Planes, Trains, and Automobiles…

So starting at some point in September my ex voiced the idea that he would like to have Sparkles and Froggy join him in Las Vegas with his family for Thanksgiving… Okay fine we do the whole trading holiday thing and it generally works okay… I say generally. Well this year he wanted to save money in transportation by having his Brother drive the kids out to Las Vegas were the family would be meeting to spend the holidays. Well one hitch if the brother’s wife went then there wouldn’t be enough room in the car for both kids, if the wife didn’t go then no problem there would be plenty of room. The other issue we would not know until a few days before they were supposed to go how they would get there and in what form of transportation they would be taking and what my role would be in the getting them to the form of transportation. Needless to say I wasn’t pleased… I like to know what is going on, I can be spontaneous, but when it comes to a trip that involves taking time off of work or arranging babysitting or something of that sort, a little advance notice is great. And quite frankly necessary contrary to popular belief I am not at the beck and call of my ex husband… EX being the most important part of that phrase. Okay enough of that rant.

So here it is the week before Thanksgiving and the kids don’t know if they are seeing the family or if they will be left home. Where they love my family they see them all the time they don’t get to see the other part of their family but once or twice a year. So my Ex calls and wanted to know if he could come and take them out of school for two days so that he can drive down from Idaho take them home back to Idaho and then drive them down to Las Vegas. I said NO. Then he wanted me to drive them to Reno where we would meet and then he could drive them the rest of the way down to Las Vegas. I said NO.

So this is what really ended up happening. The kids got on the Train in Martinez up to Reno were during the trip some moron drove their truck onto the tracks where it got caught in the tunnel so they were late meeting their Dad (which is just as well he is normally late so much better that he had to wait then them). Once in Reno the then drove the rest of the way down to Las Vegas. They spent a nice Thanksgiving with their Grandparents, assorted Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. On the way home… Sparkles went home via Airplane and Froggy went home via Uncle’s car. The Airplane was late arriving which wasn’t too bad I was almost late for work but really not an issue… the Brother (Uncle) miss judged the traffic coming home from Las Vegas to California and ended up doing a 100 mile stretch in 7 hours. Now I would have stopped and maybe even turned around but not the Uncle… so they got in around 3am and Froggy ended up missing a day of school.

The moral of the story… THERE WILL BE NO LAST MINTUE HOLIDAY PLANS. If the ex wants the kids next year then the travel plans must be made no later than 20 days in advance of departure.
SO SAYS MOM… LAW HAS BEEN MADE.