A Night On the Town

With the new little one we're expecting this summer, our family count has gone up to nineteen. Even though five of the family are off serving in Brazil, that still leaves fourteen of us getting together for family night. Sometimes it's difficult to find something that pleases everyone, but last night was an easy one. We went to Texas de Brazil to celebrate Matt's thirtieth birthday.

We had a party atmosphere as we started out, although it was temporarily dampened by an accidental fist to a face. But hey, what can you expect from this crowd? There was another brief moment where one of the guys had to be told that his pleather coat was not welcome and he had to leave it on the bus, but he parted with it fairly easily.

The restaurant was a little more upscale than we're used to, but as far as the guys are concerned, you can never go wrong with a place where the waiters are continually bringing more cuts of meat to your table. In addition to the never-ending meat and the unique salad bar, the restaurant serves dishes of garlic mashed potatoes and fried bananas, called plantains. The plantains are for the purpose of cleansing your palate between meats, but the guys liked the banana so much they ate more than was strictly necessary for the "cleansing".

Sometimes little ones can be a tad picky, but this one was pleased to find all-you-can-eat rice at the salad bar.

Others were pleased with fresh mozzarella balls, olives and croutons with a steady side of attention from her uncles.

In fact, attention from the uncles and Papa was a big hit throughout the evening. Although I think the girls' mama might sometimes wish the uncles weren't quite so attentive. Like when they told the girls that this city was where Batman lived. 

I'm pretty sure that the guys all came close to eating their weight in meat, but that didn't stop them from topping off their meal with ice cream cones from the shop next door. The trip home was filled with llamas, songs, video messages for the Brazilian half of the family and "AAHHHHHHH's" as we went through tunnels (It's a Boyd thing).

There was a brief stop at Grand Traverse Pie Company because why not? Also a slight mishap that ended with ripped pants and a minor injury before most of us succumbed to meat comas for the remainder of the ride home. We're a hearty bunch though, and by the time we got back to the house, some were ready to finish up the evening with a little pie. 

What have we got planned for our next family night? Well, because we like variety, we're looking into a little thing called huntakiller.com. 

Why be normal?