Virginia Beach With F and D Families

I have to admit — I was pretty worried about this trip from the start. It honestly felt a bit doomed before it even began. Jamie had invited us to join her family, along with a few others, down in Virginia Beach to use some of their timeshare points. It sounded fun in theory, but everything leading up to it was pure chaos.

One family was in the middle of selling their home and had a last-minute early morning showing — of course, her husband was out of town — so she juggled cleaning the house, wrangling her three little kids, and getting everyone out before the showing started. Another family’s daughter got sick and ended up hospitalized for three nights. Then Jamie’s husband had to leave unexpectedly for work because of a plane crash he was investigating. To top it all off, Jamie lost her keys at church and had to drive all the way home for a spare set.

And then… the weather turned. It was supposed to be in the 70s on Sunday, drop to the 40s on Monday, and hit a freeze warning by Tuesday. At that point, I was mostly just wondering what our family’s disaster contribution would be.

But now that we’re home, I can happily say — it all turned out great.

We started by going to church and then headed straight down to Virginia Beach. Since we were ahead of everyone else (Jamie had to go home for her keys, and Kylie’s crew was stuck at a McDonald’s), we stopped at Sam’s Club to grab some lunch and stock up on food for the weekend. Perfect timing — all four cars ended up pulling into the resort within five minutes of each other.

Our rooms weren’t ready yet, so we headed straight to the beach — just steps from the hotel. The kids had an absolute blast playing on the playground, digging in the sand, and even braving the cold waves (go Christopher, Zack, and Millie!). Afterward, everyone was freezing, so we warmed up at the hotel pool and spent the rest of the evening there.

We capped off the night with delicious pizza, board games, and lots of laughter. For a trip that started off feeling cursed, it turned out to be exactly what we all needed.