OMG- I almost have the first scenario working reasonable- IF I can get them to release difficult child 25-30 days earlier as he requested- and he's been told they are considering it. AND if they let me drive him cross country and fly him from CA to HI. I'm thinking they should approve this- at first I thought they wouldn't but then I thought about it, and figured that if I was moving two states away, they wouldn't be able to make me fly him instead of drive, right? See, I could ship the car from CA and then not have to worry about getting another car out there but save money by flying all of us together on HI airlines from CA instead of the east coasst- especially since I would not need to come back and get difficult child. Now, I need to make sure I can sell enough to meet bills from now until mid-Jan and maybe have enough left to move a "skeleton" household. If I can do that, I would be thrilled! Also, I could at least have a chance of short-selling the house by the time I go- or having something in the works. If all my stuff is either sold or moved out, I can stay with my mom a week or something with the dogs. She'll flip over this and not seeing difficult child, but you know, she is the one who would not come up here to visit him because "she can't leave her dog"- even though she has good friends who would take care of him and he wouldn't need to be in a kennel.
Anyway, I'll go a little further on this scenario then see if the other works, too. One big difference of course is the pay I would not be getting by waiting until Jan. to go. But again, there'd be more airfare and dog care and if I can't get out there in Nov loke I'd hoped (due to time to get clearance approved), it might be a wash or worse. It really is "cost-stupid" to pay all this for the dogs- my estimate totals $2000 for microchip/blood tests, air flight from CA, HI state fee and quarantine fee for 4 weeks- but difficult child would never forgive me, and I'm not so sure I'd forgive myself, if they didn't go.
I know I like the idea of taking difficult child and the dogs all together. I would think Department of Juvenile Justice might even find it more attractive to let difficult child out 3 weeks early than to have the sole custodian take off to HI and say "I'll be back in Feb".
