Welcoming Kaelyn

Everything is different now.

On December 26th, at 11:00am, our family officially changed.  Once four, we are now five.  Once "Mike, Amy, and the boys", we can no longer use the gender-specific term for our children.  Once finished with those early childhood stages of parenting, we're now back at the starting line.

Yes, on December 26th, we welcomed into the world Kaelyn Grace Pilato, our beautiful new daughter.  Weighing 7 lbs. 15 oz., and measuring 20 1/4" long, she was no small package.  And that's appropriate, as her impact on our family dynamic will likewise be nothing short of monumental.

Christmas was a pretty normal day, really.  We opened gifts with our sons, enjoyed an awesome home-cooked meal at my grandmother's house, and then settled into a family viewing of the movie Epic. At some point, Amy left the room to use the bathroom, and didn't return.  She eventually called to me, at which time we determined that her water had broken.

Normality terminated.  It was go-time for a hospital trip.

Thirteen hours later, Amy was ready to deliver.  And deliver she did.  The sounds of her strenuous pushing were replaced with those of a crying baby girl, and Kaelyn was born.

Naturally, the local-area grandparents were quick to meet the family's new addition.

And to say that Kaelyn's big brothers are completely smitten by her would be a massive understatement.

Mom and baby — both in great health — returned home Saturday, December 28.  (Home itself is different now, too.  Once all but devoid of pastels, it now has way more pink and lilac in it than we ever dreamed it would!)

So welcome to the world, Kaelyn.  Our family which seemed so complete as a foursome is complete again as a party of five, and already we begin to wonder how it could possibly have been any other way.

To Gavin, on his tenth

Channeling some Theodor Geisel today, I wrote a poem for Gavin to celebrate his tenth birthday.

To Gavin, On His Tenth
by: C. Michael Pilato

Today is a great day, a fun day for you.
It's unlike tomorrow and yesterday, too.

A day that comes by only once in your history.
Why such a great day? That's not a mystery!

Another year's over; another year's passed.
You've finished your tenth year (which was not like the last).

A one in the ten's place and none in the ones
For the firstborn among all my daughters and sons.

Yes today is a great day, a fun day for you —
But for the family that loves you? It's fun for us, too!

"The Fifty States of America", by Aidan Pilato

Our youngest son, Aidan, woke before the rest of us today. Never one to sit idly, he focused his first energies of the day into creative writing and illustration. The following silly story resulted.

Once upon a time, fifty states woke up from bed. (Of course, California and Texas -- because there wasn't a bed the size of them -- had to sleep on the ground.)

One day, Washington was taking a stroll on a spring grass knoll when he didn't even notice that up in the sky a rain cloud was watching him. The rain cloud said, "Lightning Bolt, STRIKE!" But there was no lightning.

The raincloud struggled up to a rusty white cloud. He knocked on it.

In a silly voice, the lightning bolt said, "Yes?"

"It's me, Rain Cloud. Strike that Washington state!"

"Yes, sir."

Since the lightning bolt was dumb, he missed thirty times in a row. Since the lightning bolt couldn't even strike, all he could do is poke himself in the belly.

Apparently, Texas heard all about it. He gathered up all the states (even Washington, when he got back). They made a plan.

But Lightning Bolt and Rain Cloud heard about that. They made an army.

One day, as the plan said, Washington went out again where he found the lightning and rain cloud. They had been waiting for him. He saw them and started talking to them. He said, "We don't we start battling each other. If my army wins, you turn to the good side. If you win, we turn to the dark side -- deal?"

"Deal!"

"Good. Charge!"

"Charge!"

Washington was in the front. But California and Texas didn't have a weapon. They didn't need one -- they used themselves. They just kept smacking guys on the ground.

Finally, the battle was over. The states had won. The other army would join the good side. They started to cry. But the good side gave the leader a mouse.

THE END

I'm not sure what he has against Washington state. We've never been there. And to our GWB-hating readers, I can assure you that it's merely coincidence that Aidan had Texas tossing his weight around and taking the states off to war.

... and Amy Makes Four

In 2011, our son Aidan completed his fifth and sixth seasons of soccer with the local Harrisburg Parks and Recreation youth athletics league. His team (the Kickin' Pandas) won their league championship! In fact, Aidan scored his team's only goals in the championship match. Our son Gavin returned to soccer after a two-year hiatus, and had a very successful season, too. His team (the Angry Birds) advanced to the finals, where they claimed a second-place finish in their league. As it turns out, Gavin also scored his team's only goal in the championship match. Daddy (Mike) played his third year of adult soccer with Harrisburg. His team didn't really do so much to speak of tournament-wise, and he didn't score a single goal the entire season. In fact, he completely blew a great scoring opportunity in the first match. But at least he had fun playing. And now ... could it be?! Oh, yes! Mommy's got a new pair of shoes!

Are You Considering Home Education in NC?

Home education has been a core value of our family since before the birth of our first child. From his first moments outside the womb, teaching Gavin about the world and his role in it has been one of our family's greatest joys and most important responsibilities. Amy and I strongly believe that the task of educating a child falls squarely to that child's family — parents, siblings, grandparents, and so on, natural, adoptive, or otherwise. The family is the building block of society, and where the family and its members are ill-equipped, society is weakened.

In our family, which now includes two school-aged children, that means taking advantage of the opportunity for Amy to formally educate those children in our home. To assist in this task, we are members of a larger community of families in our area who have made similar choices, the Cabarrus County Home School Association. We've been actively involved in the CCHSA for over two years now, and greatly enjoy the benefits of this local homeschooling support group.

If you're considering home education in North Carolina, and you'll be in or around Concord, NC on Monday, October 25, 2010, you may wish to check out the CCHSA's public Informational Meeting. Here's a snippet from an email notification we received about the meeting:

Hi! I wanted to let everyone know that our first CCHSA Informational Meeting will be held on Monday, Oct. 25th at 7PM at the West Cabarrus YMCA on George Liles Blvd. We will have speakers talking about the "why" of homeschooling, what to know about homeschooling in North Carolina and in Cabarrus County, what resources are available to help homeschoolers, and a variety of "special topics" for a Q and A session.

[…]

The Q and A speakers will be answering questions about things such as sports opportunities, advantages/disadvantages to various specific curricula, how to prepare high school students for college, how to help special needs learners, or how to juggle multiple ages/grades.

For a map to the event location, click here.

To be clear, Amy and I don't believe that the public school system is evil. We don't believe that parents who choose to avail themselves of public education are negligent or failing their children in some way. Many of our dearest friends work every day to ensure that public education in our area is the best that it can be. Our challenge to all families is simple and universal: take ownership of your children's education, and use the best mechanisms and approaches and services you can to do so.

Surprise Beach Mini-vacation

Hearing the excitement in two young boys' voices when they learn that the family is going to take a four-day vacation to the beach is one thing. But hearing that excitement when they learn this fact as you pull into the parking lot of an oceanfront pier takes it to a whole new level!

Last Tuesday, Amy whisked the boys out of the house early in the morning for a quick errand to her parents' place while I sneakily dropped fully packed suitcases into the trunk of our other car. Upon their return, she and I announced to the kids that we'd be taking a field trip. What we didn't tell them was that the "field trip" was to be a four-day excursion to North Myrtle Beach.

Amy had the boys' schoolwork all prepared, and they spent the first two hours of our three-and-a-half hour journey doing that work: reading books aloud to each other, taking math and science tests, etc. When they'd finished their work, they naturally began to wonder just how far away this secret field trip location was, but were easily distracted into various other activities — more reading, drawing and coloring pictures, imaginative play, etc. Our ruse became more difficult as we neared our destination, with nearly every highway sign screaming out the number of miles remaining to Myrtle Beach or North Myrtle Beach. But we managed to keep up the distractions until we finally pulled into the parking lot of the Cherry Grove Beach pier. Ocean in full view, our sons finally realized where we were. And then we told them we'd be staying for a while.

The weather was cloudy or rainy for most of the trip. Some would call that unfortunate, but in reality it was wonderful. The air and ocean water were warm enough to enjoy comfortably. The rains held off every time we got into the mood to go down to the ocean. We never had to fuss with sunscreen. We never had to deal with heat exhaustion. It was just perfect! I got rained on only once when I intentionally went for a four-mile jog in the rain on Wednesday morning while Amy and the boys did their schoolwork for the day. (It was a great jog, by the way, dribbling a soccer ball up and down the coastline, playing keep-away with the surf!) We were able to visit resort's indoor pools every night of our stay except for the final one, which we spent treating the boys to a surprise trip to Medieval Times.

The boys had a surprise for us, too, it seems. The first night that we visited the pools, both boys started swimming a bit on their own without flotation devices! That provided many hours of excitement for the family, and quite a bit less fatigue than usual for Amy and I.

And the aforementioned resort offered its own lovely (if geeky) surprise. When I visited the hotel's community computer system to print off our tickets for Medieval Times, I found that it was powered by none other than Ubuntu Linux (a free operating system and extremely viable alternative to Microsoft Windows and MacOSX)!

Truthfully, there's very little to not have been thrilled about on this trip. We left Friday morning (our first sunny day), drove further south to Surfside Beach for some seashell hunting and beach soccer, and then aimed our car toward home, very thankful to have had such a wonderfully relaxing family vacation.

Parents, when was the last time you took your family away from it all for a bit of respite? Make and take those opportunities now before your kids are grown and your family dispersed!

Lake Lure, Chimney Rock, and Asheville vacation

Every once in a while, you take a vacation that's great not just because of where you went or what you did or who you were with or how your kids behaved or just how much you needed the time off, but the amazing cross-section of all of that simultaneously. We just enjoyed one of those vacations.

For the past month or so, ours has felt like a bit of a mad house. This time of year is always extremely stressful, with all of our birthdays and anniversaries happening between early March and early June, my and Amy's wedding anniversary in late April, the wrapping up of school years and soccer seasons, the reintroduction of yard maintenance and spring cleaning, and so on. In addition to all of that, we've been dealing with a bit of a kitchen makeover. (You know the type: supposed to be simple, but winds up complicated.) But this past Wednesday, the last of our kitchen crew finished their work, and Gavin and Amy completed his homeschool year. So after A.J. finished his last day of preschool on Thursday morning, we headed out of town with our good friends the Batsons (Paul, Liz, and their two kids) for a few days away from it all.

Paul and I had arranged for our lodging to happen at the historic 1927 Lake Lure Inn & Spa, where Amy and I had spent our first night of marriage together over twelve years ago, and we did so as a surprise to Amy. The hotel was in much better shape than I remembered (excepting the pool, which had just sorta opened for the season but clearly hadn't had its pre-season maintenance). The staff were pleasant and helpful, and even though the rooms in that old place are small, it turned out to be a very nice play to stay.

We arrived Thursday afternoon, checked into our rooms, then went out for a walk by the lake just to get out into the air and kill some time before dinner. The four kids enjoyed playing on and watching ducks from the docks. After our walk, we drove into the town of Chimney Rock for dinner. Now, Chimney Rock isn't a particularly animated place on its most populous day, but on a Thursday evening in late May, it was practically vacant. We managed to find an open family restaurant, which was … less-than-impressive. But the ice cream shop a few doors down allowed us to forget our lackluster dinner, and fueled the kids for a trip down the riverwalk to play on the rocks by and in the river. As sunset approached, we decided to head back to the Lake Lure Inn and test out the pool. (To completely exhaust the children before bedtime, of course!)

Friday morning we returned to Chimney Rock, where the little town's culinary reputation was wholly redeemed by Medina's Village Bistro. Medina's is a tiny place, but serves up a mean breakfast — killer cinnamon rolls, big fluffy pancakes, eggs, meats, etc. With happy stomachs, we left there to tackle our primary activity of the day: Chimney Rock Park. At Chimney Rock, we hiked around the Chimney itself and then out to the base of the Hickory Nut Falls. I love hiking. But I really love waterfalls. (This was one of the best moments of the vacation for me.) Despite the long walk, the kids all did a great job of keeping up the pace without complaints (which was a bit easier for little Ella, who had the challenging task of riding in a frame carrier on her Daddy's back).

Lunch after our hike was a quick one, as the ladies (Amy and Liz) had spa appointments at Shoji Retreat near Asheville. While they went off to get pampered, Paul's kids napped, mine failed to nap, and then the lot of us visited the pool again. After a short swim, we got ready to drive up to Asheville to meet the ladies for dinner. It was at this time that we realized just how much Amy and Liz were probably weirded out hours earlier as they drove to their spa appointment. Shoji Retreat is off the beaten path. I mean, way off the beaten path. We're talking hairpin-turns-up-the-hill-past-the-toothless-dude-by-the-moonshine-still, here. Poor girls must have been running on sheer faith in their husbands by the time they arrived. But both gave glowing reviews of the spa itself, so Paul and I didn't lose too many husband points in the process.

After meeting up with the ladies, our two families continued into Asheville for dinner at Steak & Wine. Now, here's where things could have gotten crazy. This is a white-table-cloth environment, into which we just dragged four tired children under the age of seven. But amazingly, the kids were able to deal with the situation pretty gracefully. Our meals were wonderful (I'm already trying to make up excuses to get back there at a future date!), and thanks to the stash of kids books in our car, we were able to keep the children quiescent after they finished eating and while the adults wrapped up their meals. We stopped by the now-famous drum circle in Pritchard Park (just outside our restaurant, which was chosen largely for its location) before walking to a creamery for dessert. It was a late evening, with all the children nodding off in the cars during our drive back to Lake Lure, but even now I'm completely amazed at how well the children handled some of these not-so-kid-focused situations.

Saturday morning, we checked out of the Lake Lure Inn, hit Medina's again for breakfast, and then made our way to Rutherfordton (or, as Paul claims the locals call it, "Ruffton") to visit the KidSenses children's museum. The children had a great time visiting the exhibits, doing some crafts, and so on, and it was a suitable reward for their excellent behavior the prior days of the trip.

After a final meal together at Mi Pueblito, our families officially parted ways, and the vacation was complete.

I can't remember a more successful vacation for our family, where success is defined by our ability to actually escape from the craziness of life. I'm thankful for a great family, thankful for great friends, and thankful for a great job which helps to fund these types of occasional getaways.

Successful spontaneous microvacation

Sunday was Valentine's Day, but Amy and I had already celebrated it Friday night. So as my kids were downstairs watching a movie, and my wife was downstairs with them pretending to watch it (on those magic screens she has on the backs of her eyelids), I was upstairs suffering from boredom and wanderlust … and possibility! See, Monday would be President's Day, and I'd be off from work. Of course, Amy being a homemaker and our boys being homeschooled, their days are somewhat flexible, too. So at around 3pm on Sunday afternoon, I started looking for day-trip options.

I wound up most interested in The Children's Museum of the Upstate in Greenville, SC. I figured we could leave soon (Sunday afternoon), skip down to Greenville, stay the night in a hotel, and then visit the museum on Monday. And I figured we could do this without telling the boys of our plans. I ran the idea by Amy and — incredibly — she was game! So we booked a hotel stay near Greenville, packed a suitcase of stuff, printed maps, and snuck all this stuff out of the house and into the car — all while the boys were still downstairs watching their movie.

Once Amy and I were ready to go and the boys' movie was finished, we asked them to put their socks, shoes and coats on so we could go out to dinner. Aidan was wanting to be the one to pick our dinner spot (since Gavin had done so a couple of nights prior), which was fine. We delayed him until we got onto I-85 and were well away from areas with heavy restaurant density, and then we let him choose. He wanted to eat at Bob Evans. An hour later, we were in Gaffney, SC and still hadn't found a Bob Evans. This was just a fortuitous coincidence, though, from our point of view. The boys never really questioned why we'd spent so much time in the car just trying to find dinner. We kept their minds busy listening to the Wall*E and Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks. Eventually, however, Aidan's hunger won out over his patience, so we convinced him to abandon his first restaurant choice and settle for less. He wasn't happy about doing so, but finally agreed. And now that we were running a slight goodwill deficit, Amy and I chose this moment to reveal our secret plans. And what a reveal it was — the boys were overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of an unexpected hotel stay and museum visit! So we ate dinner happily and then continued on our trek, finally arriving at the hotel at around 9:30pm.

Monday morning we woke (well, those of us that slept, anyway — I had a difficult night of sleep deprivation…), got ready for the day, ate breakfast, checked out, and then headed to the museum. We'd seen billboards advertising the place as we drove down the night before, all saying "Coming Summer 2009". So we knew the place would likely be in good repair. We weren't disappointed. The boys had fun exploring three floors of hands-on exhibits covering race cars, space shuttles, robots, sound (ala Blue Man Group), light, water, and more. The place even had an onsite cafe catered by a local restaurant — I can't recall the last time I ate museum food that was so good! By 2:45pm, we'd seen the whole museum and revisited some favorite exhibits. We piled into the car and headed home, happy to have invested the day together and shared this new experience as a family.

Dear Santa. Again.

Today for school, Amy had the boys compose a letter to Santa. She draws a pretty clear line between "teaching time" (where she might correct their spelling and letter formation) and "creative time" (where she gives them the freedom to think and express without her oversight). This was one of those latter types of projects — zero input from Mommy to her two students on this one.

Aidan got straight to the point. "Let's skip the niceties and talk about what you should bring me!" He filled the front of his page with his wish list...

...and then continued on the back. (Notice he even made his own lines.)

Gavin had already composed his wish list earlier this month. So he took the time to actually write a letter to Santa. Of course, if you've got the Big Red Fella's attention, you might as well transmit amendments to your wish list. But check out what else he writes:

Clearly, my sons love Star Wars right now — that comes as no surprise. But when did my oldest learn to wield the colon and the ellipsis in his prose?! How does he remember the, uh, ghost-written letter from Santa he got last year?! And why doesn't everyone realize what this six-year-old does: that Jesus is, in fact, the reason for the season?

Father/son camping trip

Gavin and I just returned from our father/son camping trip to Pilot Mountain State Park, and man was it fun!

We left after church yesterday, arriving at Pilot Mountain State Park at about 2:30pm or so. We met the campsite host, who informed us that we were the only campers for the night, so any site was ours for the picking (as was any firewood we found at any site). Rain was in the forecast, but fortunately had not yet started. Gavin helped me to pitch the tent and get our stuff all settled inside. Afterwards, he wanted to drive to the summit lookout, where he told Amy on the phone that he'd get a picture of the view off the mountain.

We got that picture:

But as we were taking the picture, the rain appeared! We drove back down to the camping area. As it was still just mid-afternoon or so, I didn't want to climb into the tent and stay there. Fortunately, I had a spare tarp, so Gavin helped me make a little lean-to-ish thing by attaching the tarp to two trees and then pulling the bottom of it back at an angle. It was plenty of space for us to put our chairs — and our firewood!

We sat under our little shelter and ate our dinner — sandwiches and chips we'd prepared at home. Once the rain died down a bit, I took a crack at getting a fire going. It took a bit for me to remember how to do that well, but eventually I remembered what I needed to remember. While the fire established itself, Gavin and I played with some Star Wars characters. (I'm sorry, but Droidekas are just cool.)

Once the fire was roaring, we toasted some marshmallows. I don't really know why we did — Gavin and I don't even really like toasted marshmallows. I guess it's just something we feel you're "supposed to do" when camping. After we'd filled our bellies, it was getting pretty dark out. So I surprised Gavin by bringing him into the tent and informing him that I'd brought our portable DVD player with WALL*E loaded and ready to watch. We managed to see all but the last 5 minutes or so before the battery died. We told a couple of made-up bedtime stories to each other, and then finally drifted off to sleep.

Sleep came easy at first, but I was awakened at 1:30am by the loud sound of the rain which had returned. And stayed. And poured all night long. I was also reminded of how limber I no longer am — sleeping on the ground just isn't as easy as it once was. But I managed to get a decent amount of sleep, and when I wasn't sleeping I was covering Gavin up to keep him warm (the temperatures were in the low 40s). He slept pretty well, and I was glad for that.

This morning we woke around 7:15am or so. Rain was just a light drizzle, so I got another fire going. This time was even more difficult than the first thanks to lack of good kindling. Fortunately, my camp axe made quick work of some larger firewood to meet that need. We heated some water and used it for our instant oatmeal and hot chocolate breakfast. I even grilled a couple of Pop-Tarts for kicks. Gavin insisted that his oatmeal and hot chocolate were the best he'd ever had. The Pop-Tart? Not so much. After we had breakfast, we set about tearing down the campsite. This took much longer than the setup because everything was so wet. We were both quite wet and dirty ourselves when it was all said and done. But after our stuff was fully packed away in the car, we went down to the bath house, changed clothes, and left the park, thus completing Gavin's first ever night of camping (and my first in many year).

In all, it was a wonderful way to end a weekend which began with Gavin's soccer team winning it's championship game (with Gavin's shootout goal being the point that won the game).

Summer 2009 (so far...)

Summer 2009 has shaped up so far to be a pretty fun — and pretty busy — one. Much of the activity has been centered around our new church family:

• Vacation Bible School was a fun week. The boys had a great time participating, and are still singing the VBS songs around the house. Amy helped all week long, and led the little story time segment one night. Mike even dropped in one night to rock out "You're Powerful" with drummer-dude Evan for the kids.
• Providence is keeping the kids active through the summer with events about twice each week (one for Gavin's age group, one for Aidan's, though often both are invited). These are wonderful deviations from the typical arc of our days. Two young boys trapped at home together all the time does many a feud incite.
• We joined the church's Compass Youth Program for a mission trip to Charleston. The work was more hot than hard, but everyone enjoyed themselves. You can read more about this trip on the Youth Minister's own blog.

In addition to all this stuff, the boys wrapped up their soccer seasons in early June, rode in a float in the Harrisburg Fourth of July parade, have attended numerous of their friends' birthday parties, have taken a few field trips, and have basically been "on" with their energy knobs "turned to 11" from 9am to 9pm every day. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad have busied themselves with yard work and music and a new two-service church worship schedule and every possible date night we can get our hands on.

Oh. And Summer is only half over.

North Myrtle Beach spring vacation

What a great week at the beach! We had a blast swimming in the pools... and jumping in the waves! We walked around at Barefoot Landing... and grabbed a sweet snack at Krispy Kreme! Our days were filled with digging in the sand... bowling... and chillin' out on the couch watching a little TV. We couldn't have asked for a better family vacation... except maybe that Grandma and Grandpa could have joined us!

Church search complete. 1 result(s) found.

Five weeks ago today I wrote about the fact that Amy and I had decided to leave our former church in pursuit of a location for worship and service in our hometown of Harrisburg. Those have been an eventful five weeks for us, filled with excitement and enjoyment. Where do I begin?

On the first of those Sundays, we visited Southbrook:Monroe, and had a very interesting experience with God there. But that was more of a show of support for our friends Geoffrey and Nancy Janes than a maybe-this-is-our-new-church type of visit. After all, Monroe is quite a bit farther away from Harrisburg than even our previous church.

On subsequent Sundays, though, we've attended Providence Baptist Church in Harrisburg. That has been a truly rewarding thing for us. The Young Couples class there is a great group of folks who actively share their lives together. We've been extremely blessed to find friendship with the youth pastor and his family. Senior pastor John Cashwell is a down-to-earth guy with a clear vision for the church, and I've had the pleasure of talking at length with him about some aspects of that.

Providence is, like many others, a church in transition. The church is over forty years old, and like most other Baptist churches, fell behind the curve in adjusting the methods it uses to take its message to the surrounding community in a culturally relevant way. Those familiar with our previous church might be wondering why in the world we would be drawn to yet another church in transition. The answer is pretty straightforward: the folks at Providence, young and old, seem to genuinely be aligned with the transition vision, and that was not the case in our previous situation. At all.

As a church in transition, there are of course still parts of the methodology that remain behind the curve. But that's okay. Amy and I agreed long ago that we'd rather find an imperfect church where we can make a positive difference than a seemingly perfect one where we'd be of no service to anyone. We don't want to be mere consumers of the church experience — we want to be on mission with a church in serving the community.

So yesterday, Amy and I walked the aisle of Providence Baptist Church in Harrisburg, NC, to say to that congregation, "We want to be on mission with you. May God use us in whatever capacity He so desires."

Leaving Plaza

This past Sunday marked the end of a chapter in the life of the Pilato family. After attending and serving in various capacities at Plaza Baptist Church (which is a thirty-minute drive from our home) since we relocated back to North Carolina in 2005, Amy and I both feel God is leading us to local worship and service in our hometown of Harrisburg. For reasons that we can't humanly explain, we've both been picking up vibes of yearning for service in our immediate community. This has been a sort of ongoing thing for some time now — almost like a spiritual nagging, if you will. And over the recent Christmas holiday, Amy and I independently came to the conclusion that "it was time" — we simply must be obedient to what we feel is a Divine nudge.

This wasn't a particularly easy decision to make. My parents have been members of Plaza for almost twenty years, and even while in Chicagoland, I continued to think of Plaza as my "home church". Though Amy has only attended there for a few years, she very quickly made some close friends at the church. And our young boys don't fully appreciate why they have to leave the teachers and friends they love so much. Amy and I were both very active in the music ministry of the church, and were involved in several other committees and areas of service as well. Yes, it's no secret that the church has experienced a serious decline of membership in recent years, and a non-trivial amount of leadership churn. But to call our leaving an "exodus" belies the semantics of this life change: it's more that we are "moving toward" whatever God has for us next than that we are "moving from" the place we were.

We let Plaza's leadership know of our decision a couple of Sundays ago. Pastor Stephen Bounds and his wife, Juli, expressed personal sadness but rejoiced with us nonetheless. Amy and I had been contemplating how to let the church membership know of our decision — simply disappearing seemed like a stunningly awful approach, likely to leave others with unanswered questions and encourage gossip and misinformation. Fortunately, the Boundses believed similarly. And so yesterday morning — after an amazing and uplifting time of corporate worship — Amy and I explained to the congregation from the stage about our decision and the reasons for it. Then the church members present gathered around us to pray for us and release us for service in Harrisburg. It was a wonderful time of celebration with sadness, and another in a series of ways in which God has affirmed this decision.

And so we now begin a season of searching for a new place of service in Harrisburg. We don't know what the future holds for us, but we know Who holds it.

Amy's acting debut

Our church put on a Christmas dinner comedy production this year. Amy has said for some time now that she'd like to try acting just for kicks. So she auditioned for the production, and was awarded the role of Beth, one of four silly servants in the Bethlehem Inn. The cast performed their show this past Saturday and Sunday evenings, to a combined audience of around 100 folks, I'd guess. It was a fun show, and I think the attendees enjoyed themselves. And in my completely unbiased opinion, Amy did a great job in her role.

The boys also played a part in the show, as part of a troupe of child Bethlehemian(?) dancers. Take seven energetic kids, add one tambourine and two colored streamers apiece — instant cuteness!

I'm proud of my wife and kids, of the rest of the cast and crew, and of Pastor Stephen Bounds and his wife who really drove the thing from concept to completion.

Our first trip to Urgent Care

Last night, while salmon steaks were baking in one oven, battered fish portions in the other, and the spinach was awaiting its trip through the microwave, it happened. I was upstairs at the time, reading the latest edition of WORLD magazine, when Gavin ran into the room and announced somewhat calmly: "Dad, as soon you get finished, could you come downstairs? Aidan hit his head on the fireplace."

On a list of things I least want to hear, that's gotta be somewhere near the top.

I came downstairs to find Amy holding Aidan in the kitchen floor, trying to apply an ice pack to his bleeding and swelling nose. Seems the boys were running around playing "rocket cars" (which unfortunately seems to require great bursts of speed best experienced outdoors), and Aidan-the-Rocket-Car crashed bridge-of-the-nose-first into the front edge of our very hard, stone fireplace. Fortunately, the cuts on his nose weren't bad at all — in fact, they appeared to be no more than abrasions. But out of concern that he might have broken his nose and that his injuries could impair his breathing, we packed the family up and headed out to an urgent care facility a few miles away.

Aidan was pretty upset (understandably) as we tried to get into the car, and dozed off a couple of times during our trip to the facility. Once there, he quieted down, but mostly out of fear of this new place. Fortunately, the nurses present were able to assure him that he would be treated well. They took a pair of X-rays of his head that didn't reveal anything alarming, and as expected he wasn't in need of any stitches. We were sent away with a recommendation of some Children's Motrin (for the pain and swelling), the promise of a follow-up call from the radiologist, Tootsie Pops for the kids, and a smiling little boy with a busted up nose.

So, after this, our first trip to an urgent care facility, we say, "Thanks", to the fine ladies at Expressmed's Concord Mills location, and to God for protecting our little guy from what could have easily been a much more serious situation.

North Myrtle Beach again

The Pilatos never get tired of the beach. So for the second year in a row, we've claimed the week before the Columbus Day holiday as our beach-trip week. As we did last year, we returned to the Avista Resort in North Myrtle Beach, SC, and did the overlapping visit thing with my parents. (We were in the three-bedroom suite from Monday to Saturday; my parents were there from Wednesday thru the next Monday.)

We had wonderful weather—not too hot or cold, and dry for the most part. We scored that three-bedroom resort suite by accident, even. I thought I was driving hard for a bargain on a two-bedroom place, and was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the deal I got was not only a great rate for two bedrooms, but was being applied to three! We all had plenty of room to spread out in that oceanfront suite, and my and Amy's bedroom was waterfront with a balcony to boot!

Of course, we didn't spend all our time in the suite. We did some mini-golf. We bowled. We shopped. Amy and I even caught a Medieval Times show. The boys were in good spirits most of the time, but tended to be a little preoccupied with hanging out in the various pools at the resort. Have water wings, will cooperate, it seemed. (Admittedly, Amy and I loved the water wings, too—it can be quite tiring to hold a forty-pound kid for an hour, even in the water.)

Our vacation week was a full one, but a good one. But don't assume that we returned to find more peace and relaxation. Oh, no. I'm hovered over a new laptop (which was shipped to Amy's parents' place in my absence) trying desperately to get Ubuntu Linux installed, and to get all my data off my previous work laptop, which has an ailing fan and only boots about 20% of the time as a result. Why the rush? Because tomorrow I leave for Germany and SubConf 2008! Busy times, busy times….