Texas court...long

[awakenlynn]

Background:  Ex's husband is in military, my DH used to be in military.  SD was born in 1993.  IL kept jurisdiction regardless of who moved because BOTH parties were in the military.

Ex moved to west TX in 2002.  In August 2002, My husband got out and we moved to IA.

We went to court in IL in 2003 to adjust child support and to create the current visitation order.  We went to court in IL, to fix arrears and get the credit we needed (military had paid ex instead of court-ex had papers to prove it).

Now:  We went to court in July and August 2006 to get the visitation clarified.  Ex moved from West TX to East TX.  Ex's lawyer has the jurisdiction thrown out of IL on the visitation as my husband was no longer in the military.  SD is now 14 and will be starting high school in the fall.

Visitation order:  every spring break-we pay, 8 weeks uninteruppted in summer-she pays (not allowing the week after school lets out or the week before school starts) and alternating Thanksgiving (even years) and Christmas (odd years.)-we pay

Ex has recently filed papers in TX to vacate the entire IL visitation order.  SHE wants to be the one to determine what if any visitation my husband was to get and if that doesn't work to get the Standard Order for Tx put in place with the variation that she gets every other spring break.  (there are only 3 years plus a spring break that we can be court ordered visits).

Will a judge do this????  We have in turned stated ex doesn't have grounds for a modification of a foreign order(she registered the 2003 order with TX) and that the current order works, but needs some clarification.  We ask that layover flights be allowed and each party picks the airport on their end.  It also asks for pick-up times and drop-off times when the SD is driven to be established (ex fights us on times and we usually lose a full day of visit when she does this).

We are willing to compromise on the Christmas, with odd years starting in 2009, that we get SD when vacation starts until Dec. 30th and we would continue to pay as ordered, but for even years, because we are paying at Thanksgiving, ex would pay as she is the one who has wanted this change and we would get Dec. 28 to end of Christmas visit.

Anyone from TX who can give us an idea of what the likelihood is for her to get the order overturned and the TX one in place.  Without ex's variation, we would lose 2 weeks every summer and a week the year we have Christmas visitation (2007 and 2009).

Ex is stating there is a substantial change in circumstance.  Any idea what that might be?

Thanks,
Lynn