Choosing Shovels

I wish there was a hotline that indecisive people could call and ask for advice. Many times I tie my brain into double and triple knots and I just want someone to tell me what to do. My brain is overloaded and my thought processes have imploded. Is there someone out there with functioning objective reasoning skills who can tell me what to do?

Situation:
1. We live in Wisconsin. My family lives in Oregon.

2. For a variety of reasons, my parents can't visit us, so we travel there every other year.

3. My seventy-one-year-old mother has various health issues and has been in an out of the hospital the last few years. We almost lost her four years ago and I really didn't expect her to live this long. She's been fighting a respiratory infection since December and has made four trips to the hospital.

3a. She's in the hospital again right now.

4. Kiah and I want to go for a visit. Kiah's got a soft spot in her heart for older people in general, and her Grandma in particular. Kiah's window to travel is June 13 to June 25 as she'll be camp counseling after that, and then going back to college.

5. Keith and Christina have work and can't go, Erica and Anna are working at a summer camp so aren't available, and Andrew's married now and can't go gallivanting with his mother. That leaves Kiah and the two youngest.

5. I've looked since March for good airfare. Usually if I wait long enough or look hard enough I can sniff out a reasonable price. But I've looked everywhere and can't find good prices. The longer I waited the higher it gets. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason why certain fares are higher than others, but right now there are no cheap midwest airfares to Portland, Oregon. I could fly to Florida or Washington D.C. cheaper than I could fly to Portland.

6. Keith suggested leaving Amy and Lani at home and fly with Kiah, since two tickets cost less than four. I want them to come. I want them to spend time with their grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. I like to travel with them. I like to do road trips. I like vacations.

7. My parents live in a small one bedroom mobile home and don't have room for four people to stay so we need to rent a hotel room which adds up pretty fast.

8. I have a $2000 budget which sounds like a lot but not when I have to buy $500 airplane tickets, rent a car, and get hotel rooms.

8a. If we use that money to go see her now and she dies in the next year, I will have already used the money budgeted for travel. Should I save the $2000 so we can all go to her funeral which only God knows when that will be? Then again, she could live another fifteen years.

8b. There's a pretty good chance that the money spent on this trip means there won't be money for a family vacation in August when Keith has time off. I feel bad spending all this money on two people.

8c. Kiah can't go in August when Keith has time off. Her only window this summer is in June. Besides that, Keith does not like Oregon. We lived there for four years when he was in seminary and developed a distaste for Oregon. He'll go if need be, but he would rather not.

9. Keith calls me "The Option Queen" and I have spent hours looking for the cheapest way to get four people to Portland and back. I've looked until I'm cross-eyed on Travelocity, Priceline, etc. at planes, trains, buses, and driving.

10. I finally decided to drive. At this point the cheapest option, besides leaving the little girls home, is to rent a car and drive. This sounds like fun, except I'm a BIG chicken when it comes to severe midwest summer thunderstorms and driving through big cities.

Are you still with me? I don't blame you if your eyes have glazed over.

Keith said I could do whatever I want but his preference is that I just take Kiah and fly. He's not comfortable with me driving that far. (Three days out and three days back - at least 4,000 miles)

So my quandary is do I do what I know he wants me to do - leave Amy and Lani home and fly, even though the tickets are outrageously expensive, or drive and take all three girls like I want to do? How do I honor my husband's wishes when he said I had a choice but I know what his choice is?

I've almost used up my two week advance purchase window for buying a plane ticket. If I don't buy tickets tomorrow the prices will be even higher.

So now that you've peeked inside my contorted thought processes, is there someone, anyone who can please tell me what to do? The sooner the better, if it's not too much to ask.

One of Keith's favorite sayings when I have a hard time making up my mind is, "I don't care what shovel you use, just pick a shovel and dig."

So if you were me, which shovel would you choose?