ANOTHER Luau!

(Get yourself a cup of coffee and get comfortable; this one's a long one!)

Faithful readers will recall the holiday luau that Susan and I attended in December, hosted by our dear friends with a penchant for theme parties (last month's party theme: "Get Lei-ed"). 'Twas a Mele Kalikimaka indeed.

In any case, we were invited to another Hawai'ian luau . . . on the upper Midwestern plains . . . in the dead of winter. This one was a wedding reception for my first cousin once removed, Amanda, and her new husband, Logan. They were married earlier this month in Hawai'i and threw a party last night in Tioga, ND so that friends and family could congratulate the happy couple.

The reception started at 6:30 P.M. (Central time). Normally we would have gone up the night before and stayed overnight with my dad and spent the day with him and gone with him to the reception; however, since he and Beverly are now on the road, that wasn't an option. So we southwestern ND Mobergs decided to make a day trip, going a route that we don't usually travel to see some sights (and sites) that we don't usually see. We left in the morning and drove west, then north through Watford City to Williston. Along the way we stopped a couple times to ooh and aah over the beautiful badlands scenery:

Gotta read the highway department's informational plaques, of course.

Um, this little treat greets motorists entering the burg of Alexander. It's on the south side of town. I wanted to slow down anyway to tell the girls that this town is where their Grandma Moberg (then "Miss Roloff") once taught first grade, but the sight of this billboard brought me to a screeching halt. A local, already parked at the side of the road in his pickup and talking on his cell phone, gawked at us intensely while we snapped our pics and as we drove on. Welcome to Alexander, heathens--believe or leave!!

We got to Williston in time to eat dinner at the Trapper's Kettle restaurant. Then we headed downtown to see what shopping was available. We were happily surprised to find so many stores and shops still open downtown. In so many ND towns with big stores on the outskirts (e.g., Wal-Mart), the businesses in the "business district" either die out or relocate to strip malls near the chain stores. However, we were able to make some purchases at JCPenney (including a couple CDs: Awake by Josh Groban and Songs from the Labyrinth by Sting) and Bible Bookstore (going out of business . . . everything 50% off) and Judy's Cupboard. We looked around the old Hedderick's store, now an arts, crafts, antiques, and random crap store. The weather was mild enough to make walking around downtown refreshing and comfortable.

We did stop at Wal-Mart on our way out of town and then made it to the Farm Festival Building in Tioga just a little after the festivities began. People weren't expecting to see us there, so it was fun to surprise everybody and visit with lots of relatives and former "neighbors" (I went to school in Tioga but grew up on a farm some 16 miles out of town, so I wasn't really a resident--still, I knew a lot of Tioga people there). Amanda's dad is my cousin Jeff, and he and his family had dug a pit and prepared pork and beef by cooking it underground overnight. That was served (moist and delicious) on homemade buns along with beans, potato salad, macaroni salad, potato chips, punch, cake, coffee, and a cash bar.

There was a DJ who provided music (really loud music, that is) for dancing. For a long time, however, the only dancers were our girls and Susan and I. We persisted song after song, but people could not be persuaded to get out of their chairs and onto the dance floor. Occasionally the DJ would coax people out to dance by telling the kids to go grab some adults for the chicken dance, the butterfly dance, the conga, a polka, the dollar dance, etc. Otherwise, it wasn't a dancing crowd at this particular dance. Hm.

Some highlights of the night included a peculiar hula dance and an unusual version of musical chairs. Logan's brother, cousin, and friend all stripped down to their underwear, put on grass skirts and coconut bras, and took the dance floor to do an interpretive Hawai'ian-ish "dance." They ended up going from table to table, collecting dollar bills in the bands of their underwear from those seated at the tables, presumably as money to donate to the happy couple but more likely as payment to get them to go somewhere else with all their exposed flesh and hair! Logan's brother got carried away and stepped on top of a folding table to perform some kind of exotic routine. Unfortunately, the table immediately snapped in two, and he went tumbling to the cement floor beside me. Unfazed, he went elsewhere and continued to shake his booty while others cleaned up the ruins. It was all good-spirited and pretty funny.

The musical chairs-like game involved ten people seated on folding chairs facing the crowd. The DJ (or, as Hillary called him, the "pronouncer" [announcer]) would give an instruction and say "Go!" When everybody got up to do as instructed, Amanda's mom, Wanda, would remove one chair, meaning that the last person to return from the mission would have nowhere to sit and would thus be out of the game. It continued until one person remained to be crowned the winner. Hillary was one of the ten people, and she clearly didn't get the rules. The first instruction was to find a lady's high-heeled shoe and return with it. Hillary didn't even get out of her chair. Amanda's aunt Marsha, my cousin, was seated next to Hillary, so she shared a shoe with her, and Hillary remained that round. The next round required people to go fetch a handsome guy. Marsha was going to grab me, but instead I volunteered myself to Hillary, and Marsha grabbed her own son, Terry. Hillary stayed in the game.

By the next round, I heard strangers behind me saying to one another, "Go help that little girl." With every round, some person or another made it his/her mission to help Hillary, fetching whatever was required for that round and bringing it to her so that all she had to do was remain in her seat or scoot over to another available chair. Crazy straw? Wanda got one from the bride and groom's table and gave it to Hillary. Glass of punch? I poured one and handed it off to her. Coconut table decoration? The guy seated next to her found one and gave it to her. Sheet of toilet paper? Marsha grabbed one for her from the restroom. When she was the final player remaining, she was absolutely delighted to be proclaimed the winner, throwing her head back and giggling with glee! As a prize, Amanda and Logan each gave her their special red-and-white leis, which she wore proudly the remainder of the night.

After saying our goodbyes, we left for home, taking our usual route through New Town and Killdeer and Manning, arriving in Dickinson about 12:30 A.M. (Mountain time). It is so nice to be close enough now to take part in family get-togethers such as this. (And we learned last night of a few more upcoming family get-togethers: my cousin Jerry's wedding in June, Jeffrey's wedding in July, and my stepnephew Ryan's wedding in July in MN.) Here are some photographic highlights:

Amanda and Logan

Amanda and her dad, Jeff

Amanda's parents, Jeff and Wanda

My cousin, Brenda, and two of her daughters, Katrina and Meghan

My cousins, Myrna (Amanda's aunt) and Brenda (and Meghan on the right)

Suzanna and Julie, my stepsister-in-law, who works with Wanda

Hillary, the one child in the musical chairs-like scavenger hunt game activity thing

Only two players remain: Hillary and Jason, my stepcousin and Amanda's stepuncle.

Hillary the victor with her spoils, the matrimonial leis

Abigail with Jeffrey, the bride's brother

The Dakota Chippendales hula madness