Escape from North Dakota - Part II

Okay, back with the wedding. When we got to the church, we saw our flowers, which were beautiful. The pink ones are the bridesmaids bouquets, the white one is Herryn's. You can see her mom and her aunt tying on a ribbon from her grandmother's wedding bouquet - her 'something old'.


We all got dressed and ready to go.


Then it was wedding time! Most of the pictures from the ceremony didn't turn out because it was dark and the shutter speed was slow - so they're mostly blurry. Here's the happy couple, with the bride trying dilligently not to cry, but failing (I cried through most of my wedding too! Can't help it! I started crying as soon as I came around the side of the house and could see everyone waiting for me, and it was all downhill from there! And Melissa, who memorably sobbed her way down the aisle, pausing to try and smile in between sobs. It was cute!).

Wedding went off without a hitch. We took the limo back to GF jam-packed with wedding party, bride and groom and assorted extras. It was so crowded that Nanette had to sit on Kendra's lap the whole time (almost an hour!).

The limo had not been stocked with champagne, as it should have been, so we stopped at a liquor store and Matt and Herryn went in, in their dress and tux, and bought some. Ha. I sat next to Grand Forks Herald reporter Tu-uyen Tran and chatted, which was fun.
The reception was nice, it was at some big convention center in GF. I got to bustle Herryn's dress, which was exciting, and also - it was a good thing I had a PhD for that. Spouses got to sit up at the head table, which was nice, so Brian sat between Kendra and I.

Speeches were all great, especially Nanette's, which was funny and a total tear-jerker at the same time.

Really, it was one of the best ones I've ever heard, so, go Nanette! I didn't get many good pictures at the reception either, especially once dinner ended and the lights went down. They cut the cake and Matt (wisely) didn't jam cake into her face. Good man. It was a lot of fun AND I managed to stay up until 11:30!! Practically unheard of lately!
The next morning, Matt's parents had a brunch which was nice, and we got a chance to see everyone and say goodbye, because most people were leaving that day. Not us though, we hadn't been able to get a flight until Monday. After the brunch, we went back to the hotel (the Hilton Garden Inn, which was okay, but had a few problems that they weren't always very good about addressing. First, our A/C sounded like a freaking Mack truck, seriously. You could not talk when it was on. We asked them to look at it, but no one did, so we got to sleep with that for 4 nights. Also, and far more excitingly, when Herryn's brother Louis checked in, they gave him keys to a room which was already occupied. Luckily the woman wasn't there at the time, just her stuff. When we went back down to the front desk, they seemed almost like they didn't believe him, and they went up there with him to check. When they got in the room and saw the stuff, they went over and looked at the luggage tags and said to Louis "Its Ann's stuff." Like that was suppossed to change something. He kept trying to tell them that he didn't know Ann, but they were still not super helpful in sorting this problem out - although eventually they did). Back at the hotel, we sat around for a while watching TV, especially our favorite channel, the Table Channel.
Ok, actually, the Table Channel was USA. It had the sound of whatever was showing on USA, but the only picture that showed was this bizarre shot of a table and a plant. It was like that the whole time we were there.


After we got tired of the Table Channel, we set off to do some stuff I wanted to do in GF - namely, eat. I had seen a frozen custard place, and I wanted some. I loooooooove frozen custard, because I am from Wisconsin, and we like our dairy products. Look at this map of all of the Culver's Frozen Custard and Butterburgers (another Wisconsin thing that I unfortunately have no opinion on) locations, and you'll see what I mean. It was good, but its no Kopp's, which is the absolute best frozen custard on the planet. My mom and I used to make special trips up to Milwaukee for Macadamia Nut Custard day. Ok, but Culver's was definately worth it because they also had fried cheese curds, which, OMG. I also love. Thats also a Wisconsin thing. So I loaded up on calcium for the baby (or at least thats my story).
The next day we had to check out of the hotel at 11, but we didn't have to be at the airport until 4 or so, so we drove around, got some lunch, sat in the hotel lobby, etc. Dropped off the rental car and went to the airport where we sat for a while before our flight got..... cancelled! Hurrah! Another night in GF! The airline rebooked us on a flight the next day and put us up in a hotel (the same one the rehearsal dinner had been at). Ooooookay. Got a shuttle back there and got settled into our room with its SILENT A/C. Yay! We walked into Minnesota (that sounds so much farther than it really was, it was just 5 blocks or so) for dinner where we had pizza. When the waiter brought it to the table, we were surprised to find it was my favorite kind: crispy thin crust cut in squares!! This is another Wisconsin/Illinois thing that I'm obsessed with and can never find anywhere else. I know everyone talks about Chicago-style pizza being that gooey thick crust crap, but please. I grew up in Chicago (until 4th grade), and my dad did before me, and we both associate Chicago with crispy-thin-crust-cut-in-squares pizza. Mmmmmm. Anyhow, all of my midwestern food cravings were indulged in one short weekend! It was excellent!

On Tuesday it was back to the airport, where our flight left without problems AND we got upgraded to first class. That was awesome and I loved it. We got back, picked up Milo from a friend's, and got back to the cats who, luckily, had not run out of food and eaten each other.

Phew. I think thats it!