Vacation at Virginia Beach - First half

For nearly two years I have awaited this event... not just because it's a family vacation, but because all my cool cousins were going to be there!!! My mother's sister has nine (yes, nine) children... and about half of them have married and have more than one child. And they are all scattered across our nation. I have been privileged to have hosted about half of them in my former house over the years I lived there for one reason or another. Some were crossing the country in one direction or another, or were also visiting their father's parents who lived about 5 minutes from us (how weird is that!?) Anyway, we started talking about doing a family reunion with all of us cousins about two years ago, and we were able to get it going and decide that we were going to start planning a reunion every two years, and rather than always meeting in the middle of the country, allow the person planning to choose location and all that. So, we are going in age order down as to who plans which year. So that meant Spencer (my only male cousin on this side) would be the first. He and his wife chose Virginia Beach, right on the Atlantic Ocean!

We left Indiana on the Friday before and headed to Ohio to attempt to help my mother prepare and pack. We would be camping, so there was plenty of extra gear to haul. My crazy cool cousin Amber and her family spent the night at our house in Indiana that night. We managed to leave Ohio just before 11am on Saturday and started heading east. I did most of the driving that day in the car (dad drove the truck) and we stopped for the night shortly after getting into Virginia. The drive was not bad and was really pretty driving through the Blue Mountains of WV and VA.



We finished the drive to the coast on Sunday and our family started setting up our site. The rest of the cousins would be arriving the following day. That evening we drove to the beach to see the ocean. It was fun to be on the beach at night with very few others around. The boardwalk reminded Fares and I of Brasil and the atmosphere there.

The next day we headed to the beach again, but this time with our swimsuits. The water was a bit chilly, but it did not take much getting used to. It really was salty! Travis watched Gabriela while Fares and I walked clear to the other end of that section of beach. There was a big wall of rocks there, so we hopped up to see what was on the other side, but got whistled at by the lifeguard. Apparently, up on the boardwalk there is a sign posted to not climb on the rocks. Oh well. It was a little inlet on the other side, and private beach beyond that. The waves were strong and fun, but we went back to camp for lunch.

Then the fighter jets started coming in ... one after another, about one minute apart, for nearly 40 minutes (or more)!! We were surrounded by military bases and they were busy. They would be so loud, you could not talk to the person next to you because we were right under their flight path as they were about to land. Crazy.

What was next was a bit scary... we were notified that Spencer and his wife had been in a terrible accident! They were towing a large motor home with ALL supplies for the week (remember, we were camping and had to cook all meals for 4 days) and flipped it 4 or 5 times!! yes. Now, everyone was okay, but it was a serious and major accident. Well, in about 5 minutes we had the truck and car emptied out and my dad, brother and I were on the road to meet up with them. A couple cars were almost to the campsite, but the other half were behind the wreck. They were about two hours from us. My dad and brother took the truck to where the remains of the wreck would be taken in order to salvage what they could and bring back what was needed to camp. I went to the hospital in order to bring passengers back with me. Turns out that Spencer's wife would be staying at the hospital for what turned out to be one day. She had suffered the most with a fracture in one vertebrae and other cuts and bruises. Trust me, it was not the reunion we were all imagining - meeting up in a hospital lobby in an unfamiliar city, being coached into town by a security guard over the phone... there were several children there I had not met at all, and most others had no recollection of me anyway. It was decided that Spencer's children (almost 5 years and nearly 3 months old) would go to camp with family and he would stay with his wife. It was well after 8pm by the time we arrived at camp, with dad and Travis arriving with a stuffed truck at nearly 11pm. Things didn't calm down yet... we were all hyped up with the scary accident and ensuing confusion and disorganization it caused. There were tents that were lost, so several people got to sleep out under the stars that night. Another tent wound up being broken upon set up, so they were under the stars too. It was a long day to say the least. It even started to rain the next morning! Ugh. But, we prevailed... the other half soon with lots more pictures!