And here's the Thanksgiving message from Rob:
"What are you thankful for?
Well for those of you who don't know yet, after 21 hours of labor, Susan gave birth to a 10 lbs 6 oz beautiful baby boy tonight, 10:29 PST. She was incredible! ... Susan will be in the hospital for a minimum of two days and I will be taking Simon in to visit his mommy and new baby brother in the morning. It's been a very, very long day for all of us.
A belated Happy Thanksgiving!

Love to you all, Rob

FOR MORE PICTURES OF CHARLES JOSEPH MILLSAP CLICK HERE!

Tommy also had his final violin lesson with Lynn Oakley. We were so sad to say good-bye! He played Minuet 1 by Bach for the Audience. Jake also performed one of his piano numbers, "It's a Fourth", for the group!

Although we don't have anything as momentous as Susan and Rob’s new pregnancy to report, we have a lot going on and I thought I would update everyone. Well, we have sold our house in SF. It went in a week, with 8 bids. We closed a month later in mid-March. The sale was not without its heartwrenching moments, especially for me. We have loved this house so well. We bought it in the first few weeks of my pregnancy in 1995, so many of our best memories were made within these walls.

As you all know, John has been back on the east coast since mid-February working in Philly at Vesper and at Penn. His Vesper job has been great; he is making a huge difference there and having a lot of fun. He has been coming back to San Francisco every other week for a long weekend, which has been hard. We spent last week out on the East Coast with him in Philly and had a very good time. We also closed on our new house in Princeton. Our address beginning on June 20 will be 81 Maybury Hill, Princeton, NJ 08540. No phone yet. We need to do some major painting and carpeting before arrival as the house is brand-spanking new and never been lived in.

We also, after much soul searching, decided to put the kids into the public school system in Princeton. Although I continue to believe that the education may be better in the private schools there, the fact is that the public schools are excellent and everybody sends their kids there. I think we need to do so as well in order to really get integrated into the community. So we are going to give it a chance. I know this must sound strange to all of you, since we have primarily enrolled in the public schools as a family. However, when you live in the heart of the city, as we do, it’s much harder to opt for the public schools, and then you get used to what independent schools have to offer. And the reality of the kids’ current private school is that it really is a neighborhood school. Many of their classmates live within a few blocks. In Princeton, the private schools are not "neighborhood" schools. You need to drive a few miles to get to most of them, and their classmates would be from anywhere within a 20 mile radius of the school.

So Princeton will be different. I've had a hard time adjusting my expectations, I'm so used to city life at this point. But last week, I started to see the fun of what we could have there. I hope everyone will come visit us. We have a lot of room, and it is an easy place to hang out.

On the kids front, the big news is that Jake is getting a minor operation on Thursday -- adenoidectomy! He doesn't know it yet, and we are not planning to tell him until Wednesday night. We are doing this because he has had sleep apnea quite a bit in the past, particularly when sick. We finally went to the ENT and his adenoids are about 2X normal size and pretty much blocking the air passage to his nose. This explains his massive snoring, his nasally (sp?) speech and his heavy mouth breathing. He will need a general, but it is an outpatient surgery. He should be back in school on Monday.

Both boys are now starting to read. It has been really fun to watch them start to enjoy this endeavor. Tommy can read the Level One "I can read" series and Jake is just getting started, but is coming along fast.

Tommy is still going strong in his Suzuki Violin. His last SF concert will be May 19th here in the city. So anyone who would like to see him playing with his fellow 6 year olds in a charming concert is welcome to attend and have dinner chez nous afterwards (concert at 2 p.m.). Jake has his first piano recital in two weeks and is pretty excited about that. They have both seen the new house and new school and are excited about the move. Our property backs up to the property of the one child in Princeton that Tom and Jake became fast friends with during our last sojourn there. They are delighted. Our backyard is completely wooded, by the way, so the kids will have hours of fun getting filthy back there.

The boys are also starting YMCA baseball (coach pitched!) this Saturday and were lucky enough to get fielded on a team called the Giants! Go Giants! My company has season tickets, so I will be taking the boys as many times as possible over the next few weeks before we go to the real thing.

We’re leaving tomorrow for the East Coast for a week, so the Easter Bunny had to come a day earlier than usual for us! The boys dyed a dozen eggs each yesterday to get ready and were so excited that they went to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual in order to make the night go quickly. I set my alarm for 5:35 a.m. to do the “you know what”. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, before I was done hiding all the eggs, I heard a voice shouting down from the upstairs back window: “Mommy, what are you doing out there?” Yikes! Of course, the only answer was that I was looking for the eggs that the Easter Bunny had hidden.

Anyway, the kids had a great Easter Saturday. They got lots of goodies in their baskets, they found all the eggs and, due to the extreme early hour at which it all began, we were totally done by 6:43 a.m. Now I just hope I can keep my eyes open for Sarah’s baby shower later today.

To see what's going on with our extended family, check out:

• Charles Martin's Web Site
• Sally Martin's Web Site