Case is in MN, kids are 8 and 10. My ex-husband has filed a motion to have his parenting time increased (among other things). Currently he has EOW only. In his motion he's asking for "Two weeks in the summer" (verbatim). He and I do not communicate well at all and I want to make sure my answer is as precise as possible about setting out the summer parenting time.
My problem is that the kids and I live in Iowa. Summer vacation has been very short due to school getting out later than scheduled after snow make-up days (this year it was June 3rd instead of May 29th) and then starting well before Labor Day (this year school started August 18th) as it always does. Because it is so short I'm having a hard time fitting two weeks for my ex into the summer without completely leaving me open to having NO weekends with the kids during the summer. I need to know if there's a specific schedule that I can present to the judge that he will accept without seeing it as too restricting. The judge who's hearing the case is very good about issuing very specific orders, but I'm just not sure if something restricting him from taking his "two weeks" over "my" weekends (say, specifically excluding 4 pm on Friday until 11 am Sunday [which is his PT EOW schedule] on "my" weekends from his summer PT) would fly.
I want to propose something that's along the lines of that he may have two non-consecutive periods of seven days that run consecutive to his PT weekends without falling over "my" weekends. Then there's July 4th and our younger son's birthday to complicate the matter. I'm so lost on how to do this that I'm tempted to put that he can have from 9 am on the Monday immediately preceding one of his PT weekends until 6 pm on Sunday the same weekend, and that the time can fall over July 4th or our younger son's birthday only in odd years. It's not exactly "2 weeks" but it makes everything a WHOLE lot easier.
I also have reservations about whether it's actually him that wants this time (I have strong reason to believe that it's his mom, not him, but I know that's mostly irrelevant) and the fact that he just resumed his weekends again in May. After a year of no contact and 20 months of not exercising any weekends he reappeared in December and insisted on resuming his weekends right away. One court trip later, his motion for contempt against me was denied and my temporary modification of visitation was granted for February through April. He didn't defend the absence or failing to exercise his weekends so that's now a matter of court record. If I thought that I could get the judge to deny granting more PT based on recent history I would try but I don't know that there's a snowball's chance in Arizona of that happening. I do believe, however, that the absence may help in getting the somewhat less than 2 weeks granted as I outlined above.
Any thoughts on this situation would be greatly appreciated.

