The Rowdy Beaver

 Yesterday both of us had the day off.  Unfortunately Mark woke up with a sore throat and hadn't slept well.  We spent the morning chilling in our PJs before we decided to go catch a matinee showing of Total Recall.   After we left the theatre we met up with a group of friends for dinner and a birthday celebration!  Since the rest of the group had spent the afternoon at a lake we tried to get dinner in Eureka Springs, but oddly enough all of the restaurants were closed.  We found it rather odd that a tourist town was mostly closed on Memorial Day, so we were left to search for a restaurant in the Ozarks between E.S. & Bentonville that would hold our party of 16 and had a family friendly menu in.  The Rowdy Beaver seemed to be the best option.

The server was very enthusiastic and set us up in a separate room.  I'm sure the other patrons appreciated that  since half of "us" were under 8.  With that many orders in a small town restaurant it took a good hour for our food to arrive.  The kids were quite noisy, as should be expected when they don't get to eat until well after their normal bedtime.  All of the adults tried their best to entertain the kids in their immediate vicinity.  Spencer told jokes - then Joe explained them to the kids ;-).  Mom's attempted to entertain babies and 4 year olds alike with whatever they could.  I sat next to Layla. We ended up rummaging though my purse looking for things to entertain her.  When she got bored of an item she passed it down the table to her big sister.  
Eventually we got down to playing with what I had worn that day.  First my necklace ~ Layla seems to think I like to eat necklaces, then my hat became  toys.  She'd put the hat on, move it around, ask for me to take her picture, then put it on me and ask for the phone so she could take my picture.  The whole phone thing didn't last too long, but we did snap a few pics to prove my story true!

Eventually the food did come.  The whole table became calm all at once.  Kids were happy, adults were happy, life was as it should be!  For a small restaurant their food was impressive.   Layla's mac-n-cheese was amazing ~ I'm not too proud to admit that I stole a bite when she wasn't looking.  My BBQ pulled pork was uber tender and I even liked the tomato based sauce!  Now before you start to picture me as the kind of person who would steal candy from a baby you should know that Layla got to try my pork, so I that evened the score from my mac-n-cheese swipe.  ;-)

All in all it was everything a long weekend should be.  We were productive Saturday, went to church and helped our fellow men on Sunday (we took 3 neighbor girls to church while Momma had her baby), and then  relaxed with both each other and with friends on Monday.  It doesn't get much better than that!