November 2011
The day after their offer was accepted, they began discussing which pieces of furniture they planned to move from their apartments to the new home. Marci got them the dimensions of all of the rooms, so they sat down with a legal pad and sketched out each room on a different page.
The decision was made pretty quickly that the only rooms where they needed all new furniture were the large living room and the master bedroom. They also decided to purchase a new dining table that could work for just the three of them, but be expandable to accommodate their large extended family for holidays. They purchased plenty of chairs and planned to store many of them for use when the table was extended.
The furniture in Brennan's guest room would fill the first floor guest room. Parker decided that he wanted to take the bedroom furniture from his room in Booth's apartment to the new house. The bedroom furniture from the couple's rooms in the two apartments would temporarily furnish the additional two bedrooms upstairs.
Most of the furniture needed in the upstairs reading area would come from Brennan's apartment, and the rest would be combined with Booth's to furnish the family room/sun room. They planned to bring most of their decor items and accessories, and would take some time deciding what worked in the new place. Once they were settled, the unwanted items would be donated.
The closing was going to be fast since there was no mortgage involved and the sellers had already moved into their new residence. Booth and Brennan spent the next week in furniture stores every evening and they settled on their new bedroom furniture, dining table, and living room furniture.
They decided to split the large living room into two sections. The back half would be a television viewing area, and Booth was finally getting his fancy giant flat screen. It would go on the back wall, with comfy furniture all around to watch his sporting events and for family movie nights. The front half of the room would be a conversation area. They found a nice "L" shaped sectional sofa and an assortment of seating options that could be easily moved around the room.
The closing was on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of November and they were handed the keys to their dream home. As they left the closing, they called Rebecca and said they would pick up Parker from school so that he could go with them to see the house. The boy could barely sit still in his seat as they drove there, and when they unlocked the door, he sprinted in to see his new home.
They caught up to him standing in the large open kitchen/living room area. He was looking around in awe. "This is bigger than my whole house." Booth chuckled. "Well, that's a little bit of an exaggeration son, but it is pretty roomy." The three of them checked out the rest of the rooms on the first floor and then he went running back to the staircase and took the stairs two at a time to see what was upstairs.
Booth shook his head and laughed as he grabbed her to him. "Now's our chance. First kiss in our new home." And he kissed her soundly. It got pretty heated, and they finally reluctantly parted when they heard Parker shouting from upstairs. They went up the staircase and he was waiting for them in the open reading area. "Were you two kissing down there?" Booth laughed. "Hey! I had to take advantage of you being out of the room." Parker rolled his eyes and headed to the master bedroom.
"Can I have this one?" They both laughed and Booth put his arm over his son's shoulder. "No way bub. This one is for me and Bones. Let's go see your room." He was happy with the room they chose and liked the fact that he would have his own bathroom. They discussed how to arrange his furniture, and he was excited to move into his new room.
The movers were set for Saturday morning. They had two crews - one to pack up Booth's place and the other Brennan's. It worked out that Saturday was Booth's 40th birthday, so they asked family and friends to come to the new house on Saturday afternoon, help with unpacking and then they would have a birthday celebration.
All of the new furniture was scheduled for delivery on Friday, so they both took the day off to be there for the deliveries. They were thrilled at how well all of the pieces fit together and Booth insisted they cuddle up and watch a movie on their new fancy television.
When the movie was over, he suggested that they go upstairs and stay the night in their new bed. "We need to christen both the bed and the bedroom Bones. And it won't be so easy tomorrow night because we'll have a houseful." She smiled and kissed him. It was true - not only would Parker be there for the weekend, but her dad, Russ, Amy, and the girls were all staying the night on Saturday.
So they christened their new bed. And, in doing so, they christened the first room of the house. So many more rooms to go, but they had talked it over and planned to take their sweet time in conquering the whole house. Well, except for Parker's room - that was sacrosanct. In the morning they were both awake early. She wished him a Happy Birthday and the kiss she gave him turned into a very happy start to his big day. They finally left the bed, got dressed quickly, and headed to their respective apartments to get a quick shower and be ready to meet the movers.
When the movers arrived at the house, Booth stationed himself upstairs and Brennan downstairs to direct the large pieces of furniture to the correct rooms. The time they had taken to plan the layout of each room proved invaluable because the movers were able to quickly place each piece in the designated spot and move on to the next piece. Smaller pieces - occasional tables, chairs, etc - were just placed in the designated rooms to be arranged later. All of the boxes filled with the contents of drawers and decor pieces for the room had been labeled and were left in the room for the family to unpack later.
The movers were able to finish in good time, and Booth and Brennan began working to set up the bedrooms that they needed for that night. Max would be staying in the main floor guest room, Russ and Amy in one of the upstairs extra bedrooms and Emma and Hayley in the other.
As they were finishing with the setup of those three rooms, Rebecca, Brent, and Parker all arrived to help with the unpacking and then the party. Rebecca and Parker went to set up his room while Brent, Booth and Brennan went downstairs to start working on the kitchen and living room.
As they began opening the boxes, their other guests started arriving. Max, Russ and his family, Angela & Hodgins, Cam and Sweets. They all pitched in and pretty quickly had filled the kitchen cupboards and drawers with the contents of all of the boxes. A lot of the decor items for the kitchen and living room were just placed wherever they could find, and the couple planned to organize everything over the next few weeks. The family room/sun room was also set up just enough to accommodate the guests for the evening. A few hours later, there were still many boxes shoved into corners, but the house was ready for Booth's party.
The rest of the party guests were set to arrive in an hour - several of the squinterns, a few of Booth's co-workers from the FBI, and a few of Booth's teammates from his hockey team. Brennan called in the order to the local pizzeria for copious amounts of pizza, wings, and salads. Booth, Hodgins, and Angela set out to the store for soda, mixers, beer, and snacks. Cam and Rebecca drove over to the bakery to pick up the cake that Brennan had ordered the previous week.
When Booth, Hodgins, and Angela pulled up with their car full of goodies, he parked on the side of the house and saw that Brennan had turned on the kitchen window's privacy setting. He decided he wanted to test it, so he called Brennan's phone. "Hey Bones. We're just outside the kitchen and I want to see if people can see anything at night. Can you go over to the windows?" She walked over. "What do you want me to do Booth?" "Just walk along the window and I want to see if I can see anything."
"Okay. I'm walking right next to the window." Booth smiled broadly. "Can't see a thing Bones. I know I don't always like technology, but this is great!" She ended the call and shook her head thinking that he seemed awfully excited about the windows. Outside, he and Hodgins were staring at the windows and talking. As Angela got out of the car, she heard the gist of the conversation. It was about Booth and Brennan christening the house and how excited he was that they could have some fun on the kitchen counters without alerting the neighborhood. Hodgins pipped up. "Oh yeah. Kitchen counters are the best, man. It's like they were invented just for that purpose." She slammed the car door and they quickly turned just in time to see her cock her eyebrow at them. "Really boys?"
The additional guests were starting to arrive and when the trio walked into the house with the snacks and drinks, Booth was surprised to see the decorations that had been put up while they were gone. Lots of "Happy Birthday Booth" and "40" decorations and balloons all over the kitchen and living room area. He walked over to Brennan and thanked her with a kiss. Parker pulled on his shirt to inform him that he had helped, and Booth picked him up and gave him a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Parker wiggled to be let down because he was embarrassed by the show of affection in front of Emma and Hayley.
A few minutes later, as more guests arrived, Cam and Rebecca walked in with the cake. Brennan helped them remove it from the box and place it on the kitchen island. It was a very large sheet cake, and she had given the baker instructions for decorations to make it personal. All of the decorations were edible - logos for his favorite sports teams, a pair of handcuffs (lots of ribbing about whether that was professional or personal), an edible photo of their new house, and three stick figures - a man, a woman, and a child in the middle - all holding hands.
Booth was taken aback. "You ordered the cake with all of these items for me? I love you so much Bones." This time he gave her a long, loving kiss, and a lot of "Awwws" could be heard from the partygoers, followed by a round of applause. Parker came over to see and got up on one of the stools. He pointed to the stick figures and Booth had to grab his finger just before he plunged it into the icing. "Is that us dad?" Booth held his hand away from the cake. "Yes, it is son. But don't touch." Parker proclaimed that he wanted his piece of cake to be the one with his stick figure and Brennan assured him that she would see to it when they eventually cut the cake.
It turned out to be a great party to welcome everyone into their new home, while also celebrating Booth's birthday. There were football games on the big screen tv all evening, and a number of guests gathered in that area and argued over their favorite teams. Conversation areas arose in the other half of the living room, in the kitchen, and in the family room at the back. People moved from one group to another all evening long and everyone was effusive with praise over the beautiful townhouse.
When it was time to gather around to sing Happy Birthday, Brennan took pity on him and just placed four lit candles. After blowing them out, he looked across to her with a laugh and mouthed "thank you". The kids were all kneeling on the stools closest to the cake and couldn't wait for their slices. Brennan made sure to give Parker his stick figure piece and then suggested to Emma and Hayley that they take the other two stick figures. Booth insisted on getting the slice with the Flyers logo and then it was a free for all with everyone cutting their own piece.
As the party continued, the young ones were getting a little rambunctious from their sugar highs, so Rebecca sent them upstairs. "Take the girls upstairs and you can play some of the games we unpacked in your room earlier." They were obviously bored with the adult's version of a birthday party, and raced each other up the stairs. Twenty minutes later, Rebecca went up and found that they were having fun playing one of his board games in the reading area at the top of the stairs.
The party continued with even more football games and the non-football fans mingling in various parts of the house. Rebecca, Brennan, or Amy would occasionally walk over to the staircase and listen to hear the kids rolling the dice on the game board and shouting. One of the times, Amy stood there and didn't hear any activity, so she went up to check on them and found all three sound asleep on the sofa and chairs. She woke her girls first and led them into their room, tucking them in for the night. Then she woke Parker and guided him to his new room and made sure he had changed out of his clothes and was tucked in.
A few hours later, the party started to break up. As they left, everyone was teasing Booth about being an "old man", and also marveling at the great house they found. A couple of Booth's hockey buddies declared it the perfect party house, and Booth just shook his head and laughed. In his head, he was thinking about how glad he was to be past his bachelor partying days and was now settling into family life.
Angela, Hodgins, and Sweets were the last to leave and they worked with Max, Russ, Amy, Booth and Brennan to clean up so they didn't have a mess waiting for them in the morning. Once they saw them out the door, Max announced that he was heading into the guest room since it was way past his bedtime. Russ and Amy also headed upstairs to their room for the night.
Booth walked up to Brennan standing in the middle of the open area just looking around their home with a satisfied smile on her face. He took her in his arms and kissed her long and hard. When he pulled back from the kiss, he leaned his forehead against hers and there was a big smile on his face. "I love our home. I love our family. I love our life." She smiled back. "Me too Booth. Me too."
They climbed the stairs and went to Parker's room. Booth opened the door and they both stepped inside to watch him sleeping in his new room. Brennan walked over to the bed, adjusted his blanket, and gently ran her hand over his curls. Booth stood by the door and felt his heart melt.
They closed the door and walked to their room for their first "official" night in their new home. They were both exhausted after the long day, and they knew they didn't have the energy to do much more than fall asleep in each other's arms. "You know Bones. This is everything I've ever dreamed of. You in my arms. Our beautiful home filled with family. And tomorrow night it will just be us - well rested and able to make as much noise as we want." He tickled her side and she giggled. And within minutes they were both sound asleep.