Day after the wedding

After breakfast, we headed for Sunday Service. To my astonishment, I found Daniel still wearing his old ugly tennis shoes again!!! Fortunately, all others seemed to be wearing casual. Humphrey(in jeans) & his parents were there. Eva's family was there, but the bride wasn't. She met with everybody at the University restaurant for lunch and cleaning up of the place. Lunch was buffet style with fruit, salad and sandwiches, plus some leftovers from last night. One thing that interested Samuel most was the chocolate fountain. Another thing that surprised me was they did not cut the wedding cake until now. It was a small size carrot cake, but it was good. After lunch, they gathered up all the wedding presents and started opening them there. Debbie, I and Eva helped to clean up the place and then left early to go back to Humphrey's house, so we could help shopping and preparing for tonight's barbarcue. There were a lot to eat. Michael Woo's barbarcue salmon was wonderful. The in-laws came to join us, but the bride was too tired. She rather sleep than eat. After chatting a little bit, Alvin led the young people out for a night at the movie. Debbie's family had to leave early too, because they would start their Canadian rockies trip tomorrow. Stephen's family would take the same tour too. Alvin's group, Daniel and I would be heading back to the States tomorrow morning. Before getting to the Airport in Montana, they decided to take a quick side tour to the National Forest. Daniel thought our flight was to be earlier than theirs, so he drove straight to the Airport after breakfast. Right before boarding, we saw Alvin's gang lining up at the security point. It turned out that we were actually on the same flight. Too bad I had to miss the visit to the National forest. Well, there is always hope for the next time.

The Wedding Day!

When we got to the breakfast area, we were surprised to find Stephen's whole family had arrived and beat us to breakfast. They had some problems with their flight and were delayed, that was the reason they could not make it to the rehearsal dinner. They were really exhausted by this time, so they tried to have a quick breakfast and then head straight to their beds. Debbie and her boys went for a dip in the pool. Then Melvin, Rebecca & Edwin finally showed up, but they did not know we were all staying in the same hotel, so they registered in another hotel nearby. Each family took care of their own lunch. We as usual went back to Daniel's favorite restaurant, Burger King, for his Junior Burger and Taco. Before I knew it, it was time to go for Humphrey's wedding. As usual, Daniel was too impatient. He went ahead to the car. So I followed him in a hurry. It was a short ride to the church, and we were very lucky to be able to find a parking place right in front of the church. As we stepped out from the car, I was shocked to see Daniel was still wearing his ugly old tennis shoes. Thank God, he was willing to return to the hotel to change his shoes. However, that made us a little late and we had to sit in the back. He had his movie camera with him, but we were at the back and he did not move around much, so I hope he did Ok in taking the pictures. The whole wedding went smoothly and quickily. When it was over, we only saw the parents of the groom and some of their friends, but the bride and groom were nowhere to be seen, so we all went our seperate ways after waiting for a while. Later we found out they went somewhere to take their pictures.

Reception was to be held at the University restaurant. When we got to the campus we had no idea where we should park. Unfortunately, we parked too far. It wasn't easy to walk all the way chasing after Daniel in my high heels. The reception hall was decorated very nicely. The food was so so. The talk by the Father of the Bride was supposed to be funny, some jokes we didn't quite understand though. After dinner, we waited for the cutting of the wedding cake, we waited and waited, but we did not hear any announcement, as we were not interested in dancing, so we left.

Journey to Lethbridge

We woke up around 8:00 am. It did not take us long to get ready to hit the road again. After checking out of the motel, we thought we better have our breakfast first, so we go down the street looking for a place to eat. Believe it or not this town is so small, we found nothing in isight, no McDonald, no Burger King or Denny, nada. So we gave up and headed for the freeway instead. Later, we did find a Mcdonald in the next town. Another half hour drive took us to the border. The Security guard did not even want to look at our passport. After asking us a few questions, he let us go. It was a pleasant ride to Lethbridge. I enjoyed the beautiful weather and scenery, with the endless fields of green, green grass. Around 11:00 am we arrived at the Holiday Inn. We were surprised to be the first ones to check in there. The maid was still cleaning our room, so we turned back to the lounge. Wow, guess what I found? A Computer. I tried using it. Much to my delight I could get to play my favorite game. Image that, away from home?
After getting in our room, I started unpacking only to find out the formal dresses were all wrinkled. I tried using the blow dryer to see if I could iron it out. Oops, the blow dryer suddenly died on me. I could only hope I did not burn it out and that it will start again after cooling. Well, I guessed I better see if I could borrow an iron from the front desk. Sure enough they do have not only an iron but also a light ironing board too. That made it much easier for me to get my ironing done. Then we decided it was about time for lunch. We had no idea where to go or what to eat, all I knew was no more McDonald again. After driving around a little bit, we came upon a Chinese restaurant. The inside was small and dark. Only one or two people were eating there. I wanted to leave but Daniel thought it was all right. So we sat down and asked for two orders of chou fung and chou mein. The owner was a Chinese lady. I started a conversation with her. So she started telling us her life story and even brought her father out to talk to us while we ate. The food was far from good. I forgot this is a small town and that I shouldn't expect too much. How disappointing!

When we got back to the hotel, we checked with the front desk girl, surprisingly no one soul showed up yet. So I suggested Daniel to give aunt Kou a call to let them know we are here already. They asked us to drive over to their home, which is not too far from the hotel. We did not have any trouble locating their house. We chatted and admired Humphrey's house. When it was time for the rehearsal, we drove Aunt Kou and Uncle in our car to the church. There we got to meet with the new Bride and her family and bridal party. Alvin took Fay, Mark & Helen for a trip to the Canadian rockies. They were already waiting at the church when we got there.
Rehearsal was nice and short, so the whole gang move over to the Chinese Restaurant where we were going to have the rehearsal dinner. Boy, it was a really long wait before they started serving dinner. Hey, just then Debbie's family finally arrived in time for dinner. The food tasted especially good, because we were all very hungry. However, the portions of each dish were quite big, so we still had a lot of leftovers. After dinner, there were not much to do, so we all went to bed early.

On our way to Humphrey's wedding

It was supposed to be a short trip, four days only. We figured there was no hurry to start packing, so we kept watching the Chinese video the night before. Early the next morning, Daddy got up to start looking for his movie camera, then the manual, then the charges. I couldn't keep from wondering why he is so enthusiastic in taking movie pictures for his cousin's wedding. Wow, he must feel real happy for Humphrey, and so I thought. He checked the video tape. It has Nicole's pictures in it. As he did not want to erase his darling grand-daughter's pictures, he decided to go to get a new one. I gathered that I better start packing to make sure I get everything that I need. First I put in my underwears, comfy clothes to wear for my plane ride and car ride, party dresses for the wedding and banquet, shoes and stockings ....Ah, I need a presentable purse. Perhaps I could borrow Amy's black one. I went upstairs to look for it. My oh my, everything and everywhere was in a big mess. So I end up scrubing the toilet and sink, putting everything in their proper place, gathered all her different purses togather, but I still couldn't find the one I want. I made Amy's bed. I sacked all the dirty laundry, I piled up the things on the floor. I finally found the black purse lying by the foot of her desk. Ah, mission accomplished!!! I hurried downstairs to take a shower, for by this time I was all hot and smelly.
Daddy got his tape, came back but went out again to attend a funeral. After rolling ip my wet hair, I folded the laundry, watered the indoor plants, iron the clothes and started preparing lunch. I made omelets and left one big one, complete with cut tomatoes for decoration, to surprise Amy. Daddy returned just in time to enjoy the omelet, but it wasn't too filling.
After cleaning up the dishes, making sure the house is in good order, I got the luggages out, ready to be put in the car as soon as Poon Tak arrive. He was very busy that day. After attending the funeral, he also had a dentist appointment. Since there was still time, I went out to water the winter melons that we planted. I suddenly remember that we haven't packed the wedding card. So I asked Daddy about it. A few minutes later, he came out yelling at me. "What are you doing at this time, you still haven't change yet!" I hurried in, only to find out the reason he was upset at me was because he could not find the card he bought. He was blaming me of putting it away. I had no time to argue or get angry, so I started searching. Guess what? When I opened one of his files on top of his desk, the first thing I saw was the very card he put in there.

The ride to the airport was smooth. First we flew to St. Paul, Miniapolis. Before getting our transfer to Great Fall, Montana, we had dinner at McDonald. It was about 11:00 pm when we arrived there. We had to wait for a long, long time for our luggages. By the time the Trift Car Rental lady droved us to the Hampton Inn to get our rental car, it was getting close to midnight. She told us Hampton Inn was full and advised us to try Super 8 instead. We followed her direction but soon ran into a deadend. Daddy had no choice but to head onto the Freeway. We didn't book a hotel or look into the computer before we came, because that is not Daniel's style. He was pretty sure we would soon come across some motels on the way. Little did we know that the Holiday Inn the sign showed was nowhere to be found, both the little motels we passed by were also full. Daddy suddenly realized he was driving the wrong way on a one way street. Thank God there was no cop around! He found his way back to the Freeway. All along the way it was quite dark. We hardly saw any houses or cars. Daniel was ready to give up and prepared to just stop the car by the roadside and spend the night in the car. No way I will do that, I would rather drive the three hours all the way up to Canada. Praise the Lord, we finally came upon another Super 8 Motel in a small town around 2:00 am. As soon as we hit the bed, we fell sound asleep.