Well, the McMullan household certainly has been happening during the last week. Alyssa and Nate are doing remarkably well, juggling a very cute and active 2-year old and taking care of baby Cora. Alyssa is actually taking showers and applying lipstick.

We have a new niece! Cora Rose was born on April 20, 2005 weighing in at 7lbs. 1 ounce.  She has dark hair and full lips and a good set of lungs (I could hear her crying through the phone).  Alyssa is doing well – she called about a half an hour after the baby was born and said, "I just had a baby" in her normal voice! Eden has a little cold right now so as of yesterday had not met her baby sister. 

And now I can say, as Uncle Tom used to when we were little, "I love my nieces to pieces."

We didn’t want to say anything until it was official….BUT, we are now very proud homeowners!  We signed all the papers last night and had the final walk-through, so I think that counts as official.  We have been just a little excited about buying a house! We were the first people to look at this house and for some reason, the owner (who wanted an unusually long escrow) decided to take a chance on us – at the time, we didn’t even know if we would be living in the area for Telfer’s residency.   God is good – Telfer found out that he would be staying at Loma Linda and the house was ours! 

The house is in Redlands, near the University of Redlands. It’s a 1928 bungalow that needs a little TLC (two words: pink kitchen). The owner, or previous owner, I should say, has lived in the house for 60 years (she’s in her nineties now).  We get the keys on Monday afternoon and in the first week we will be getting a new roof, refinishing the hardwood floors, and putting in kitchen tile (we are doing the tile – should be interesting).  We will definitely take before and after pictures!  I will also put more pictures into the "2005 photographs." Check back for updates – I have a feeling our blog is going to evolve into "what are they doing to their house now?"

This last weekend was so much fun.  I spent Saturday and Sunday in Pasadena with my good friend, Anna Ganske.  We shoppped, read at Starbucks, and basically dinked around Pasadena with Bekah Hall (she’s pregnant!) and Shelly Hall.  Anna was mostly in town to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her grandfather’s bookstore, Dawson’s Books (you can read about the history of the book store) in Los Angeles.  I tagged along with her to the celebration on Sunday – Anna comes from a long line of book-lovers and it was special to be involved.  Her grandfather is limber and healthy at 93(I think…) and has accomplished many interesting and great things in his life.

For various reasons, we decided to keep our Washington license plates
while Telfer was in medical school. As we are staying for at least five
more years, we succumbed to the inevitable and registered our cars
in California.

Some of you may think not much is going on in our lives if this qualifies as "newsworthy" – but I think it’s noteworthy for at least two reasons. 1. I will not be able to find the car in parking lots anymore (I always look for the Washington plates and 2. We can no longer pretend to be out of state drivers who are unfamiliar with certain areas…we might not receive as much grace for zipping over to an exit at the very last minute or cutting in a long line of cars because we did not know we had to get over…etc.