Christmas

             Christmas is coming up. Along with Christmas our time with our children is coming up. I cannot wait to see my babies, but the children are a state away and with travel  comes cost.  Their mother has always refused to help out in any way, so we are stuck with driving 12 hours to pick the kids up, 12 hours home... and do it again a week later. We dont have the money to do this while I am out of work. Heck, even if I got a job today we wouldn't have time to be able to afford that.
            Our next thought was that we could travel to New Mexico and stay with Eric's parents for a week, spend Christmas with them. This shouldn't be such a big deal as Eric has spent every Christmas with them, except when he was deployed. Additionally the children would also spend Christmas with his parents (Eric's parents love to have the children at every opportunity) AND their mother would be able to see them during our time with the kids, which she should like.  The problem is we have two wonderful dogs and a kitten who would need to come with us, as we cannot afford a doggy daycare and none of our friends are available to dog or house sit.  We asked Eric's parents if we could bring the pets with us, his brother brings all three of his dogs every time they visit, but we were told no. His father hates cats and his mother feels our german shepherd will eat her yorkies. 
               His mothers reply was that maybe we could drive halfway to New Mexico, they will drive halfway to us, we will meet in Lubbock and spend the weekend there, then we take the kids back home. That way we only have to drive all the way there and back once right! The issue with that is that we do not know anyone in Lubbock, dont have money to spend on a hotel for a weekend and all that. So... what if they drive all the way here, spend the weekend with us. Grandparents could see our home for the first time, visit with us and we will take them to all the fun stuff around town. Neither of our parents have come to visit us yet ( mine have a lot longer way to go and have promised to visit as soon as they get time off work) and we would really love to have them see our home.  They routinely visit his other brother who lives in Colorado. Nonnie informed us that it was much too far away for them to travel, it would take way too much time, and we couldn't expect them to take the time to visit us. Never mind the fact that in the 9 months since we have moved here we have traveled to see them and the children about 6 times.
              So we are going to have to look and see what we can do for Christmas... This is our time with the children that we dont get to see very often, and next year Eric will be in Afghanistan, and we dont even know if their mother will allow the children to spend any time with me when their father is away. She has always been very recalcitrant to allow me any time with our kids, and extremely hesitant to admit I have any relationship with them at all.
             My sister called and told me she had airlines miles and could fly me to Alaska to see my family for Christmas, but as much as I would love to see everyone, I need to spend this Christmas with my children. This is our first Christmas we will be able to have together. Eric was deployed for our first Christmas, the next we were preparing to move to Texas, and now this one. Next Christmas he will be deployed...
              We cant miss this time to see them. I already miss my babies.