The break down of what I did during my summer vacation.

Had a good visit with my ILs. However, my bride was there for two weeks before I arrived and it was a mixed bag for her.

MIL and FIL have settled in to their new home after loosing the family farm to foreclosure. As I forecast to the whole family years ago this is the best thing to happen to the entire family because it removes the cancer of a giant useless hole in the dirt that multiple generations of the family have thrown countless 10s of thousands of dollars in to. The problem .... they have managed to cram 15 acres of crap in to an 800 sqft house on a third of an acre. So, the new place is just as nasty as the old place and is rapidly approaching the same condition of condemned status that the farm attained.

FIL has finally been granted SS disability and looks happier than I have seen him in years. MIL is jealous that he gets to "retire" and she has to work. That would be a fair opinion if the man had not worn out three hips, a heart and had a stroke funding MILs trips to the local tribal casino.

BIL1 and his "manipulative bitch" of a skanky cow wife. My bride's relationship with them has reached a new all time low point and may be at the stage of unrecoverable. For the past five years my bride has attempted to interface with her brother and his family during visits to the homeland and via e-mail and cell phone with nearly zero return form BIL1. After nearly a week of hearing my wife recount her hurt, anger and the drama of the situation I finally suggested that rather than once again recounting the offenses perpetrated by BIL1 and his wife against my wife with the entire family that she call BIL1 and ask him what the deal is and start working out how to improve the situation. Nice idea but it failed miserably in practice.

My bride called BIL1 and asked him if he was avoiding her and what the problem was. He responded by asking her what the problem was. She recounted the last five years of issues. They take unplanned camping trips whenever she is in town. They schedule extended family activities with BIL1's family and his wife's family then give her family an earlier start-time than my bride's family then give her and her parents and other sibs crap when they are late. At this point the cow wife spouts in on speaker phone that the family has never liked her, my wife has never liked her and everyone else has the problem not them (she and BIL1). At this point my wife made a disparaging comment about her brother's lack of manhood and where he could find his manhood in his wife's purse, told BIL1's wife that she had managed to alienate BIL1 from his family and that BIL's wife was a "manipulative bitch"..... WOW! :jawdrop:

My bride never looses her cool that bad. I was actually shocked.

So, rather than hearing my bride recount BIl1 and his wife's behavior to the whole family ..... my bride recounted the confrontation.

FIL was grateful that my bride warned him of the situation. MIL was actually supportive of my bride. SIL is mad at my wife for breaking the family code of never directly addressing interpersonal problems with the person that has the problem. BIL2 is as usual attempting to be the peacemaker though he is in the process of pressing charges against BIL1 and the "manipulative bitch" for charging three sets of tires on his store account at the agriculture supply store, changing the mailing address on the account so BIL2 would not find out and no paying the bill.

By bride's cousin just found out she is pregnant and is rushing a wedding to the baby daddy. This makes it 100% for my wife's generation of cousins. All of them have either conceived of given birth to their first child out of wedlock. Woo Hoo!!! That is a family statistic to be proud of. While visiting Cousin I actually heard her say "dad must approve of the baby because when I got home the other day he had come in to my house and left a car seat". Shortly after the car seat comment she said "I did not think dad approved of my fiance of the wedding but he paid for my dress ... so he approves."

Ummm not when you consider that he had told the entire family "I have spent my entire life trying to get away from trailer trash and now my daughter is marrying in to it".

The Cousin's father actually was married to two different women with two sets of kids at the same time. This poor young lady is so desperate for his approval that anything she can spin as positive she blows out of proportion. Sad, sad, sad.

We also saw another cousin (Bride's first cousin on her BioDad's side of the family). My bride's biodad was killed in a car accident before my MIL knew she was pregnant with my bride. This cousin is an interesting specimen also. Smart, educated, beautiful ...... severely psychologically and emotionally imbalanced (my layman's opinion) and married to an abusive alcoholic. We have sent $ several times for her to get an apartment, take the kids and move out .... but ..... she never seems to follow through. Sad, sad, sad.

SO, after a strong dose of IL drama, my bride, our son (my SS) and I roadtriped back to Tx. We hit Paulina Lake, Diamond Lake, Crater Lake, Reno, Carson city, Hwy 50, Kanab, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Four Corners then sprinted home. Gotta love West Texas where the legal speed limit is 80MPH. I had tons of fun sucking multiple tanks of fuel in my SUV as I blew past the Prius's. }:)

For the six day road trip I attempted to engage our son (my SS) in describing to me his detailed plan for how he was going to move forward in his life. I received nothing but the usual one work answers, grunts and "what? .... huh?" responses. Teenagers .... gotta love em ..... can't return them for a refund! :O

What I learned on my summer vacation?

Northern Arizona is without equal the most beautiful and my favorite place on the planet. And I have seen quite of bit of the planet. Europe, Asia, the ME .... all have incredible beauty but No Az is truly God's country. I get there as often as I can. If there was only employement there that paid worth a damn and did not involve hugging trees.

I married an amazing, accomplished, beautiful woman that may never entirely overcome her family. We raised a normal, pretty outstanding, polite, unmotivated, immature young man who is an amazingly infuriating teen who will ultimately figure it all out just as I did. Everyone please cross your fingers, knock on wood, sacrifice a goat, etc......... to help insure that he will figure it all out. If you are missing a heard of goats .... give me a call. I will send you a check.

And ..... I won the parent lottery. Being raised my Ward and June Cleaver and being able to go home to mom and dad even for only the occasional weekend is a great, great thing..... even when you are 46.

Best regards,