The Future Of Us

The Little Things That Count

"Kids come on, we're waiting!" Brad yells as I grab my purse. We're going out to dinner with my parents and the kids are taking their time as usual.

They finally all run down the steps and we go in the car to drive to the restaurant. Of course, most of the time spent on the way there is listening to Catie complain about having to go.

"I don't understand why we have to go here when we see them all the time." She complains slouching down in her seat.

"Because," Brad sighs obviously not wanting to fight "You still have 4 more years of doing what we say. Someday you'll be glad we made you see your grandparents."

"Fine." She mumbles, clearly not satisfied with his answer.

We pull up to the restaurant and all walk in to find our table.

"How many?" The hostess asks collecting menus.

"We have a reservation for Pitt. Should be 7." I answer her. She leads us to our table where you dad and Sherry are already sitting. They get up to welcome us, and we take our seats.

"How have you guys been?" My dad starts the conversation, looking towards the kids.

"We're good!" Ally answers cheerfully. She loves spending time and talking to her grandparents, along with Josh.

"And you two?" Sherry asks Brad and I.

He looks towards me before answering "Very busy, but good, too. How about you two?"

"We've been busy with traveling, but having lots of fun." My dad answers.

We order our food and talk about some other things in our lives until we're done eating.

"How is school going?" Sherry asks the kids, who don't seem too amused with the topic.

"It's good," Cat surprisingly answers "I'm glad it's almost over."

"Yeah, me too." Josh adds. Third grade must be really hard. I laugh at this causing him to get defensive.

"I get lots of homework, it's not fair." He defends himself.

"And it's very hard too, right buddy?" Brad asks. Josh nods in agreement.

"Poor kid," my dad laughs "What about you, Ally? Do you get too much work?"

"Well I don't get much, but I don't like doing what I get." She answers playing with her food "But it's not too bad."

"They had a lot to catch up on because of our vacation last month," I add "That gave them more work."

"That's no fun," Sherry laughs "But the vacation was worth it, right?"

"I think so," Brad looks at all of us smiling "She really surprised us when she told us about it that morning, but we still had lots of fun."

"I still can't believe you pulled off not telling them." My dad looks over at me laughing. Normally I'm horrible at keeping secrets. They knew about a vacation, just didn't know where.

"It was hard, but so worth it when I saw how excited they were." I think back to the minute that they all saw the Disney World sign "I'll never forget Brad asking me if it was some kind of trick."

We go on the rest of the evening talking about our favorite moments of the trip, and my parents talking about their other recent vacations.

"Can we go for ice cream or something?" Ally asks as we walk out "I'll still hungry."

Brad looks at me and I nod in agreement "Yeah, we'll stop on our way home."

We get in the car listening to the kids talk about how their dinner was, and I pay attention to Brad, who is laughing at them.

"At least they aren't fighting." I whisper quiet enough so they won't hear.

He looks over since we're at a red light and smiles "They're happy, it's nice." He turns to start driving again, and gently grabs my hand interlocking it with his letting me know that just like them, he is happy as well. I stare out the window the rest of the way thinking about how lucky I am to have him and the kids.

"Okay, what do you guys want?" I walk towards the line. They tell me what they want so I order everything and wait for it. As I wait I watch Brad joke around with them making the 3 of them laugh at whatever he is doing. The little things like watching all of them having fun together are the best part of my day.

I walk over to the table with the ice cream placing it in the middle, and before I know it everyone has what they asked for. We all sit around the picnic table joking around and talking about our day, and what we want to do over the summer.

"I think we should go somewhere we haven't been," I suggest "Like Italy, or Greece. I haven't had the chance to take any of you there yet."

"What if we did both?" Cate asks "Like a European trip? We could spend a little time in each country."

"I like that." Brad adds smiling "I think we should go to Germany too."

Ally and Josh both happily agree with the idea, adding that they would like to go to Scotland and France as well. We take some time to think out details of how long it'll be and how much time in which country, then finally decide that it's settled.

"So, how about the first 3 weeks of summer?" Brad asks them smiling. They all excitedly agree.