lot
of fun, and thankfully it was not quite as hot out as two years ago when they
went to the same race. The drive was also nice, and allowed Keith and his Dad
to catch up and talk about our possibly buying a house here in Munster. Hello Family & Friends,
After a busy July, we took it easy in August. Well, for a few days at least. The big events this month were Keith's employer going public, his week-long trip for work, his Dad's visit, and his competing in the Accenture Chicago Triathlon. Natasha's pregnancy is beginning to really show; people finally believe her when she says she's pregnant! Noah is excited, and often listens to ("baby crying") or sings to the baby through Mommy's belly. This month we also continued to look at houses in our area. We looked inside 12 others (and many more just from the outside) but it didn't take long to realize that the first one we viewed was the best one for us. We put in an offer on it while Keith's Dad was in town.
On August 6th, Keith's employer NAVTEQ
went public on the New York stock exchange under the symbol NVT. While Keith
does have some stock options, they're not exactly enough for us to retire on.
The next day, Keith's Dad Harry came down for a weekend visit, and together
they drove to Indianapolis to attend the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race. The race
was a lot
of fun, and thankfully it was not quite as hot out as two years ago when they
went to the same race. The drive was also nice, and allowed Keith and his Dad
to catch up and talk about our possibly buying a house here in Munster.
On Monday after the race weekend, Keith and Harry dropped Noah off at daycare and headed for the airport. Harry returned home to Nova Scotia, and Keith went to Toronto to begin an internal quality audit at NAVTEQ offices in Canada and the Eastern US. After parking and riding the shuttle to the airport, Keith arrived only 30 minutes before his flight, but somehow still managed to get on board. Not checking bags certainly helped.
This was the start of a whirlwind week of auditing at the offices in Toronto (actually Markham), Washington, DC (actually Falls Church, VA) and Philadelphia (actually Conshohocken) in preparation for the big certification audit at the end of October. NAVTEQ is adding field offices in phases to the main Chicago headquarters ISO 9001:2000 certificate. Joining this year are the regions of Canada and Eastern US. Next year the remaining regions in the US will be rolled under the same certificate. The most interesting aspect of this work is that these offices are home to the closest thing to manufacturing at NAVTEQ. Analysts based in the field offices research and then actually drive every road in the world to ensure accuracy. Along the way, they also collect valuable addressing, speed limit, turn restriction, and lane information. The field is always busy, since on average 10% of the road network changes every year, and new developments need to be added. This also afforded Keith the opportunity to meet many more of his fellow NAVTEQ employees.
While Keith was in Toronto, we received a response to our house offer. After conversations into the night between us (and Marc, too!) we decided to accept their counter-offer and be done with the negotiations. We are one step closer to buying our very own house! Keith's good friend Marc has been helping us since May, when we first decided to look into a house purchase. Marc is newly-employed as a mortgage broker, but he has learned his craft very quickly and provided us with amazing advice - our buyer's agent has been impressed.
Keith's poor 12-year old BMW passed emissions testing once again, meaning it's cleared to be on the road for another two years. This is good, since with a mortgage payment this will once again become a primary vehicle for us. It may be old, but it's in good shape, drives well, and (the best part) it's paid for!
We made a return trip to the Lake County Fair in nearby Crown Point. Noah
was very pleased with all the animals to see (and a few to touch) including
roosters, chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, pigs (and a litter of piglets!),
cows, and horses. The highlight was Noah's first ride on a pony. From the moment
we 
told
him we were headed to the fair, he said he wanted to "ride horse"
and sure enough, there was a pony ride just right for him. Keith escorted Noah
to ensure he did not fall off. After several fun laps Noah announced, "all
done!" and promptly slid off the horse (into Keith's arms) without waiting
for it to stop. He talked about his horse ride for weeks, and told anyone that
would listen about it.
After a home inspection the morning of the 19th, we hurried to the airport
in the afternoon to start a quick visit home to Nova Scotia. The main reason
for our visit was to attend the sometimes-annual Poole picnic in Hampton (where
Harry grew up), in the Annapolis Valley. It was great to see so many of our
relatives on the Poole side, many of whom we have not seen for years, and obviously
none of whom we see very often. Noah got to meet lots of family (including 
Keith's
cousin Cathy and uncle Meb pictured here) although he may not remember them
all just yet. We also got to attend the last day of the Annapolis County Exhibition
in nearby Lawrencetown. We cheered on Scott
as he competed in a class with his horse, and when Scott won a ribbon he came
over to the railing and gave it to Noah! Noah was very excited, and wore the
big yellow ribbon on his shirt pocket for the
rest of the evening. We departed the exhibition grounds before the late evening
events, but that was just as well since shortly afterwards it absolutely poured
rain. Instead we stayed inside watching the Olympics in Athens and visiting
with Keith's cousin Patty and her daughter Katie.
By the way, Noah has been quite enthralled with the Olympics, watching for a while almost every night. He particularly enjoys the swimming and diving, but we had to watch him carefully when he started 'diving' onto the living room rug. Another event he loved was the gymnastics with a ribbon, which he emulated enthusiastically for us, reminiscent of the July update.
Upon our return, Keith made his final preparations for the big Accenture
Chicago Triathlon at the end of the month. After one swim in Lake Michigan
on Tuesday before the race, Keith started an intensive rest program. This actually
made
a huge difference and the event on Sunday went very well. Keith finished the
event (he bowed out last year after multiple flat bike tires) and shaved more
than eight minutes off his previous best time,
but more importantly felt better than ever during it. He now has no doubt that
he can take another 20 minutes off next year and finally break the three hour
mark!
While home we had missed the first Bears pre-season home game at Soldier Field. On the 27th Noah and Keith rode the train into downtown Chicago to take in a bit of the symphony at the new Millennium Park, grab a bite to eat, and ride the shuttle (school) bus down to the second and final pre-season home game. Noah thinks football is great - "throwing… kicking… running…" - and gladly participated in all the clapping and cheering. The Bears lost, but it's only the pre-season yet.
Late this month we got out for a date at one of our favourite restaurants (Balagio) and finished up a few days later with Sarah McLachlan concert at the United Center on the 31st. For the concert, we lost our babysitter on short notice, so Noah came with us. With his wax earplugs in place, he quite enjoyed the show - although he did fall asleep about half-way through. Months ago, when we first heard that Sarah McLachlan was coming to Chicago we considered buying tickets. But when Keith found out that the show was to be at the United Center (where the Bulls and Blackhawks play) we changed our minds, fearing that it was acoustically not a good venue for her. Keith said, "I would go if we won tickets, but I'm not buying any." Sure enough, Keith won two tickets a few weeks later from a local radio station. The show turned out to be excellent and we really enjoyed it.