Moving Forward

Home Sweet Home?

"I can't believe we're going to be lugging around 2 more of them." Brad complains, holding Kassie in one arm, while rolling a suitcase behind him and holding another bag "These 2 are bad enough.  How much shit did we bring for them?"

"Apparently way too much." I readjust the bags I have, while trying to keep hold of Ava's hand "Next time when your parents offer to meet us at the airport maybe we should take them up on it."

"Well considering we won't have any free hands for bags..."

"You don't get to complain until they're here." I roll my eyes, following him "I feel like I'm a breeding house for litters."

"And you seem thrilled about it." He smirks, turning around to kiss me "You look really cute."

"There's grandma!" Ava points to Jane, loosening her grip on my hand.

Brad and I follow over, secretly happy that they didn't listen to us and just wait in the car. 

"How was the flight?" Jan's walks up to hug me "You look like you enjoyed it."

"Oh it was great.  I threw up every 20 minutes and Kassie kept falling asleep on it, making it almost impossible to get up."

"You could have held her." She glares over at Brad.  He looks back at us confused, obviously not paying attention. 

"He tried, she kept crawling over to me.  Apparently I make a very good pillow right now."

We pile into the car, driving back to their house where we're staying for the week.  We wanted to get out of LA for a little, and this seems like the perfect option.

"Wow, I always forgot how little this seems compared to our room." Brad opens the door to his old bedroom, letting us all in "This should be a fun week with all of us in here."

"The girls can have your sister's room." His dad follows with our extra bags "We thought they might like that.  There's still a bunch of toys and things in it."

"We love toys!" Ava jumps up at the mention of them, grabbing Kassie and running across the hall. 

"I guess we know where they're sleeping." I laugh, watching them lay on the bed "Thanks again for letting us stay here.  We really needed this."

"Don't worry about it, we love having all the kids together."

We put the girls down for a nap and finish all our unpacking.  It feels like we brought half the house between the 4 of us, but I also have an inkling feeling that we forgot something.  I just don't know what.

"Just relax.  It's probably nothing." Brad tries to take my mind off it as we go out for dinner "There's plenty of stores here for whenever you remember."

"It just feels important."

We all sit down at the restaurant, shoving crayons in front of the girls to keep them entertained, and order our food.

"Have you told them yet?" Jane watches the girls drawing "They haven't said anything."

"Not yet, we wanna wait a little longer.  We'll probably tell them right before we have to announce it." I say, looking to Brad "We don't want Ava accidentally saying anything."

"We should have a month, maybe two before we need to announce it." Brad joins in, "Hopefully."

"I might go in hiding for a few months.  There's going to be rumors starting any day now."

"You guys could always move here." Bill suggests, looking around at us "Seriosuly, a really nice house just went for sale right down the street.  You guys would love it and the girls could be around their cousins."

"That's true, and it's a really nice area here." I notice that Brad has hardly said anything or moved at all since the idea was brought up "What do you think about it?  We always said we'd like to have another house to escape to."

He can tell that I really like the idea, but I can see in his expressions that he isn't really on board with it.  He continues to think about it for a few seconds before finally giving me somewhat of an answer.

"I guess we can go look at it, but I'm not sure if we should really be doing something like that right now.  It's not like we have much free time."

"Well with all of us here we can always check up on things for you and make sure it's okay." Jane tries to help convince him "We miss you guys when you aren't here, or when we aren't in LA.  It would really be great to know all our kids could be together for longer than a week at a time."

By the time we finish dinner, the girls are tired, so his parents take them to put to put to bed while Brad and I go to look at the house.  It's at the end of the street and has a unique, but interesting look to it.

"Look at that door," I point out the front to him "I love how it looks like a mix between a castle and barn door."

"It does look really cool on the outside." He reluctantly admits "I still don't know, Jen."

"Let's just walk through and decide."

We walk inside, looking around the entry way where a few other couples are also crowded around.  Immediately I know that I love the coziness to it.  I love our big house in LA, but it would be nice to have one smaller that will force the family to be together more.

"That kitchen is beautiful." I admire the counter tops and the huge sliding deck door "Reminds me a little of ours."

"Yeah, and I like how it's right at the living room so we would be able to see them." He adds, staring into the other rooms "I like it more than I thought I would."

We walk upstairs to see all of the bedrooms, which seem small compared to what we're used to.

"It's not like we'd be living here all the time anyway." He says as we walk through them "We won't need a whole lot of room."

"Yeah, that's true." I agree as we look through the master "I think we should try to get it."

"Okay."