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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 09 2010 at 7:42am | IP Logged
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My DH and I are trying to plan a vacation to NC. My mil lives there with her husband. MIL had a stroke a few years back and she is now in a wheel chair. She she can walk with a walker, it's just very difficult. Since her stroke, DH and I have decided we need to make the effort each year, for our vacation, to go and see them.
Some important background information:
~ My MIL and her husband live in an incredible home in an incredible neighborhood. The houses are huge and beautiful, but there are no kids. I mean, 6+ bedroom homes and no kids anywhere! Anyway, sorry about that, my MIL has lots of lovely breakable things around her house. They have very expensive leather furniture and all kinds of things that are meant to be looked at and not touched. Well, I have 5 kids, 3 of which are quite rowdy and one of which is too young to understand "don't touch". When we are at my in-laws home, we bring DVD's and tell the kids to sit and watch tv while we go in the other room to talk to their grandparents.  This is not their idea of fun or our idea of a vacation. So, we can't stay at their house while we are there.
~ More background: My DH is adamant about wanting to stay in a place on the beach. He imagines us playing by the ocean and spending time on the beach in the mornings, then inviting his mom and husband over for the afternoons and having dinner with us. The kids can still play outside while the adults sit on the porch and watch them (his mom can't go on the beach because of the wheel chair).
The problem is, this year, we can't find a place to stay! We wanted to find a place near the beach (since this is our vacation too)but that means the houses or condos are on stilts, which means stairs, which means MIL can't come to visit us, which means visiting them, which means the TV situation I described above.
UGH! I don't know what to do! We were even thinking of a house with an elevator, but even if we could afford it, we can't seem to find one available.
So, what would you do? This whole thing has become an "issue" and my DH doesn't even want to deal with it. Meanwhile, I can't stand not knowing what we are doing since our vacation time is coming up at the end of March.
OH, and throw Holy Week in there too! They have a beautiful Catholic Church where they live, but they aren't Catholic, so we would be going to all the Holy Week services, which they might not understand. Oi Vey. I thought vacations were something we were supposed to look forward too! 
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Becky
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guitarnan
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| Posted: Feb 09 2010 at 7:58am | IP Logged
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Could you split the time a different way? We have done this on "oblications" in the past - taken a couple of days for our family at the beginning or (better - destressing!) end of the trip to stay where we want to stay and do some relaxing things. In your case this would mean finding a beach place before or after your in-law time. I can't tell from your post where in NC you're looking for places to stay - sounds like the Outer Banks, perhaps - but if it's another location you might be able to find a suite-hotel with kitchenettes that has wheelchair access (you'd need a couple of rooms, of course).
Another suggestion, which might or might not work, would be to ask your in-laws to put away some of the breakables. I did this by explaining how worried I was that my children would harm objects I knew were precious and this prevented me from paying full attention to the relatives we were visiting. After that first conversation I just started putting things away whenever we visited - I figured that once I'd obtained consent, it was forever.
On the Holy Week stuff, were I in your shoes I would just tell them what you were going to do and print out a Holy Week schedule for them, so they can plan around it. I would not ask for permission or offer a compromise. I would tell them they are welcome to come along, instead! 
It is true that doing what's right isn't the same as doing what's fun. I know that when I've had to let go of vacation visions to make others happy, it's been hard. Try to find ways to sneak in a little "us" time if you can't be exactly where you want to be.
ETA: If your dh is really "adamant" about the beach thing, and it's his mom, he's going to have to be the one to make the final call on where you stay and for how long - or at least that's how it's worked out in our family. My MIL really relies on my dh for emotional support and physical help, so I try to defer to him when we're planning visits/trips to be with her (even when dh is not going!).
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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stacykay
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Becky,
Is there no way for your mil to travel to you? Airlines are very accomodating for passengers with special needs. And if your home isn't situated for them, maybe a hotel is nearby that would work for a short visit?
We used to visit my grandparents every year on our vacations when I was growing up. My mum really hated it. She loved her parents to pieces, but she always missed not being able to travel and see neat things.
As far as NC at the end of March, wouldn't the beach be sort of cold still then? I'm thinking maybe a hotel with an indoor pool, a plan for church and also a plan of historic/museum sorts of things to do, with a very specific plan for each day. You know, get up in the morning, breakfast, go on an outing and then plan on Grandma's for the late afternoon/evening for dinner/coffee and relaxing/talking/winding down with tv/movies/coloring/journaling (about their neat adventure of the day) for kiddies and back to hotel before bedtime?
Spending all day long just sitting and talking would drive me bonkers! Not to mention my dc. 
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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stellamaris
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Are there any just regular hotels in the area? You could drive to the beach and you would still have your space. Another thought is to visit your family on a different week. Do you have any flexibility regarding time of travel? Holy Week is also school vacation week, so that is probably why you can't find a place. If you end up going at another time and staying at a house without handicap access, you could always take mil out to dinner instead of trying to getting her up a flight of stairs. As far as staying in her house, we have the same problem with my parents, whose home is filled with valuable antiques and art. I have come up with two approaches: 1) If I am there with all the kiddos, I plan lots of field trips to keep them out of the house as much as possible, but still we are there for dinner. This way I don't feel quite so distressed about the tv watching. This is what I did for years. 2). Now that my parents are older and the confusion of the children is hard on them, I go alone and leave the children with my dh or a sitter. In this case, your dh would go alone to his parents and you would stay home. The problem with this approach is that they don't have a
chance to see the children. So I do also take the children during the
summer and we stay at a separate house, although dh can only come sometimes for that trip. We take a family vacation at another time if dh can't join us then.  This can be tough! I'll pray for you (where is a praying icon when you need it?)
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Caroline
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Becky Parker
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Thanks Nancy, my inlaws live in Southport which is in the southeast corner of the state. Last year, we were able to stay in a place on Oak Island which is lovely, but because of the stilts MIL couldn't come to see us, we had to go to their house, which I wrote about. Since we only see them once a year our visits couldn't really be short and sweet either, which would have been manageable. Spending entire afternoons and evenings at their house was so stressful. My ds said he didn't have much fun on the vacation because all my husband and I did was yell at the kids. 
I think I need a change of heart or something so this isn't so stressful!
I like your idea of dividing the vacation. Since we'll be traveling from MI we actually kicked around the idea, earlier on, to stop at Williamsburg for a day or two on the way down. Maybe we should revisit that idea. I forget why we dismissed it.
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Becky
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stacykay
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Oh, forgot to say, for dinners, you could still cook thm - just at their house.
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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Becky Parker
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Stacey
We actually remodeled our bathrooms to make them handicap accessable for my MIL. They are very set in their ways and in their own home though and we get the impression they don't like Michigan. I have to admit I take it personally , but DH assures me it's MI, not me that they don't want to visit.
And yes, it is still chilly on the beach in March, but my kids still love it. I think they are all polar bears. We have a picture of my son playing in the ocean with my dh and I standing on the beach in coats!
Even if they don't get wet they love digging in the sand and finding ocean critters that we don't have here in MI. Oh, and fishing, they love to fish off the peer.
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Becky
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 09 2010 at 8:21am | IP Logged
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Caroline,
We're really locked in to Holy Week because my oldest ds goes to highschool and that is their Spring Break. Summer doesn't work because of other things we've committed to.
I actually did a search for hotels near the beach. We would need something with a suite that would hold all of us. I need to go back to my search because that might be my only other option.
Prayers would be appreciated. Like I said, I think I need a change of heart, and maybe my DH too. We need to be on the same page or nothing is going to work.
I think, when they moved so far away it became an issue because, well, they chose to move so far away! We took that as a message that they really didn't care whether we got to see them or not. My DH has a great relationship with his family so I don't think their intention was to "get away". I think they just wanted to be in a warm climate, near the ocean, in a gorgeous neighborhood. It's just hard not to have bitter thoughts at times like this though. (True confessions here. I hope I don't sound like a bad person.)
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Becky
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Mimip
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Becky,
You don't sound like a bad person, you sound like someone in a tough situation
No ideas, but I'll say a special prayer that you find a resolution.
Lots of
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Mimi
Wife of 16 years to Tom, Mom of DD'00, DD'02, '04(in heaven) DS'05, DS'08 and DS '12
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teachingmyown
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We have been looking at vacation homes for our next Outer Banks vacation (great snow day activity!). There are quite a few that are wheelchair accessible. They have ramps, elevators, walk-in tubs, etc. They seem to be within the same price range as other houses that we look at. (And we are looking at the low end prices in Corolla and Duck.)
Good luck!
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 09 2010 at 8:54am | IP Logged
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I don't know the geography of NC very well Molly. Are the Outer Banks near Oak Island or Southport?
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Becky
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stacykay
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Becky,
If they want warm, would they come to MI in the summer, leaving your vacation week a week to truly vacation? This is so hard!
Weather-wise, here on the east side of MI, I would have to say that NC probably has seen more snow than we have this winter! Dss hoping today's snow will be measurable!
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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mrsgranola
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Outer Banks are nowhere near Southport. They are upper coastline, closer to VA and Southport is the lower tip of NC coast area. Oak Island isn't too far, however.
I wish I could think of something to help... we're about 2 hours from Southport (I think), about 35 mins. before you get to Raleigh if you'd head west from the coast.
Oh and I seriously doubt the coast has gotten much snow... they almost never do! We got a nice snowfall a week and a half ago that ended in ice but it's pretty rare to get much in the middle of the state even. Now the mountains are a totally different story...
Southport is generally in the Wilmington area so you might want to look up things to do around there. Here's a site I found:
http://www.cape-fear.nc.us/
There are *lots* of nice museums and things to see in Wilmington that the kids would enjoy.
We've stayed at Wrightsville Beach a time or two but my family generally goes to Topsail Island when we go to the beach. There are lots of neat things to do at the different beach towns, though. Just a matter of preference. We're not the kind to lay in the sun much (lots of pale skin and a few redheads!) but we like fishing and visiting historical sites, etc.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help as the trip draws nearer... I'll try to keep thinking about options that might help your situation...
JoAnna
P.S. I know the delicate feelings about family moving away and then expecting you to visit them, too. So I understand!
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JodieLyn
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I have no clue about how to do the arrangments or anything. You apparently need to use your vaction time for this trip. And that can be hard.
Have you looked up the posts that I know are around here on staycations? Where you stay home and do interesting things around your own area. A lot of us never bother being tourists near our home. You may find that there's lots of things you could do from your home with just a weekend or even just one day. So that you can still do fun vacation things without needing a second block of time for a vacation.
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