and worn out. But def on the mend. 

I spent the next few days doing nothing but disinfecting the house over and over trying to keep it at bay.

Well that was it.....for about 2 days and then......

It hit again.....

This time it was my 12 year old daughter....And poor thing did not make it to a bucket either! She said she has never had sickness come on that fast before.....And she did the same thing 7 hours of almost constant vomiting....

This became my friend!

By this time I had MASSIVE amounts of sheets towels etc...and my dryer was not working right and then all together stopped!! No heat...ugg! OF all the times for it to go out.

Well my father in law got on the case and called the guy to fix it and he said he could get out later on in the week. Now it was Monday and we had been having this vomiting all weekend and no dryer...... But the Lord was gracious in that my father in law came up to deal with something else and there was an appliance guy sitting on our street visiting another house so he asked him if he could take a quick peek.....well it turned out it was just the thermostat had blown a fuse. So My dryer was back!! Yipee!!!!

We did end up going down to the laundry mat to dry a bunch of loads as we could wash faster then drying...

Then K came down with it....And she ASKED for a bucket and got it in!!!! Took my 2 year old to get it in the right place. lol! 

Well then daddy came down with it.....

And was in bed for a full week!

Then I got a chest infection....steroids and antibiotics....

Then K had her third birthday...but no cake as all were feeling terrible...

So by this time we are thinking that no one else is going to be getting it. 

So my oldest and I went down and got our van. Driving back we ate on the road and about 2 hours after eating I felt really ill, and I mean really ill! I managed to get home but had to go straight to bed. I then started being sick. Now as most of you know I get Hyperemesis Gravidarium in pregnancy, I have never been this sick!!!! 

After physically being sick for 5 hours straight, I could hardly get a breath I was retching so bad, my son called the ambulance, as it turns out it was a friend on duty that night and she told me later I looked the color of a dishrag! so they took me in and she said on the way in this really seems more then just the virus...Well it was.

Turns out what I had eaten was off and it gave me food poisoning! I was pretty dehydrated when I went in. I am amazed at how fast I got dehydrated.  Three bags of water and many anti-sickness meds I was feeling better. They kept me in for 12 hours as the doctor said I was pretty not responsive when I went in. I remember him trying to ask me questions but it was terrible trying to answer him back. I just could not.

They think I had a bit of the virus too but it was the food poisoning that really hit me hard...oh it was terrible...the headaches I had for three days after and the joint aches and dizziness, that was only food poisoning I cant imagine what it would be like to be poisoned with a chemical! The doctor told me as I had it so bad to expect these things after. 

I still feel tired and washed out from it all. But slowly were all getting back to normal. well as normal as we can. 

oh yah! 

To top it all off I put a load in the wash and asked my son to start it. He did and a few minutes later came in and told me there was water all over my kitchen floor. ok normally your thinking someone has dropped a glass of water kind of thing.....

well no....

it was 2 inches of water over half my kitchen!!! washer was broken.....

So my husband and his dad took it apart looking to see what the problem was and how it was broken. 

We thought it was a filter blocked but seemed like a lot of water for just a filter. Then we thought maybe it was hoses. So they tipped the washer up to have a look and guess what they found.....

a big gaping hole in my drum.....

yep you read right....big hole in the drum....so water was totally coming out as fast as it was going in. 

So washer shopping commenced. to make a really long story shorter we did find one and it was delivered last week. 

So the old washer is still sitting here until my husband and son take it apart to try and sell the parts on ebay. 

So there you have it! my life over the last three weeks....Its never boring here at our house....

Our Van

On December 5th L and I took an adventure...

We left early to go down to London to pick up our (new to us) Van! Some very sweet friends of ours were moving to New Zealand and gave us there 8 passenger Van, Actually according the the insurance its an estate car. :)  

We drove it back up to our house. It was a beautiful day too! Sunshine and no rain all the way up. It is an automatic (diesel) so it was easy to drive. I did not keep hitting the door to shift. :) being thats its right side steering with left side shifting we Americans want to keep hitting the door to shift gears. :) 

Saying that we had a good laugh in that every time I went to signal to move lanes or turn I kept turning the wipers on. :) My dear daughter kept laughing and saying "mum its the other one" For being the first time I have driven any distance over here, I think I did pretty well. 

Like I said it was a gorgeous drive up. Clear day. I had my GPS on my phone so had to trouble navigating the way home. 

There was snow all around. 

The sunset was gorgeous! It normally takes 4 hours from London to get up. It took us. 5 1/2 hours to get up as we had to take a few detours and then stopped for a break. I even did a three point turn on a A road due to an accident that happened just before we got there an closed the road. We took a little more time at the service station then we had planned which was providential as we would have been on the road at this spot when the accident happened. The Lord protected us which we are very grateful for. 

Here is our van parked outside our house. It does look shinier now as we have cleaned it but this was after the travels up. And it is so nice to be able to go all together! And we have room for our dear Dutch daughter too when she comes this summer! And of course my mom when she comes too, which were hoping will be this spring. 

Now I get to work on getting my British license as my American one I could only drive on it for one year and that ends the beginning of January. I'm told it will be somewhat easy to get it, but I have to just make sure my "bad" habits of driving don't get in the way of passing the test. I just had to take the written and behind the wheel in the states to renew my license after it expired while over here. It will be interesting to see the difference, when I get that brave. 

So for now my husband will do the driving. :)

Thanksgiving

Sorry this is delayed in posting. We had 22 people in total for Thanksgiving. It was a really nice time.

We had a few people who were unable to make it so we made up some baskets of food afterwards and Kenneth and the children delivered them. 

We did it buffet style. this picture was before we actually put all the food on the table. 

We had one table set up for the children its hard to see in the picture but Chris made little paper boats with their names as sail's for each child. You can see in the middle of the table a glass jar with candy canes with little turkeys on them. Below pictures. 

The children and I sewed these together for each of the children that came. They were a big hit. I did 6 with brown bodies and black and orange tails and 6 with black bodies and brown and orange tails. 

Regrettably I did not get any pictures once people arrived. It was too busy and no one else had the camera. 

But all in all it was a fun day. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

Glasgow and...

A few weeks ago C and K went with me to Glasgow for a long weekend. It was a really nice time. Sorry I did not get more pics then these few. 

Waiting on our first train. 

K wanted to write just like Aunty Nome was writing! 

On our way home. tired little lassy. 

Thurs T really enjoyed me going in to help him do some projects. He was making snails and snowman quite the combination! :)  

He loves working on the computer. 

The evenings are cold and dark so some evenings are spend with daddy, playing a game or reading a book. 

Till next time. 

Bonfire night.

On Saturday we all went down to

mum and dads and had dinner and fireworks.

For those of you who dont know why the
5th of November is Guy Fawkes day:

 Remember, remember! The fifth of November,

The Gunpowder treason and plot;

I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!  

Guy Fawkes and his companions Did the scheme contrive,

To blow the King and Parliament All up alive.

Threescore barrels, laid below,

To prove old England's overthrow.  

But, by God's providence, him they catch,

With a dark lantern, lighting a match!  

A stick and a stake For King James's sake!

If you won't give me one, I'll take two,

The better for me,  And the worse for you.

A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope, A penn'orth of cheese to choke him, A pint of beer to wash it down, And a jolly good fire to burn him. Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring! Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!

Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray! English Folk Verse (c.1870)

Sorry the pictures are fuzzy. My phone is hard to take at night with movement. 

Katie covered her ears as they kept going pop as she said. :) 

Watching fireworks go off. 

Katie watching. 

She seemed to enjoy it even with covering her ears. 

Kenneth helping out. 

The little ones all enjoyed the fireworks.

We all went inside and enjoyed a lovely dinner of baked potatoes with coleslaw, cheese, beans. parched peas! yum yum! And then we all had a piece of bonfire cake L had baked and helped me decorate All in all it was a lovely time!

Spent the afternon building this....

This afternoon after we got chores and school done I ran into town real quick before lunch to pick up a few things for our autumn display board. I went into one of the charity shops and they had a book there with directions and colored pieces to make a ship. Being that my husband is a navel architect by trait my boys love anything to do with ships. So we spent the rest of the afternoon putting it together. Oh was it harder then I thought.   

 

As you can see all the guns and cannon balls had to be put together too. 

It even came with a captain and cabin boy. 

. 

It was very tiny bits you had to put together. many a time we thought of putting it away and forgetting it. But we kept going and now are glad we did. I still have glue on my figures but heyho it will eventually come off. :) 

I did not get a pic of the boys with it yet as they are all in there beds asleep. Tomorrow is Ts birthday! He is pretty excited about it. Keeps reminding me as he sais "just so you wont forget" oh theres no way I could forget his birthday! His birth is one that will not be forgotten too quickly. 

Hopefully I will have some pics of the birthday boy soon to put up. Till then have a great day. 

Can hardly believe it is near the end of October. Another birthday is nearly upon us again. Can hardly believe my little boys is going to 6! Seems like just yesterday when he arrived. Alot has happened in his life. The children are on holiday next week so it will be nice for him to be home on his birthday. I am making him biscuits (cookies) to take to all his classmates tomorrow. One of the fun things they get to do when they are in school. :) 

Last week was my in-laws anniversary so my daughter wanted to make them a meal and a cake. she did a great job. She made sausages grilled and then cooked in apples and onion gravy, with mashed potatoes, carrots, peas and broccoli. And then she had made a cake and decorated it herself which was had with ice cream. It was enjoyed by everyone! 

Today Katie went with me shopping today. she walked along ways with out the pushchair but was very tired when we were finished. Normally I take the pushchair as she has such short legs she gets tired easily but today we did not have room to take it so left it at home. She got some much needed new shoes and carried them all herself so I think that helped with her walking too. :) 

On Thurs I go into Ts school and do a craft or something with him. Today he made a few crafts and then worked on the computer with his letters etc. Below is a pic of his work while on the computer. For a 5 year this is pretty neat writing. Even his teachers are amazed as how neat he is. He is taking after C who has very neat writing. 

November/December are going to be busy months with birthdays, 

Busy week next week with the children all home. The older children and I are supposed to be going to Glasgow the second week in November but we will have to see. May have to wait as we will be taking a trip to London shortly to get an item for our family. more on that later. :) Will hopefully post again next week but we shall see what time allows.