Here’s a new travel experience. It’s a Friday afternoon. My husband is somewhere in the air between Mexico City and Charleston, South Carolina on a 24 hour mad dash to retrieve our Kindergartener so she can spend her week-long Thanksgiving break with us in Mexico. I am at the top of a pyramid built by a mysterious and ancient mesoamerican society.

My phone rings. I’m surprised to get cell service. I don’t get service in my living room at home. I’m also rather surprised to hear a robocall from my kid’s school informing me that, due to hurricane-related school closures in September, Thanksgiving break is cancelled, please come to school on Monday, thank you.

Well, that’s not going to work for us.

We knew it was going to be a balancing act with the strict schedule of school and the unrelenting call of travel. School, you have won almost every time. But this time it’s our time! It’s our time down here! (Sorry, that spun off into a Goonies reference that I didn’t see coming.)

Anyway, Kalina missed out on a few days of sounding out sight words and feeding the school’s sustainable tilapia.

But she gained a lifelong love of Frida Kahlo and the concept of “viva la vida.” She continued her fascination with volcanoes and gory artwork. She got to watch her father eat bugs on purpose. And we had the benefit, once again, of experiencing a beautiful place (in this case, Puebla) through the curious and fastidious eyes of a child.