Mid-autumn festival

This past weekend, we celebrated mid-autumn festival at a friend's apartment. We bought two paper lanterns, one is a duck cartoon lantern for Meredith and Isaac gets a fish shape lantern.
The lanterns are $2 each at the local Hong Kong market. We lit the candles for them and took them on a walk around the parking lot.

We also went to the zoo this weekend because the weather is really great, cool and breezy. We need to make better use of our annual pass because we haven't been the zoo that much even though it is free with the annual pass. New Orleans is very enjoyable and it is one place it has that is better than Houston.

Meredith and Isaac riding the carousel at the zoo, it's only $1 for each child.

Meredith has been sick

Meredith doing her treatment of albuterol to clear her lung during her asthma attack

We have not updated our blog for a very long time. My workload has increased last few months and between work, kids, part time graduate school, I am struggling to fit everything in and to find time to post on our blog. But I think it is finally time to update people of our recent activities.

Recently, both Meredith and Isaac have been sick a lot. Since they got back from Malaysia, we have been in and out of doctor's office almost every week due to cold, fever and other minor sickness. I think the main reason is Meredith started school and she brought home all kinds of germs from school.

Lately, she got two episodes of asthma attacks too. She never had asthma attack and the first time it happened, we didn't know what it was. She complained of stomach ache and we thought she was having stomach virus. Apparently, she was breathing very hard using her stomach until her stomach muscle started hurting. Thank God that on both occassions she have recovered well.

The clinic here has given her a nebulizer (an air compressor look alike thing) for us to take home, she has used that to breath in a solution to her cope with the asthma attack. We still don't know what trigger her asthma, the doctor is thinking that it might have to do with pollen. New Orleans has been raining nonstop for past few weeks, maybe that has stirred up the pollen.

Anyway, she is doing okay now and we have to give a small dose of Pulmicort everyday for 3 months (using the breathing machine) to prevent further asthma attack. Boon Hong is keeping a log of her activities to figure out what trigger her asthma.

New Orleans Tomato Festival

New Orleans truly has a lot of festival. Starting with Mardi Gras in February, follow by French Quarter festival, Jazz festival, Greek Festival and two weeks ago a small time festival called Tomato Festival.

All the festival consist of the same components, food, drink (beer) and dancing. This small tomato festival is no exception.

Summer Camp in New Orleans

Every Friday afternoon, all the parents are invited to attend a weekly recap/performance at the summer camp that Meredith is attending. We went to the last two performances. Meredith is in the smaller age group, she hasn't had a chance to perform yet. All the kids in her age group sit in front of the stage and sing a long as the older kids lead the songs and perform short skits.

Her camp counselor leading a song.

The gym facility, this is where most of camp activities are held.

Meredith with her teacher.

The older kids performed while little ones tried to follow along

Meredith dressed up for her camp costume day. The camp rotate through various themes, sometimes the kids are required to dress like superhero or someone from the past.

Isaac comtemplating in front of the window.

Meredith says she shops for free

Meredith has been going to summer camp for the past two weeks. Her summer camp program ranges from swimming to outing trips to local grocery store/supermarket.

Meredith came home today and asked Boon Hong not to buy apple because she has already bought apple when she went to grocery store today. She has with her a plastic bag of food.

Apparently, her class at the summer camp took all the kids in a school bus to Breaux Mart, a local supermarket and let the kids pick several things to buy.

Meredith said she bought an apple for Boon Hong, an orange for pa pa, and a bag of chip for Isaac. She also bought a box of fruit juice and cookies for herself.

The most hilarious thing is she said this store sells stuff for free. Meredith said all she has to do is to scan all the items and put it in the plastic bags. She claimed that no one has to pay for things at Breaux Mart. She always sees us paying at grocery store and she told Boon Hong that we need to go to Breaux Mart in future because it is free. She did not realize her summer camp organizer has already made arrangement with Breaux Mart for all the kids to pick several items from the shelf and the school has already paid for everything.

We have the entire Audubon Zoo to ourselves!

We went to Audubon Zoo in New Orleans two weeks ago on Memorial Day holiday. It rained heavily on that day for almost entire day. The rain finally stopped around 2pm and the zoo closes at 5pm. We just joined membership at the zoo for the entire family for $65 (50% off from their regular membership price due to a promotion), it doesn't cost us anything to go the zoo for just two hours.

When we arrived at the zoo, I must say there are less than 10 visitors in the entire zoo since the rain just stopped and the zoo will be closing in a few hours. The zoo entry ticket is $13 and it is not worthwhile to go for just a few hours.

We went to the petting area, this is where the kids get to touched and combed the hair of goats and sheeps. We were pleasantly surprise, Meredith and Isaac are the only two kids there and they get to touch all the animals without having to wait in line. This is such a far cry from Houston zoo on public holiday where 100 kids chased around 5 goats trying to comb their hair.

Visit to New Orleans Museum of Art

After Hui Fun, Eric and family left, we decided to go take a look at NOMA (museum of art) since we are already in New Orleans city park area. The museum is housed in a very classical looking building. It is free for people that lives in Louisiana, so everyone you heard that, please move to New Orleans where museum is free!

Although compact in size, the museum has some very high quality art works including some work by Edgar Degas, a renowned french artist. We chanced upon a photography exhibition when we visited. While Boon Hong kept looking at the photography exhibits, I spent more time photographing the kids. I liked the interior lighting in the museum, it is soft but not too dim. I wished our camera can take better picture in these light conditions.

Meredith and Isaac in the pink room

Meredith and Isaac in the yellow room

Meredith and Isaac in the blue room

Meredith and Isaac in the light filled atrium of the museum

Fun mama visit us from Houston

Fun mama of the funschoolhouse blog came and visited us in New Orleans.
They were passing through on their way back to Houston from Destin, Florida.


Ethan is a big boy now and he is as high energy as I remembered him. Meredith loved to play with him and kept asking about him after he left.

We went to Russell grill near New Orleans lake front area for breakfast. We just discovered New Orleans lake front area and have been exploring that area last few weeks. City park, museum of art, marina are all clustered around this area.

Meredith, Ethan, Evan

Unique looking breakfast egg at Russell grill.