The Hokenstad Family

With Brandon and his dad in Norway and London for a week, my girl and I packed up the car and headed north for a week.

Or maybe it just looked like we packed for a week in the woods. Truth be told, we were only going for two days.

After driving two and a half hours through thick pines and winding roads, our ears stopped popping and adjusted to the spike in elevation and we drove up to the place we'd call home for the next few days.

Instantly, we took in our new environment and the girls spent a good majority of time scouring the grounds for bug life while the adults unpacked and talked about how the girls would have their first smores later that night.

Kennedy chose to only hold the "sleeping" bugs as they were obedient and wouldn't crawl on her.

Reagan was more brave and collected as many "awake" creepy crawlies as her hands would allow.

Some of our favorite cabin pastimes:

Bubbles.

Playing in the sandbox.

Playing on the stairs.

New adventures in a land that felt a lot like Colorado.

Hiking whilst holding hands.

And fishing for anything that moves.

Every June we make the trek back to our respective hometowns within the state of Nebraska. While Brandon
reacquaints himself with Omaha, soaking up other Omahaites at the College World Series and getting in quality time with his parents, Kennedy and I usually head west on I-80 until we've reached what used to be my home base -- Kearney.

This was our first trip back where I didn't have to pack anything besides clothes. No baby monitor, no binkies, no diapers, no special baby stuff. I didn't even have to haul the pack-n-play that we store at Grandpa Doug's house in Omaha to Kearney, as Kennedy is finally fully adjusted to sleeping in a regular size bed.

Every day Kennedy would wake and say, "What are we doing today?"

She sensed that I had a Kearney to-do list.

And she was right.

Sure, I wanted to take her to some of my favorite places, eat food I no longer get to satisfy my taste buds with, and experience the new things that have been built since I departed my hometown, but most of all, I wanted her to associate certain things with going to Nonnie and Papa Moe's house.

Kind of like when I think about visiting my grandparent's house and immediately visualize the creek we used to risk tick infestations just to get to. Or the steep as hell stairs that led to the upstairs of their house. Or the dirt garage we used to look for new batches of kittens in. Or waking in the middle of the night thirsty as ever and hitting the jackpot when I opened the fridge --a full, fresh pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid. Being that I was a kid and not able to reach the glasses in my grandparent's cabinets, I grabbed that pitcher with both hands and took the biggest swig my little mouth could manage. And spewed it all over their kitchen as my cherry Kool-Aid turned out to be my grandpa's tomato juice. Did I mention I hate tomato juice?

Memories created in my childhood but still stored well into my adulthood. That's what I wanted Kennedy to find and have.

And I know that she's starting to remember and store things in that little noggin of hers because the first thing she said when we walked into my dad's place was, "I want some popcorn." The last time we were at his house, which was last November, he had made us all popcorn. Her first association with his place is popcorn and that makes me smile.

Cottonmill Park was and still is one of my favorite parks that Kearney has to offer. It has definitely changed and evolved since my girlfriends and I used to gather our swimsuits and towels and head there to swim and paddle boat. For one, I think the paddle boats are gone and the water no longer looks like brown lake water. Apparently, there's a chemical out there that you can add to lake water that gives it more of an ocean blue sheen or someones been dumping a lot of blue slushy in it.

And the Nature Barn is still there. Only now the deer and cow have been replaced with a donkey and a miniature horse.

If Cottonmill Park had a frequent visitor punch card, we would have easily filled all the punches necessary to receive a free day there. Except for the fact that it's already free to go there. Kennedy kept calling the lake part a pool and desperately wanted to go back and find more fish.

We found an injured fish in one area. Somehow he must have taken a hook to the eye and, therefore, had a bulging, hanging-on-by-a-thread eyeball. He, of course, was in the shallow end and wasn't hightailing it to deeper waters when Kennedy got close. In the end, his handicap proved to be too much temptation and trying to keep three-year-old fingers from petting or picking him up forced us to move on quickly. Well, that and the fact that my mom and I dreamed of shading ourselves instead of wading ourselves in the blazing sun.

The one and only stubborn animal at the NB was a flock of ducks. Kennedy proclaimed they were her favorite and just wanted to pet them. And so she began her quest to lay her hands on the fine-feathered friends. Or in this case, fine-feathered foes.

As they weren't having it.

And the girl was beyond frustrated.

My cute little dad retired from UPS while we were back. His first few days of freedom were spent with Kennedy and I.

And a squirrel we shared our Runza fries with.

My dad: Michelle, we can't feed him fries. We need to find him some acorns or an apple or something that's good for him.

Me: Uh, Dad, we just ate these fries and I didn't see you complaining or looking for something a bit more healthy to eat.

Kennedy: Let's feed him all our fries!

Maybe she'll remember feeding the squirrel in the park. Or maybe she'll remember dancing on a hay bale. Or maybe the smell of chocolate cupcakes baking in the oven will trigger a time spent alongside Nonnie in the kitchen. Time will only tell. Regardless if a memory or memories took up occupancy in that brain of hers, we had a grand old time and I'll always remember this special time together.