Reuniting one’s original family crew for a nostalgic beach escape sounds straightforward, unless you factor in the joys of post-divorce blending, where every trip comes preloaded with bonus drama. Victory at the slots means this dutiful daughter is footing the bill for some high-stakes healing, fully prepared to revive the pre-split tradition of sun, sand, and ideally, zero meltdowns. 

But that won’t happen if it depends on Jake, the stepbrother whose greatest contribution to last summer’s amusement park trip was a symphony of complaints, expertly engineered parental conflict, and a magic trick where he vanished for three hours only to later claim surprise at the family panic.