Boon Hong Last Day at School

BoonHong's farewell card from her students

Meredith said "Dii Dii tekk" meaning that she knows these toys are for her brother. But she already started playing with some of the toys.

DSCN2812, originally uploaded by Meredith Sugar Land.

Time went by very fast. Two and half years ago, Boon Hong was applying to be a teacher after she became certified. She started teaching seventh grade math at Jackson Middle School. This school is an urban school in downtown Houston. Almost all her students are hispanics and many come from low income families. There are problematic students but there are also some good ones that made her think it's worth it. She struggled a lot initially but this year her students result have been improving and she is even made a lead teacher this semester. Today is the last day at school. Today she officially became stay home mom and begins next chapter in life. She originally planned to quit next January or February (1 or 2 months before her due date) but a few things happened that prompted her to quit earlier. The primary reason is she is rather stressed about a complication that has arise in the pregnancy. Another reason is this pregnancy seems to be a lot tougher for her than last one. She is always out of breath and breathing heavily and constantly tired. Today I went to picked her up and help her clear out her classroom. Teachers in her cluster (her team) had organized a baby shower for her on the last day. She received a lot of diapers, a big frog and many other cute things. Some gifts are from her students. Anyway, Meredith learnt to say that "Isaac tekk" and "dii dii tekk" when she saw all those gifts. But she is not shy about playing the toys first even though she said those gifts are for Isaac.

Tyler's birthday party

DSCN2794, originally uploaded by Meredith Sugar Land.

We went to Tyler's birthday party today. Tyler is John and Cheryl son. Cheryl is Chiew Hong's cousin. Chiew Hong is my former housemate. Anyway, the nasi lemak that Chiew Hong's husband cooked is excellent, better than most Malaysia restaurants in Houston. Meredith had a blast too, she played with Tyler's toy trucks, toy cars and even a mini-slide in their house. The funniest thing when they brought out the birthday cake, Meredith dropped everything she was doing and went to the coffee table. All the kids crowd around the table, somehow she managed to squeeze her way to get a spot next to the birthday boy. They gave her a slice of the birthday cake, and she goobled it down in about 5 minutes. Normally, it took about 45 minutes and multiple threats and chasing around to get Meredith to eat her rice or porridge. But she doesn't need any encouragement from us when it comes to cake and desserts.

Ian, Ianna and Meredith

http://madeinhouston.blogspot.com/2007/11/literally-two-small-no-guess.html

Our friend CS and Pearl made a wonderful blog entry featuring Ian, Ianna and Meredith. Please click the link above to view this entry.

Houston zoo

The weather was quite cold the day we visited the zoo. Meredith learn to put her hands in her pockets whenever she can. I think exposing her to different environment has helped her learning process.

DSCN2730, originally uploaded by Meredith Sugar Land.

We went to Houston zoo today. Today is the day after Thanksgiving so it is still public holiday. Most people go shopping today. Boon Hong went shopping for four hours in the morning to buy clothes for Meredith and also to bring our babysitter to the mall. We went to the zoo in the afternoon. The zoo is free today so there are lots of people at the zoo, mostly families with kids. This is the second time we've been to the zoo. The first time was March this year. At the time, Meredith only recognized a few animal and she wasn't as interested. But this time around, Meredith recognized most of the common animal such as lion, leopard, monkey, and elephant. She is also thrilled to see all these animals in real life. We spent about 45minutes at the petting area where kids are allow to touch goats and sheeps. There are only about five goats and there are more than 30 kids. So the poor goats are being harassed by all these tiny kids running around after them.

Click the followng Flickr link for more photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18136891@N00/sets/72157603278805765/

Thanksgiving dinner

DSCN2683, originally uploaded by Meredith Sugar Land.

We went to Elder Ron Ho's house for thanksgiving dinner last night. Ron and Anne has opened up their house generously for Thanksgiving every year last few years. About 30 people from our chruch showed up last night. It was a wonderful meal and gathering time. The turkey is good and the stuffing was made out of rice and stuffing.

Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday in the US and the concept is quite meaningful because the focus of this holiday is to give thanks (and eat a lot, shop a lot). More photos on my Flickr Link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18136891@N00/sets/72157603275741965/

Bicycle carrier for Meredith

I bought a child carrier for Meredith recently. I found it at Academy and it costs only $39 and I also got a $9 cycling helmet for Meredith. Not bad for a bicycle rack with an attached child seat. It took me about an hour to install the mounting rack on my bike. It is hard to get the rack installed right because my bike is a road bike and the geometry isn't designed to accept a bike rack. Anyway, I got it to work after some modification. The child seat attaches to the rack with some quick release mechanism. Meredith was very excited about the child seat before I install it. She climbed into the seat on the ground and put on the bicycle helmet pretending she was driving. However, after I installed the child seat onto the bicycle, she refused to get into the seat. I had to put her teddy bear into the child seat and ride my bicycle around to show her how it works. After half an hour of persuading, she still refused to get into the bike seat. I have to admit this bike is not designed to have a child seat attached, it felt unstable even to me. Anyway, I ended returning the child seat and rack to the store for a refund.

Prayers for my precious little Isaac

Then God said, "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. -Gen 17:19

Sarah said, "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." -Gen 21:6

It has been our toughest days since I had received the call from Dr. Star. However, we are counting on God's blessings everyday. You will always be our beloved son no matter what happened to you. We will live up to your name. Always and forever.

Hot Air Balloon

We went to Clear Lake today for the hot air balloon festival. Clear Lake is about 40 minutes from Houston and this is where the NASA space center is located. Last time we visited Clear Lake was in 2006 when my parents visited. We arrived at 5pm, just in time to see multiple hot air balloons being launched. We stayed till 8pm and saw the highlight of this event which is multiple hot air balloons being lit up at the same time. The scene is pretty amazing, like a wall of giant light bulbs illuminating the night sky. We sat very close to one of hot air balloon launch pad. We can feel the heat from the burner whenever the pilot fire up the burner. Meredith learned to cover her ears and buried her face into Boon Hong's arm when the burner is spitting fire into the balloon with searing heat and rumbling noise. She also learned how to say hot air balloon in chinese today.