Family Frustrations

I talked to my dad last night for Father's Day. A little background....up until October of last year, he lived in Guam for more than 20 years. So I've only seen him usually 1-2 times a year for a few days, except for the year we both lived in Hawaii. He promised when he retired he'd come visit us for a nice long visit, which still hasn't happened yet. He always has some excuse, which usually revolves around my little sister's schedule. Mind you, she's 25 and in the Army in Korea, but I digress. He did come for 2 days a few months ago but it was a whirwind visit. While he was here, he offered to pay 1/2 of our plane tickets down there because he thought it was easier for a family of 5 to travel to Arizona then for 2 of them to put their dogs in a kennel and come visit us. We even said if they wanted to drive they could bring the dogs. Apparently not good enough either. Well, we have a very full July coming up, and because we've decided to put the kids in private school next year we need to save our pennies because it isn't cheap. So I doubt we are going to Arizona. He said yesterday that they MIGHT be coming up whenever my sister is on TDY at Fort Lewis (about 2 1/2 hrs away from here) but I can't cfount on that. Always their travel schedule revolves around here, even though they just saw her for a month and my stepmom just got back from seeing her in Korea. I'm so tired of being second fiddle.
Another thing is that my only living grandparent, my Dad's mom, is very sick. She has had emphysema for many many years and her body is just getting tired. I haven't seen her in a few years, but my Dad is trying to arrange this visit here/with sister/with grandma all at the same time, and she really needs him now. It turns out that my Mom went down there this weekend and is actually visiting with my grandma as we speak. It's sure nice that my mom, who has been divorced from my dad for over 25 years, still visits my grandma when she is in the area. I need to get a trip down there scheduled but since our July is so busy with kids camps and stuff, I don't know when and if I can do it. I'd ideally like to take a trip there alone but that's another thing that may not happen.
I'm knitting on the Spice Boy socks and not completely thrilled with the pattern. Now that I know about how many stitches around to make socks for the boys, I think I can do just about anything and get away with it. I also finally put some sock pictures up on my Ravelry page.