One thing about "posting" that I find problematic is you often don't know the tone someone is using while posting - so if I am off base with the following response, I apologize in advance. It seemed to me in the above post that you are sort of making your mom out to be the bad guy here. "refuses to go to WDW in August. Period." I'm hoping that's not the case. Two sides of a family are planning a trip to WDW - and that means that MIL doesn't get to dictate when you go. Not fair to invite people and express that everyone gets to have in-put and then let one person run the show. A huge group trip like that is about compromise and not dictating. Everyone needs to give up something and MIL is not giving up ANYTHING (except cash).
As has been mentioned many times previously during the life-span of this thread, by allowing your MIL to pay you have given her power. In that sense, your DH is quite on target. When you allow someone to pay, the "this is when we are going - you can come or not" approach (which is the approach we prefer) doesn't work. However, DH needs to be reminded that your family has now been included in the plan to go to WDW and that it isn't a MIL only show. It would be rude and inconsiderate to just dump your side of the family. He is as much a part of your family as you are of his (for better or worse
) so he also needs to be considerate of their feelings.
One option is to take the free vacation and plan a separate paid vacation with your family for May. You will be out no more money than if you had declined MIL's offer in the first place. Another option, and the one we would like choose, is to stand up to MIL and tell her you will not go in August - it is too hot for your kids and your family can't make it at that time -you will not uninivite your family b/c they are just as important to you as DH's family. It would be important to me for MIL to know that my family's feelings are just as important as her feelings. If MIL refused to budge, we wouldn't go. My Dh and I are very much on the same page about this sort of thing. We've been dealing with it quite a bit since our triplets were born - everything from guardianship to vacations.