Legal Question in Family Law in California

You need to file for a change of custody orders at your local court. At 12 and 15 your kids can make a big impact on where they stay. They are old enough to have a vote as long as it is reasonable. What is in the kids' best interests comes first, but that should include visits with both sides. How those visits get switched around can always be modified by the court with a petition to do so. The local court house can provide paperwork for you to do this. You will need to serve papers on your ex-wife so she has notice of the hearing. She need not come to the hearing, but risks default if she does not. You can go to YOUR court house to file if that is where the kids are at the time. Otherwise you might need to use the court in the county where the divorce and original custody decree were issued.

Mr. Brear is correct, except about where you can file. You can't ask your local court to modify an order issued by another judge in another county. So unless your current order is in your county, you have to file and appear in the court where the current order issued. If neither you nor your ex live in the county where the order issued, then you can petition to have the case transferred to where the children habitually resided, which it sound's like the mother's residence county.