Reply to WWYD re: summer vacation with ILs

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[quote=Anonymous]Will try to keep this short!  I love my inlaws, especially my MIL, who treats me like her own daughter.  My parents are deceased so we spend all holidays etc with them.  We have two very active young boys, 3.5 and 1.

Since the older one was born, we take 2 weeks of vacation to spend with them (pretty much all DH gets - my job is a bit more flexible), one at their summer cabin on a midwestern lake in July and one at their "main" house over Christmas.  The lake cabin is VERY small - maybe 1200 square feet - with two bedrooms.  One bedroom is IL's and the other has twin beds.  Last summer we had DS1 in one bed, DS2 in a pack and play, one parent in the other twin bed, and the other parent on an air mattress in the living room (we switched off).  It worked out fine, but the house was VERY crowded with all of our stuff and it felt cramped.  We spent most of the time outside but it was definitely not the most comfortable.

DH has a sister who is married and doesn't have kids yet.  If they were to come to the lake house at the same time (they didn't last summer because of BIL's work schedule), there wouldn't be room for all of us in the cabin.  Since we have more money and more people, it would make sense for us (me, DH and our kids) to rent a nearby house, which we had discussed briefly.

Fast forward to a few months ago.  MIL and FIL tell us a cabin a few doors down is available for rent for the week we usually go.  We ask for pictures and price.  They hem and haw, don't seem to be able to get pictures (wouldn't a person renting out a cabin have pictures online?) but tell us they "looked in the windows" and it's nice.  They also don't give us a concrete price.  Since then, every time we talk to them (which is a lot) they ask if we've decided to commit to it.  MIL sent us pictures the other day of a "similar" house but not the actual one.

So DH, usually laid back, is getting annoyed at them for:
a) trying to push us into renting this house when as far as we know SIL and BIL haven't even committed to coming yet
b) expecting us to spend a bunch of money on a house we haven't seen - if they have the contact info to tell the neighbor we're interested in renting it, can't they ask them for pics?
etc

I'm torn - they obviously really want us to come (asking all the time, sending pics of the similar house, etc).  I have no idea whether they want us to rent the other house even if BIL and SIL don't come because it was so crowded last year.  But DH's point, which I also get, is that part of the reason we spend ALL of our vacation time with them (they come visit us a lot too, we see them a lot) is because they have free space for us to stay!  We love spending time with them but we haven't been on a vacation without them in nearly 5 years, and if we're going to pay to rent a house, we might want it to be at a location of our choosing, closer to home and more conducive to activities for our kids.  It's also unclear what we'd do at night, since our kids would be in one house asleep and I'm sure IL's will want to use their kitchen, their campfire, etc.

Latest is that DH has emailed MIL in response to her sending the listing of the similar house and basically said a) we don't feel comfortable spending that much money on a place we haven't seen, can you get pics and b) have SIL and BIL confirmed they're coming (I don't think he has thought of the possibility that IL's might not want us to stay there even if they don't come - I might be making that up anyway).

Sorry this got long.  Other than asking her flat-out, which we're trying to do (this is a salt of the earth family, but confrontation of any kind isn't their strong suit), any suggestions for how to handle?
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