Lucas-Ross Wedding!

Katie's cousin Jason was getting married so of course we had to be there! The wedding was to be held in Russell in western Manitoba, which is an area neither of us had visited before. For cost reasons, we chose to fly in to Minot, North Dakota, and drive from there. Katie's family chose to fly to Regina and drive from there - the driving distance from the two isn't very different.

We arrived in Minot around 5pm on Friday the 24th. After renting a car and grabbing dinner at Hardee's, we were heading north to Russell. The border crossing and drive up were uneventful except for our stop to gawk at the giant banana in Melita, Manitoba (I highly recommend reading the linked article about the banana). We arrived in Russell just after 9pm and after checking into the Russell Inn (aka "the homotel" due to it having both internal and external doors on each room) we socialized for a bit with the family before heading to bed.

On Saturday I had a nice run around town before being asked to provide some technical assistance on the slideshow that would be shown at the reception. Once the slideshow was in its proper state, I grabbed a quick Subway lunch and got ready to head to the ceremony. We all headed over to the United Church in Russell where the wedding was held. The ceremony was great and featured Jason's four year old nephew Logan as the shy ringbearer. After celebrating the marriage and taking a few pictures, we went back to the homotel to socialize (and enjoy a few beverages) before the reception. The reception started at 5pm and featured a very nice dinner (mmm, perogies) along with an open bar, slideshow, speeches, first dance, cake cutting, and dancing. We all had a good time (though I had too many beers) and some of us chose to walk back to the hotel around 1:30am!

On Sunday we enjoyed a very nice brunch at the reception hall before all parting ways and heading back to our respective homes or airports. Our drive back to Minot was very unexciting and I was forced to listen to the Vikings game on the radio. At the border our car was searched, which hasn't happened in quite some time. In Minot we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express which was disappointing in that it was very noisy due to the nearby pool and thin walls - thankfully Katie brought earplugs! Our dinner in Minot was at the Pizza Ranch which made me feel like I'm too old for pizza buffets.

On Monday we woke up at 5am to catch our flight back to Boise. By 10:30am Katie was at work and I was by 10:45!

Lucas-Ross Wedding Pictures! - due to a camera malfunction, I lost all of the pictures of the ceremony, the town of Russell, and the giant banana :(