One year ago...

...we were on our way from Massachusetts to Minnesota.
The last year sure has gone by quickly!

Night-time woes...

Well, Lisa since you are having such a good time with your girls at night, we are regressing with the night time sleeping! Payton does just beautiful going to sleep. We get into her pjs, she loves to brush her teeth and then gives me a kiss says "bye-bye", waves and walks right into her room with Brian and after another hug and kiss from him she is out. She usually is great and sleeps until about 7am without a peep. Lately she has been waking up at least once and then decides at 5am (every morning) that it is time to get up. We usually let her cry a bit and if she doesn't go back to sleep, then we go and lay next to her crib for a few minutes until she calms down. She plays her fisher-price aquarium a few times and then she is asleep again. I know it isn't horrible, but the 5am thing every day is getting old! That stinker! She has had an nice cough and a cold for about a week. It seems that every time we are away from home for any length of time she seems to miss us at night or something. This started when we got back from vacation. Hopefully it will be over soon and she will get back to normal!

On other news, they are finally developig the empty lot next door. It is the only lot on our street that doesn't have a house on it yet. Although there are still a few that haven't been sold. So it looks like we will be living with the windows closed for a while. I hate that dust that gets into everything!

Hooray for Payton!

Well, as a lot of you know we have SLOWLY been introducing Payton to potty training. She gets put on the potty at daycare several times a day so we decided then that we should start trying to do more of it at home. She has never gone in the potty at daycare. She loves to sit on her one at home. Last night when we were getting her bath ready I asked her if she wanted to sit on the potty. Of course she did, she loves to use tons of TP! ha ha. She is so silly. She was on there for all of 5 seconds. And when she stood up we couldn't believe it. That stinker went on the potty! She was probably thinking "what is the big deal guys, don't you do this all the time?". We were thrilled. Probably just a fluke again, but we will take it!

busy, busy, busy...

We have been home for a little over a week (and we have all had a cold that entire time) and Friday we leave for WI. We just finished unpacking from our vacation to the UP! My younger sister Val is getting married next month so we have to do some celebrating for that, and Nicole's baby Jacob just turned a year old. So another birthday party:) Payton always has a lot of fun over there. All those toys that aren't hers!

We have been meaning to get tickets for New England for the fall and finally booked them this week. So everyong in MA and NH, we will be there September 21-24. It was fortunate that we were able to book a non-stop flight. So we can strap Payton in her carseat and she will be good to go until we get there. Hopefully!

This weekend was a scorcher in MN. We were thrilled yesterday to finally be able to open the windows in the evening again. I just love that fresh air:)

We also heard this week that our friends Nick and Andi from MA will be making the trek out to MN to visit the beginning of August! YIPPEE! Nick has family here in MN so we luck out:) We are so happy about that! We haven't seen the majority of our friends out there in almost a year. Lots to catch up on guys! Our good friends Mark and Kelly had their baby girl Jillian last week. Congrats guys!

Motorola

Tina mentioned it a little while ago, but here's the whole scoop on Motorola buying NextNet...

NextNet has been around for about 5 years but a little over a year ago they were puchased by Clearwire. Clearwire is basically an ISP so they would buy NextNet hardware to build out their networks but NextNet could also still supply their previous customer's with hardware as well. NextNet was considered a "wholly owned subsidiary". Craig McCaw is the owner of Clearwire...he's some billionaire who had originally started up what was to become AT&T wireless or something. This was good for NextNet since there was plenty of money to put into the company to make it grow...and it has. There are probably at least 15 new employees since I started and for a company of about 130 that's pretty good!

Now comes Motorola. They've been buying up a few companies to get into the WiMax business but none of them have really been proven and don't have any real number of users. The NextNet equipment doesn't quite adhere to the WiMax standard, but the technology works and there is a large paying customer base inplace. So Motorola found this attractive and can get into the market right away. Clearwire gets a good deal out of it because in addition to Motorola investing in Clearwire, Intel is also on board for twice as much investment as Motorola. The idea is to get the few technologies Motorola has been acquiring together to get a product that can do it all. So Motorola gets a pretty good deal by acquiring the technology, Clearwire gets a pretty good deal by having large investors to expand into more markets. NextNet...well, nobody's convinced that the deal is all that great for NextNet. There are concerns over relocation and consolodation, but Motorola assured us that there are no plans to move anyone [yet]. Everyone will be retained and will be kept at their current salary levels (except maybe some of the big-wigs...they might get a sweeter deal). The benifits will get a little better but the details haven't been brought around yet (401k match of 6% for instance).

The close date should be in about 30-60 days, so by September we will be Motorola emplyees. I don't expect too many changes at first, but we will have to implement new policies and procedures and I expect some documentation changes such as ECO's. We probably won't get free pop any more either! There were a lot of concers from those who have stock options (not me). Sounds like they're getting a little screwed in the deal but that's primarily due to government regulations since the Enron scandal.

So, that's it in a nutshell. I went from a large company to a small one back to a big one! I checked the websites and Motorola has fewer employees compared to Raytheon (63000 vs 80000), but Motorola is a $30 billion business compared to Raytheon at $20 billion.

As a side note...when I was finishing up at Tech I wanted to work for Motorola.

Then and now...

These photos are of Payton during our summer vacation at the lake, last year and last week. She has changed a little:)

Our Vacation...

We just got back last night from our week at the lake...

We had such a nice vacation. The weather was good enough for Brian to get in some water-skiing and for Payton to play in her pool. You didn't think our princess could handle that chilly lake water did you?! ha ha... She actually was loving the pool so much she cried when it was time to go in. That is a new one. Payton made it through several boat rides and this year she seemed to enjoy them a little more.

Our good friends David and Sarah (link at right) had their first child Ian Alexander on the fourth of July. What a great birthday! Dave had called us at the lake while Sarah was still in labor just to keep us posted (the lake house doesn't have internet) and I was OBSESSED with how everything was going! We were so happy to hear from them the next day and Sarah and baby were doing well. Congrats guys!

Brian got some interesting news from work. He got a call on Wednesday telling him about an all employee meeting that day and the 1-800 number to call in for it. He was on the call for about an hour to learn that his company NextNet Wireless is being bought by Motorola (sorry if I didn't spell that right)! He has several meetings this week which I am sure he will update on. Not sure right now what is happening. I was teasing Brian because while we were in college he always said he would like to work to Motorola. Guess he is going to get that wish!

Payton now has 2 new favorite words, grapes and cookie. Always about food right:)