Family craziness

[Night Elf]

The majority of my in-laws live in Wisconsin. We go for a week every summer. This year one of my BIL's wants to coordinate ALL of my MIL's family into at least one day. She has 4 sons who are all married with kids. Just coordinating my DH and both of my dd's is tough. I've been trying to get the family to at least discuss possible dates but no one will talk. So DH picked dates we're going and the rest can fall in line with us, or this big get together just won't work. This means we're going to look bad because we're not playing along. I'm wondering if no one wants to commit to a date until closer to summer. One family member suggested July so that's what we're running with. It's best for us as well. However, we can't wait until summer to finalize our plans. We need to know now so we can book our hotel room and more importantly our dog's boarding at a pet spa. I refuse to just pick any old place that can take him. It has to be this one place. They're good. They work with my vet. We've used them for 5 years. We trust them. They book far in advance.

 

I hope this doesn't get ugly. The idea is to surprise MIL but having all of us there and disgruntled isn't going to be happy for her. In my 21 years of marriage, we've never had a problem with the family. I'm worried about this one though.

[displace]

I think what you're doing is reasonable. Some people need a week to plan for vacation. Most need at least a couple months, and for a surprise family reunion? I'd probably be working on it a year. It doesn't sound very practical to wait much longer if they're wanting a lot of people to come: requests from work, hotel, airfare, etc, take time.

 

If I were you, I would not bring up the dog sitting as a limiting factor for your planning.

Edited March 1, 2017 by displace

[Night Elf]

I didn't mention the dog, no. We should go ahead and book now though because summer fills up quickly. I just want someone else to have a conversation with me. The first person mentioned July 4th when we first started discussing this but hasn't said anything since then. I've written two notes about dates.

 

I've never participated in anything so complicated before. Even in my family, where we all live within 1.5 hours of each other, we need 2-3 months to plan an afternoon!