Before leaving Florida to return to the not-sunshine state of Wisconsin, which has no palm trees or cruise ships, we maximized our remaining time with family by touring the Kennedy Space Center, hiking the nature preserves, participating in escape room challenges, visiting science and art museums, and eating Gainesville’s best pizza and vegan ice cream.

Clearly, this trip will go down in history as my favorite adventure yet!

But also recorded in the books, unfortunately, is my student status as truant.

Of course, my rule-following soul was initially stressed about that scary attendance notification mailed to our house on official school district letterhead and the mandatory principal meeting that followed, but in the end, the crime was totally worth the time because family is everything, and, now that I’ve successfully completed my maiden voyage on a cruise ship, no school policy is gonna hold me back from living my best life.