We were able to get a direct flight out to Billings, which is rare since no airlines actually fly there directly from the SF Bay Area, that is with the exception of a new carrier, Allegiant Air. It's a cheap no frills carrier that only flies to different cities in Montana, on two days of each week. So we were able to make it work with the Sunday and Thursday only flights to and from Billings. The flights were fine, except that the airline is notorious for not being on-time, and both our flights were delayed, but not by more than an hour or two, so it was acceptable since we didn't have a specific time we needed to be somewhere each travel day.
After we arrived on Thursday, we picked up our rental car from the Hertz counter, where they were out of cars, and had to wait about 15 minutes for a driver to drop off a brand new 2012 Toyota Camry LE that only had about 600 miles on it. It was comfortable and a very nice ride for our trip. We then headed over to the Big Horn Resort where we were staying and where the reception for the wedding was going to take place.
We met up with Lauris' brother Kelly, and had dinner with him at a local Mexican restaurant, since Lauren was in the mood for a quesadilla. Afterwards we drove out to the Shopko to pick up some sundries, and Lauren also got a new dress, which she ended up wearing to the rehearsal dinner the next day. As we left the Shopko, I also let Lauren have a go at the claw machine, and we were able to win her an stuffed Betty Boop doll that was an "international" doll dressed in the clothes of China (it had on a red and gold chi-pao).
On Friday morning Lauris suggested we drive out to Custer Battlefield at Little Horn Big Horn, the site of the famous Civil War battle. Even though we got there in the morning, it was already hot with temps near 100. But Lauren was a trooper and walked out to the top of the hill where the monuments were located. On our way out Lauris ran into a student of his from Cupertino in the cemetery. Small world syndrome.
When we got back to the hotel, I took Lauren to the "Reef" an indoor water park that's attached to the hotel that we're staying at. It was the first of four visits that she'd get to go to the water park over our stay. Then we headed out to the church, the Peace Lutheran, for the rehearsal dinner, where Lauren got to practice being the flower girl. Dinner was right after reheasal in the basement of the church. Lauren played with some distant cousins, four boys who were serving as the ring bearers for the wedding. All of them were around her age, so she had a lot of fun with them.
On Saturday, the day of the wedding Lauren got to head out to her second visit to the "Reef" in the morning before heading out to a hair appointment at Carizzma hair salon, Christine's hair salon where she had set up an appointment for Lauren. It was Lauren's first real hair appointment to have a styling (she's only had the tips of her long hair cut at a salon prior to this). Christine and the stylist settled on having a loose braid along the front of her hair with the rest curled and put to one side. She looked absolutely beautiful with the new hair style. Then it was time to head out to the church for photos and the wedding.
Lauren did great at the wedding spreading flower petals as she walked down the aisle. Afterwards, the reception was held at the hotel, where we sneaked the kids out after dinner back to the "Reef" so they could have some more fun. After the "Reef" closed we headed back to the wedding reception where Lauren had a late night snack of chocolates and danced for a little before turning in for the night.
On Sunday, we met up with more relatives for breakfast and Lauren got in her last visit to the "Reef" before we headed out to the airport for our flight back home. After we got into Oakland, we drove down to my Aunt and Uncle's house for dinner, where my Aunt Cathy had prepared a lovely dinner for us including Lauren's favorite green onion pancakes. My Uncle Tao had also picked up a package from our house while we were gone. I had ordered an original iPad with 64GB on it for Lauren since the 16GB one she was using was constantly bumping up against the flash storage limitation. She's happy now that she's got lots of movies and music along with her apps on the new iPad.
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