Wedding Shenanigans

After the previous day we were all pretty tired and decided to just sit around Sarah's house for the morning. Sarah's mum decided that because there were a lot of people around she would rope everybody in to help cook food. I missed out because I had a good case of concussion going on and was not feeling very well at all.
After lunch a few of us went to play Disk Golf. Essentially what it is is a sport similar to golf but you throw a Frisbee around the course and hope to get it in a basket at the end of each 'hole'. It turns out that Mr and Mrs No Upper Body Strength (i.e. me and Esther) were terrible at it and were trounced by Gary, Stapleton and Sarah's brothers John and Steve. Bernard was a surprise closet Disk Golf champion and even though it was only his first time playing it still game the boys a run for their money. The park we were playing in was pretty nice and I thought it was a good relaxing time, though Esther thought and said otherwise, ha!
While we were out Sarah had finished up a bunch of pre-wedding things and it was time for the rehearsal. We ran through the service really quick and headed straight out to Sarah's grandparents house for a huge dinner. Their house is in a place called Custer and was up in the forest. When driving up their long driveway you had to avoid deer and mountain goats. The house itself was a big wooden homestead with great views of the surrounding forest, including a small lake they put in themselves to go fishing from! It was REALLY nice. Sarah's grandma hugged every single person who arrived and we had a huge feed of different salads, roast turkey, bbq ribs, bbq beans, chicken and rice. The meal was so good I went back for 2nd's a few times and was very full by the end. Esther and I had forgotten our jumpers so we were given big plaid ones to wear, and after being handed cans of Coors Light to drink to wash our ribs down we had a good laugh at the stereotypes being reinforced by our clothes and setting.
Back at Sarah's place we sat around, had some drinks and Sarah's dad, Kent French, the worlds fastest clapper, gave us a demonstration of his talents in his garage!

Not much sleep was had but we were all up again the next day for the wedding! Yay! I must say that everyone looked quite spiffy in their clothes (Gary at one point even mentioned how he felt a bit threatened by that I "actually looked better than him"). We packed out the church (sitting on Justin's side so we could sit closer much to the front to Sarah's surprise) and Sarah and Justin became Mr & Mrs Larson! Woot! The priest was pretty hilarious and was like the dude from Princess Bride in that he spoke very slowly and sometimes got some words wrong, but hey, we all had a good chuckle.
Next we piled into cars and drive to Hill City for some drinks. We were going to stop in town but ended up at a hick bar just outside of town. Oh, when I say hick bar, I really mean a hick bar. It was all the Budweiser, football, motorbikes, kissing cousins, cowboy boots, white trash and pickups as you could get. It was brilliant, haha.
The reception was held at a place called Sylvan Lake where they had a big lodge with various cabins dotted around the hills. Because it was right in the forest it was beautiful. The moon came up over the lake and the pine trees stood tall and magnificent. Great place. During the reception the entire wedding party did speeches and Sarah and her dad Kent did a special father daughter dance incorporating fast clapping. Sarah and Justin danced the night away something amazing before we were all kicked out at midnight.

Next morning we got up, had some breakfast, filled John (one of Sarah's brothers) in on what he didn't remember from that night (it involved vomit, no pants, hickeys and a fight...) and then drove around with Sarah and Justin through a place named the 'Needles Highway' due to the rock formations around the Black Hills. There were huge spires of rocks all around the place with sweet tunnels under the rocks we got to drive through. While it was really nice driving through there (many animals and cool rocks) we kinda had to gun it back to Sarah's house because our friend Kevin had to go home! :( It was sad to say goodbye to Kevin but we had a blast together and can't wait to see him again.
Sarah's family were taking me and Bernard hiking that afternoon so I had to also say goodbye to Justin, Sarah, Kasey, Gary and Stapleton, so that was kinda sad. I had a great time with all those guys and they will be missed!
The hike was great fun. It started at Pine Creek and took us up in the creeks and needles behind Mount Rushmore. Check out this link and you can see Mount Rushmore in the bottom right and Pine Creek Northwest of it. It was pretty much bouldering and bush bashing the whole time. Bernard and I were given many wild foods to eat by Sarah's family and got to climb through many tunnels and up a waterfall. At the top of the mountain we got to write our names in a little book someone had hidden up there and take some great photos.
Last thing I did in Rapid City was watch a movie with Sarah's parents called Quigley Down Under that Jean wouldn't stop going on about the entire time we were there, so that made her pretty happy. It was ridiculous and terrible but she had a good time, haha.