Ok, I'm going to try to keep this short and unemotional.
DH and I live a couple thousand miles from the kids, and we fly them out when we can to visit. DH used to try to fly out every month, but this was prohibitively expensive, plus all their interaction had to be at hotels and in restaurants instead of home, and they couldn't interact with us as a family in our home. We have them every summer (45 days), spring break, half of the Christmas break, and every second Thanksgiving. Every one of these trips requires the purchase of 4 plane tickets (1 for each kid, plus one round trip for DH to pick them up, and one to drop them off). So, as you can imagine, this is incredibly expensive and very time-consuming. If we can get everything scheduled just so, it's possible to pick them up and bring them back the same day and only have to miss one day of work each direction, but with travel delays and high fares (times 4) this isn't always possible. Plus, there are sometimes travel delays, and DH will end up paying for the occasional hotel and rental car and missing more work when that occurs.
We also fly out to see them sometimes during shorter breaks.
Where they live is fairly expensive to get to (it's not a major airport), and during holiday travel the cheapest fares can easily be $500 per ticket, though sometimes (non-peak) we get lucky and get $300 seats.
The children's mother sometimes will cooperate enough to drive them the whole 10 minutes to the airport, sometimes not. She fusses that she has to take time off work (seriously, your 20 minutes versus his 2 days?). So, sometimes he has to rent a car or hire a cab to get them to where they need to be, which isn't ideal because of money, time, and proper safety seats, but I digress.. This trip, (Thanksgiving), DH and kids missed a flight and will get back later than scheduled, so she got furious and actually filed a police report for not having them back in time. Seriously. Mind you this is the first time he's EVER had them back late in 5 years! She said she wants to force him to visit them there, which, as I mentioned, is really a horrible way to interact and feels nothing like family time. Hotels and restaurant food, rental cars. No family. And let's face it, DH has a full-time job, so the amount of time he could spend over there is pretty small.
Oh, and she's never paid a cent of any of this travel, nor traveled with them to drop them off or pick them up. All of the stuff in the decree is the default for living 100 miles apart. There are no provisions for living as far apart as we do, so we try to handle it between adults.
We also do as much "cheap contact" as we can manage: phone calls, video calls twice weekly (though she often blows us off for these, so we don't always get to talk to them, even though we let her choose the times), cards, etc. We set up an online calendar to share notes of what the kids are up to (so we know when DSS is in football, etc., and can ask about it). We update our side but she has told us she will no longer update hers. sigh.
So, I'm interested in a couple questions:
1) If you are in a long-distance scenario, who pays for travel, how much is there, and who travels with the kids if they are too young to go on their own?
2) Any other tips for cheap alternatives? We use frequent flyer miles when we can, but those are rapidly becoming worthless as airlines charge more and more miles for trips.
3) I have no experience with police reports (thankfully). Are they likely to do something because he missed a flight and the kids were late getting home? She filed something a few years ago when her daughter used a proper anatomical word and the mom thought this must indicate abuse(!). The cops interviewed the kids and told her there was no problem.
Please note: I am asking for advice concerning the situation that exists. I am not asking for any opinions on the current living situation. Thanks!
DH and I live a couple thousand miles from the kids, and we fly them out when we can to visit. DH used to try to fly out every month, but this was prohibitively expensive, plus all their interaction had to be at hotels and in restaurants instead of home, and they couldn't interact with us as a family in our home. We have them every summer (45 days), spring break, half of the Christmas break, and every second Thanksgiving. Every one of these trips requires the purchase of 4 plane tickets (1 for each kid, plus one round trip for DH to pick them up, and one to drop them off). So, as you can imagine, this is incredibly expensive and very time-consuming. If we can get everything scheduled just so, it's possible to pick them up and bring them back the same day and only have to miss one day of work each direction, but with travel delays and high fares (times 4) this isn't always possible. Plus, there are sometimes travel delays, and DH will end up paying for the occasional hotel and rental car and missing more work when that occurs.
We also fly out to see them sometimes during shorter breaks.
Where they live is fairly expensive to get to (it's not a major airport), and during holiday travel the cheapest fares can easily be $500 per ticket, though sometimes (non-peak) we get lucky and get $300 seats.
The children's mother sometimes will cooperate enough to drive them the whole 10 minutes to the airport, sometimes not. She fusses that she has to take time off work (seriously, your 20 minutes versus his 2 days?). So, sometimes he has to rent a car or hire a cab to get them to where they need to be, which isn't ideal because of money, time, and proper safety seats, but I digress.. This trip, (Thanksgiving), DH and kids missed a flight and will get back later than scheduled, so she got furious and actually filed a police report for not having them back in time. Seriously. Mind you this is the first time he's EVER had them back late in 5 years! She said she wants to force him to visit them there, which, as I mentioned, is really a horrible way to interact and feels nothing like family time. Hotels and restaurant food, rental cars. No family. And let's face it, DH has a full-time job, so the amount of time he could spend over there is pretty small.
Oh, and she's never paid a cent of any of this travel, nor traveled with them to drop them off or pick them up. All of the stuff in the decree is the default for living 100 miles apart. There are no provisions for living as far apart as we do, so we try to handle it between adults.
We also do as much "cheap contact" as we can manage: phone calls, video calls twice weekly (though she often blows us off for these, so we don't always get to talk to them, even though we let her choose the times), cards, etc. We set up an online calendar to share notes of what the kids are up to (so we know when DSS is in football, etc., and can ask about it). We update our side but she has told us she will no longer update hers. sigh.
So, I'm interested in a couple questions:
1) If you are in a long-distance scenario, who pays for travel, how much is there, and who travels with the kids if they are too young to go on their own?
2) Any other tips for cheap alternatives? We use frequent flyer miles when we can, but those are rapidly becoming worthless as airlines charge more and more miles for trips.
3) I have no experience with police reports (thankfully). Are they likely to do something because he missed a flight and the kids were late getting home? She filed something a few years ago when her daughter used a proper anatomical word and the mom thought this must indicate abuse(!). The cops interviewed the kids and told her there was no problem.
Please note: I am asking for advice concerning the situation that exists. I am not asking for any opinions on the current living situation. Thanks!
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