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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here,

You all have convinced me this is a no go, but for some reason I still feel compelled to come back and explain, because as usual DCUM makes a lot of assumptions that aren't true.

I'm not the oldest, and she's not the youngest, we're the two middle kids.  So, the dynamic that person is imaging doesn't apply here.

There's also not a dynamic where she helped me with little kids and now I don't help her.  For one thing, it just didn't happen that way.  My kids are close in age, and when they were little she lived across the country.  Her oldest and my younger kid are a few weeks apart, so there just wasn't much time together when I had little kids and she didn't.  Since then, she's had 3 more kids and moved close, so I've had lots of opportunities to help her out.  Which is fine, that's just the way things happened not a complaint.   Now family dynamic is such that we help each other out, and as the person with the younger kids she gets lots of help.  I took her kids to the pool all summer, and taught two of them to swim and one of them to ride a bike, because she was pregnant and uncomfortable, and then nursing a newborn, and her DH was swamped with work.  Not a complaint, just saying I help out a lot, and most of the time, I'm happy to do that.

But the result is that she's got young kids who are used to being helped by me, and she's used to getting help from me, and while I'm not complaining about the dynamic, or bothered by the dynamic most of the time, on a ski vacation it's going to get challenging to change that dynamic.

She does have a husband.  A great guy, involved parent, and lousy skier.  But they have 4 kids, and honestly a 4 year old who has never skied really cramps your style, so her older two are going to be desperate to ski with someone else, and they're not quite ready for the freedom I was imagining my kids and their older cousins having.  So somewhere, a third adult or teen would end up involved. Ski vacations with little kids are just different from ski vacations where everyone is a competent skier.  I didn't take my own 4 year olds on any ski vacations, because honestly with them along it wouldn't have been enough fun to justify the price tag.  In fact, this will be my own kids' first ski trip further than PA, and more than one night, so I kind of want to focus on them.

Covid also makes this more complicated.  Even if we have a kid vaccine, we won't have a baby vaccine in December, and she's not going to be willing to use any kind of childcare for the baby because of that.  I'd be the same way.  And if there's no kid vaccine, and we have no way of knowing that, she's not going to be willing use ski school and risk them bringing it back.  And even if she is, I can tell you the dynamic with two same age kids one of whom has to go to ski school, while the other is free to go wherever with his older brother and cousins will be hard.  Plus ski school costs a ton of money. [/quote]

I don't think any of us are minimizing the issues involved, OP, it's just that this is part and parcel of traveling with family. The real question is: why would you think you can escape that? When I want to travel with my parents, I accept that I will tear my hair out because of my mother's irrationalities, and will spend a great deal of time persuading my father to step out of his routine. Yet I do travel with them, because there is some enjoyment to be had, nonetheless.

You were having a little selfish moment there, OP. You can't have it all. [/quote]
You are missing the whole point. This is not a trip the whole family has planned. OP planned it with her older sister, it was never intended to be a big family vacation like an annual beach trip. As a self-sufficient adult you absolutely get to choose what your vacations look like. It is your time and money and you are not obligated to include your entire family.[/quote]

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