Ian's June visit to KAUST.

Here I am finally finishing up this post...
In June there was a KAUST faculty meeting, it was held in Jeddah and some of the meetings took place out at the KAUST site.
We were all set for Ian to take lots of pictures, he snapped as many as he could and even took some video.
(He would like me to let you all know that many of the pictures were taken from a moving bus or through a dusty lens, so please excuse the less then perfectness of them.)
This is just a picture he took of the sky, I like it so you all get to see it. :)

Ian even had a few people to come up and chat with him and comment that they have read our blog. (Hello to all of you!)
One of those people is Aram. He is a fellow Canadian. He wanted to be on the blog too.
Everyone say Hello Aram.

Hello Aram from Kristin Foulds on Vimeo.

So onto pictures I know you all want to see!
This set is all of the university buildings.

A video of the view from the inside of the university buildings.

Panoramic view from KAUST university building. from Kristin Foulds on Vimeo.

This second set of pictures is of mix of both the inside and outside of the university buildings as well as some of the other buildings at KAUST.

This last set is a mix of shots from around KAUST.

And last but not least a video with snippets from the inside of a 3 bedroom house they toured through. (Again, Ian wanted to say sorry it moves a little fast, but he had to take the video very quickly so that he didn't get left behind.)

3 Bedroom House from Kristin Foulds on Vimeo.

So there you have it.

Wont be long and we'll be living there!
:)

Birthday Wishes

Happy 49th Birthday to Mom/Alison/Oma!

Marin's Supper Time Prayer.

This past Sunday (2 days before we moved) Ian and Marin had gone out in the afternoon to pick up a couple last minute things. They were at T&T and Marin, remember that they sell Pocky there, asked if they could get some. Sure enough they arrived home with a box of Dessert Pocky.
While waiting for supper Ian, Marin and Corban were watching a tv show and when dinner was ready we paused it.
We told Marin that after dinner we would all have some of the Pocky and then she could finish the last little bit of her tv show. We sat down to dinner and Ian asked Marin if she wanted to pray for dinner. This is what she prayed.
"Dear Lord,
Thank you for this food.
Thank you that we are going to have Pocky and please let me finish watching my tv show.
Amen."
When you are 3, these are the things that are important to you.
She is such a funny kid!

16 Months.

Today our boy is 16 months old.
For this occasion I am going to make a list of 16 things about him.

1. He continues to be a totally cuddly, lovey little guy. Every morning he comes into bed with us and snuggles for a bit before we get up for the day. He goes back and forth between Ian and I giving us big hugs. When I am in the kitchen making a meal and he and Marin are playing in the living room he will come into the kitchen and put his arms out for a hug. I bend down to get my hug and he runs over and throws his arms around my neck, I give him a kiss and then he is off again to play.
2. He has been interested in puzzles (the wooden board ones like this) the last little while and he is pretty good at them. The ones he likes are all animals and he is very good at matching them.
3. Every morning when Ian leaves for work Corban stands at the door and waves bye bye. It is so cute the way he does it, he extends his arm all the way and waves his hand and say "bahh, bahh!" Then once I close the door he watches out the window beside the door.
4. He and Marin love to play together in his crib, they like it when I load a bunch of stuffys in there with them. Marin will ask to play in his bed, and so, as soon as he sees her in there he runs to me with his arms up indicating that he wants in too.
5. At bath time he loves playing with the running water coming out of the tap. He also thinks it is pretty funny to pour water on Marin's head with the cup, to keep things fair he pours it on himself too though.
6. He says "cheese" for the camera with a totally scrunched up cheesy grin face.
7. He is really good at communicating what he wants without words. He has made up quite a few of own signs, and he totally understands when we give him options and will point to the one he wants.
8. When we are walking outside he always has to have at least one rock or stick in one of his hands. It is the first thing he looks for when he gets outside. As we walk along he is continually finding more and gives all the extras to me.
9.He and Marin now share a bedroom, they have for about 6 weeks now. At bedtime after teeth have been brushed Marin sits in her bed (a toddler bed so it is low to the ground) and Ian and I sit beside it. Corban sits on one of our laps and the other reads the bedtime story, then we pray and sing a couple songs. Once the last song is sung (usually "Jesus love me") Corban stands up and throws his arms around Marin and gives her a hug, Marin of course hugs back. Then he comes to me for a big hug and I tuck him into bed.
10. His vocabulary is growing, he now says "book" (and if he is really excited about reading a book he says "booka booka") ,"ball", "pup"(dog), "gaff"(giraffe), "el"(elephant), "bahbah"(bottle), "blloock"(block), "juces"(juice), and "bug". As well he snorts like a pig and says"cak" (quack), "moo", and "ba" when asked what sounds those animals make.
11. He likes to build his own towers, he will use whatever is around, blocks, stacking cups, mega blocks. He also likes to stack his plate, bowl and cup at the dinner table.
12. He likes to sit and look at books on his own, he likes to crawl up on Marin's bed and flip through the pages. He continues to like to be read to as well.
13. He is very helpful when it is clean up time. As soon as he sees me putting something into a container he comes along and starts picking things up too.
14. He has really begun the whole "monkey see monkey do", the other day Marin had stacked all the couch pillows onto a stack on the floor, she stepped back a ways and ran towards it and belly flopped onto them. Corban immediately copied her, then each time she would straighten the pillows to do it again he would beat her to the belly flop, he thought it was totally awesome.
15. He is still totally into brushing teeth. Although he hates it when we brush his teeth, he wants to hold the brush himself. He screams blue murder, while we pin him down and brush his teeth, and as soon as we stop and the brush is in his hand he is silent and everything is dandy again.
16. He has many little nick-names or pet names Marin calls him, "Corby-Corby", Ian calls him "C-dawg", I call him "my little Corban Barry", "Tiny man" and "snuggle bug" and "lovey boy" (because he is so snuggley). He also gets called "CB" by his Grandpa and "Corbanator" by his Opa.

So that is a bit about our little man right now, we just love him to bits and pieces! He is such a fun little boy, so happy, he loves to experience life and be a part of everything. Watching him grow up is wonderful!
We love you Corban!

A Date!

We have a date!
We have 4 plane tickets!
July 31st is the day we fly!
We will arrive at KAUST, our new home on August 1st!
Hooray!

I have put a count down on the side bar, 33 days until we leave!

Bye SFU.

SFU, Simon Fraser University has been a large part of our lives, especially Ian's. He started his undergrad degree there in September of 1997.
Now almost 12 years later he is married (for over 9 years), with 2 children and #3 on the way, has earned 3 degrees, bought and sold a house, has made many friends and memories, and temporarily lived up here at SFU, while we wait to move to KSA. The time has come to leave now though, and I know he will miss it.
While living up here the kids and I have taken many walks over to the campus to just play around and enjoy the sunny weather.
SFU is located at the top of Burnaby Mountain, and has a spectacular 360* view. Architecturally the campus is full of very straight lines and has a very large courtyard called the academic quadrangle. In the quadrangle there are sculptures, the reflecting pond, and well trimmed hedges with straight lines keeping in sync with the buildings.
If any of you watch any of the Si-fi shows like Stargate, or Battlestar Galactica then you have seen many shots of SFU, it has been used a lot in the filming of those shows.

On June 30th we will be packing up a U-haul and heading to Salmon Arm, we will stay there until we head to KSA. We will sort through all our belongings and decide what we want to have shipped to our new home at KAUST, and what we will pass along to others.

Things are really happening now, our big move is becoming real.
We will miss the lower mainland, it has been our home, we are ready to move on though, we always knew that this was not going to be forever.

We are not saying good bye forever. I know we will be back for visits, but until then, good bye Coquitlam, good bye lush green Vancouver mainland and good bye SFU.

We were wrong again!

And so were over half of you.

A little boy is on the way! :)
Marin had been excited all day, she was looking forward to seeing the baby. She asked me this afternoon how they were going to open up my tummy so we could see the baby. I explained to her that is was kind of like the doppler at the doctor's but that it was hooked up to a computer screen and then we could see a picture of the baby.
As we were getting ready to leave the house we asked Marin one last time if she thought she was going to get a baby brother or a baby sister. This time she said brother. We asked if she was sure because for so long she has been sure she was getting a sister. She said no, brother. She was right. She is really excited too, she was jumping up and down in the hallway at the ultrasound clinic saying "I am so excited to have another baby brother!" That made/makes Ian and I very happy that she is excited about 2 little brothers. :)
We are of course thrilled too, a 3rd healthy little one is on the way!
Everything with him looks great his little heart was beating away and he was showing us all his little moves. It will be fun for Corban and him to be so close in age, I can just see the fun *read trouble* they are going to get into!
Wrapping his arm around his chest and bringing up his leg.
The bottom of his little foot. :)
And my favorite, flexing his arm for us.

So was your guess right or wrong?

Meeting Jay the Long Way.

On Saturday the kids and I had an adventure of sorts, I say it that way because it started out bad, but ended really well.
One of the things that I was hoping to do before moving away was meet Jay, she and I have been reading each others blogs for almost 2 years, she also lives in the lower mainland so we live reasonably close, a whole lot closer than we will come next month!
Ian was away for 5 days over the weekend in KSA for another faculty meeting and as it turned out Jay's husband was also gone on a work trip the same weekend. It was great because it gave us both something to do for the day to keep our minds off missing our men.
Anyway the plan was for us to meet at Centennial Park in Ladner at 11am. According to Google maps it was an hour drive, I printed off the directions and the kids and I were out the door with all our gear for the day and a picnic lunch by 9:40am, plenty of time, or so I figured.
The first 1/3rd of our trip was easy I had driven that way before, but then Google failed me! It had not accounted yet for some recent construction at a very major point of our trip and I was unaware of this. I followed what the instructions said but with the new road way system that is now in place I was sent down the wrong road with no way of getting back. The road I was on I had driven before, not lots but it was a little familiar. I watched for cross roads and when I got the opportunity I pulled over and got out the 10+ year old map book we have in the van. I found where I was and had a general idea of where I needed to head to get to where we were meeting Jay. So off we went.
We drove for a while longer and still I was not seeing the roads that I new would get me to where I needed to be. We pulled over again this time to ask for directions, Corban had thankfully fallen asleep and Marin was doing awesome. The man that helped us ended up giving us bum directions and again I knew I was going the wrong way when the road signs began to tell me I was heading to Seattle! (Sorry Belky I was not prepared to come visit you, we had no passports with us!)
So we pulled over, we were in White Rock. I pulled out the map book found where I was and called Jay to tell her we were going to be late and ask if she new how we could get to where we needed to be, she was not super familiar with where I was but pointed me in the right direction.
Corban woke up at this point and I gave both of them a cookie and kept going. Marin had been talking with me pretty much the whole time and when we got lost that became the main topic of conversation. She was worried, but told me it was okay, that we could just go home. Poor girl, she did so well the whole time, she kept me from freaking out.
We pulled over again a ways down the road to ask for more direction, this time they were really good ones! We were finally on a road that was part of my directions. Marin at this point announced that "It sure is nice to be going the right direction!"
So on we went, we took the correct exit and followed the instructions, that then failed me again! I did what they told me to do I stayed right like it said I should. I even said to myself "stay right I write with my right hand." But as I went down that road I just new it was wrong, and I was right. I turned around again and went back to where I had made the "wrong" turn, I called Jay and I told her the land marks I was near and she thankfully new exactly where I was! She then stayed on the phone with me for a bit and got me on right track again.
As we drove along I was talking with the kids telling them what road we were looking for next and whatnot, Marin was helping me she called herself my "lookout". We were looking to turn down 12th St. I was telling them the street names/numbers as we passed them, I then heard her say. "Where is that sneaky little 12th st.?!"
We finally got to the park only to realize that Google failed me AGAIN! It brought us to the park but to the pedestrian entrance at a dead end road! There was no parking lot in sight!
What the heck!
So I called Jay again and she told me that there were signs for another park a little ways back that is right beside Centennial Park and that that is where the parking lots are.
So back we drove. Finally, we arrived and I parked the van and finally, we got out of the van, an hour later then we were supposed to arrive.
Marin and Corban did SO well, I was and still am super impressed that they were as content as they were.
Jay and Ariel came over to meet us and we headed to the beach. We had our lunch and then the kids enjoyed some play time together in the sand. They got along really well and Ariel got a preview as to what having a little brother will be like. :) Jay is expecting #2, a little boy, 2 month before I am due. Us moms had a great time chatting about a variety of things and snapping pictures of the kids.

We attempted a "nice" photo of the 3 of them and it worked pretty well. In this picture they were clapping, Corban had a rock in his hand and when he clapped it fell out, they all looked to see it fall between his legs and he of course had to get it back.

We went walking in the tide pools, and it was fun to watch the kids enjoy them. After some more time playing in the sand Jay and Ariel took us to see the "secret garden". It is this beautiful garden that one of the local people has created in a public easement behind his property, it is open daily for people to walk through and enjoy. The kids thought is was a pretty neat place, Jay and I enjoyed all the flowers too. :)

The 3 kiddos in the garden.

After our time in the garden it was 4pm and time to head for home. Jay said she would lead me out of the area and told me were to turn off to get me to a road I knew would get me home, we figure my Google maps instructions were useless so between the 2 of us we got me and the kids home. The trip home was smooth sailing and it only took one hour.
So that was our adventure.
Thanks for meeting us Jay and Ariel and showing a beautiful new park, for waiting and extra hour for us and for helping us get home again. we had a great time with you both. :)