Life Conundrum

I currently live in Boise, Id. I moved back to the western states with my wife and youngest child, who is currently 14 about ten years ago, from Oklahoma where my three adult children from a previous marriage live. There were many reasons for moving, including the fact that my parents are/were aging, and they intended to move back to my home town of Salt Lake. Boise was a good compromise, Close enough to Salt Lake that I can go visit, My in-laws live here, so they get to watch their grandson grow up and there is public land to hike, ski and hunt on locally. It doesn't hurt that I can buy an over the counter tag for damn near any big game species.

My parents lived in Alaska when my older children were young, and as a result, my children hardly knew their grandparents, My father never has hunted with my children, and I think that's a crying shame. The lack of visits were not due to any estrangement, mostly due to the constraints of time, money and geography. My Mother passed away last year, and my father is in frail health currently, I go to visit as often as I can, and I'm grateful that I live in a place where that option is available to me.

Now to the point of the post, My older children are getting older, and married, and my son and his wife are expecting a baby girl this spring (Naming her after my mother, to my great joy). All three children have careers near their mom, and local family on both sides of their marriages, so I don't think they're likely to move. I don't want to miss out on all the things my parents did, and not knowing my grandkids, and watching them grow up is already weighing heavily on my mind. My wife is a teacher, and I work in environmental management, (I clean up spills and haul hazardous waste) so career wise, we could go anywhere and be able to transfer job skills. I could be a long distance grandparent, making sure to bring kids to the "mountains" on an annual basis, IE spend a couple of weeks every summer at the Grandpa's house, and making a visit to Oklahoma every year. It does seem like I'd miss out on a lot of stuff though. Baseball and soccer games, birthdays, weekend camping trips etc. And mostly, I wouldn't know the kids.

What the heck, I'm just looking for any experiences anyone else has. Anybody have any advice?

I've got one little girl and a boy on the way. Can't give you any advice from the grandparent side, but I do wish my folks were a little closer. Would love for my children to spend more time with them.

Ah yes, the role of being grandparents is not for the faint of heart.
We have second guessed ourselves by staying put here in the big city where three of the five grands are within walking/biking distance to our house. The other two live clear over in Nampa! We have the four year-old every Wednesday for all day. It boils down to us not meeting our friends down south for winters and have limited ourselves to three weeks max on the road. Daughter has a stressful executive position, plus she and her husband own a business in Nampa which he runs. Seems like not a day goes by that there isn't a transportation crisis. We choose to do this for our children because we missed alot of their activities when we were working and they growing up. Tough call for you, but if you would be miserable with the move; you won't be doing anybody favors including yourself.

Yeah, I dunno how/what to do. I love the geography here in Idaho, but I've still got great friends in Oklahoma, and places I could hunt. It's obviously not the same kind of hunt, but as I get older, I've lost a step, too. Anyone done the long distance grandparent thing, and how did you do it. Or if you were a grandchild of long distance grandparents, how did you get to know your Grandparents.

I think it really depends on the family structure. I know for me basically all of my family is concentrated in 1 city. I've recently moved 3 hours away which is a great compromise for me as I'm a short drive away to visit for holidays and maybe once every six-eight weeks(but closer to hunting and fishing at my new home). My wife on the other hand, her family is much more spread out between CA, VA, NC, MO, etc... so I feel like it would be much less of an issue for her to move somewhere further away. Most all of my relatives who have moved out of state eventually came back home at one point or another.

I'll also add that my mother is an only child and has some extended family in various States and she considers herself close to them, but I never have because I've only met most of them 2-3 times in my entire life. To me there is no substitute for being close or at least being able to visit frequently. It might be important for your youngest to be able to develop a relationship with brother/sisters nieces/nephews.