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.

Happy Birthday to Boon Hong

We celebrated Boon Hong's birthday today. Meredith sang happy birthday for her mummy last night with a small birthday cake. She sang happy birthday again for Boon Hong this afternoon in front of a bowl of strawberry. On both occassions, Meredith failed to keep her focus from being distracted by the food in front of her. She kept staring at the cake and she started licking the cake before we got through singing. Below is a video clip showing Meredith eating strawberries by the mouthful even as she sang Happy Birthday to Boon Hong:

The $2.99 chocolate mouse pie from Target functioned as Boon Hong's birthday cake. It is surprisingly good for a grocey store's cake. I think it is just as good as those cake we typically get from La Madelaine bakery.

Meredith in her Chicken Suit. We bought it since Fall Festival (otherwise known as Halloween in politically incorrect term) is coming up in a few weeks. She insisted on putting it on once she saw the chicken crown on the suit.

Meredith with straight hair

Meredith normally has curly and unwieldy hair. Today after she showered, her Ah Yi (nanny) combed her hair very neatly. So this is rare photos of Meredith with straight hair.

Caylan's birthday party

We went to Caylan's birthday party a few weeks ago at the water park in Sugar land. It is not really a water park but rather a park with water spraying from nozzles and fountains for kids to play with. Boon Hong refused to appear in photo so the following are just photos of Meredith and some Malaysian friends.

Meredith with birthday boy Caylan and aunty Sze Lock.

Meredith eating chicken nuggets.

Caylan cutting Sesame street cake.

Meredith finally got to play with the water park part of the birthday party.