highjacking my vacation!

ugh! My SIL & brother are taking a trip to a beach near Hometown FL and suggested that I come along too as my oldest brother & his fam are going to be there as well. See the idea is that instead of my brother dragging his family all over Hometown FL to see the different family members, he picks a nice place and invites everyone to come to see him. He's already traveled across the country to get there, the least they can do is drive to the beach. To me this seems a totally reasonable request and a way to make the vacation less stressful for everyone.

But we have one family member who is a stubborn old coot who refuses to come to the beach. And while one would think, "no big...I just won't see them this time" unfortunately this stubborn one is our mother.

I bought our tickets and reserved a condo...then I sent the itenerary to everyone. I even invited Mom to stay at "my condo" so that she could have a "mini-vacation" at the beach. But she says she probably won't come because her hubby doesn't like the beach. ??? What? They live in FL for "St Pete's sake"!! (sorry, couldn't resist the pun)

I've just emailed my SIL to verify that they won't come to the beach as I'm in shock to hear this. (SIL & brother) do all their FL vacations this way, so they're used to who shows up and who doesn't. UPDATE: SIL emailed me back.. she says that they were only able to get the family to come to them once. Now they all insist on having us drive to them because no one wants to see the family they don't like. ugh!

My plans were to get there, go to Universal the next day, spend the weekend seeing family on the beach, go to Busch Gardens and then come back home. The brothers won't get there until the weekend, so I'll have some time on the beach alone...cool!

Now it looks as if instead of having the family come to us on the weekend, we'll have to drive to see them.