It's A Family Affair

Weekend before last, ATM + I drove down to Lake Village, AR to meet up + spend time with our relations from Mississippi.  

We stayed at Lake Chicot State Park, which is situated right on an oxbow lake in the Mississippi Delta.  The weather was a bit on the dreary side.  The springtime sun was nowhere to be seen but, the rainy, foggy, cool air contributed to the haunting beauty of the delta and my phenomenally bad hair.  Like, all weekend long. 

We arrived at the cabins Friday, gathered up the family, and headed over to The Cow Pen for supper. The mayor's daughter, who happens to be ATM's boss, recommended the eatery.  It's one of those restaurants that dares to serve more than one kind of cuisine - in this case, steakhouse, Italian, and Mexican - and it wasn't a total nightmare.  It was quite good, actually.  I feel compelled to mention that ATM got a side of eggplant Parmesan with his steak.  I had no idea that you could get an entree as a side!  You can!

Got to meet this little fella for the first time: 

I have super cute nephews:

Fri-day niiight:

A perk to visiting or stopping in Lake Village is being able to pop into Rhoda's Famous Hot Tamales.  We'd heard about these mollys for years, so I was beyond excited to try the goods, so much that I called a few days in advance to order 4 dz tamales to-go.  Apparently, when they're gone, they're gone.  

These leetle pies are designed to share with a friend, which is really precious.  Split a pie and a beer with me?

Lemon/chocolate/coconut meringue pies, most already sold:

Rhoda:

Bon appetit!

Daniel, Karla + the little chaps couldn't stay but one night, but we definitely got some quality hang time in.  It's not lost on me that they had the longest drive, so I'm really glad they came.  Got some really good shots with the insta cam:

After they departed, ATM + I drove over to the Lakeport Plantation because we wanted to see the restoration work that some of our friends did.  Collin is in the brochure, which is pretty funny.  They weren't open, so we just walked around the property, peeped into windows:

You can see through the key holes:

Later in the evening, for a brief moment, the sun came out and it was glorious:

That night for supper, we made a ragù with fresh pasta, salad, and one of Rhoda's pies:

 

It's really easy for us to get caught up in being hella busy, so I'm grateful that we were afforded the opportunity to take a weekend off to meet up with our people.