our favorite micky-d's

We've been counting down the days until one of our favorite lunch stops opened it's doors in our neighborhood...
well, not technically our neighborhood, but just down the road.  They have a restaurant down near Vandy, but we never go down there.  They had a second down in Cool Springs near the mall, and that's the one we frequented, but it was still a good 15-20 minutes away.  They closed their Cool Springs spot last fall (summer?) and we heard rumors they were opening over here by us... right around the corner and down the road from us. :)
In the meantime, we've been quite impatient... it's a great atmosphere... the type of place with random pennies glued to the floor and with walls covered with old license plates and album covers, and rolls of paper towels on the tables for napkins.  Real laid back for the kids, a cool place for adults and yummy (real) food... so I was happy to discover -I may or may not have been stalking their facebook page- when they announced late last week that they would be opening on Sunday!

They opened at 11am Sunday.
We left our church, which is exactly 1 mile away at precisely 11:02.
And when we pulled into McDougals, literally 2 minutes away, the parking lot was already full and the line inside (you order at the register and then sit down) was almost to the front door (the register is at the back of the restaurant!). Wow!
I guess people missed their McDougals. :)

Our lunch dates bailed, so it was just us four (which turned out better probably in the long run with the crowd!) and we [finally] fully enjoyed our now truly local McDougals lunch.

this is his hungry smile

They even saved a spot for Sawyer!

And the kids were thrilled to learn they moved the infamous Duck Machine with them:

not the actual duck machine at our place, I just snagged a picture off of google for an example ;)

 Sawyer is uncannily talented at picking these little ducks out with the mechanical claw. :)

this is our actual, most recent haul

We hurried home afterward, with a stormy Sunday afternoon blowing in, rented a couple of movies and snuggled up and spent most of the rest of the dark, rainy day like this:

Ahh, Sunday.  I wish you wouldn't leave...