Managing Expectations, or Whats in a name?

What a beautiful Friday night to do some fun stuff with the kids. First, I let them pick their favorite restaurant for dinner. Big mistake.

What would you expect from Friendly's? A nice, welcoming staff; friendly, smiling faces. People happy to see kids eating ice cream...

Ironic because everyone there was quite UN-friendly. Nasty waitress, and when I complained about how vile the ladies room was, the manager was quite Un-friendly as well. You can see by the rust dripping off the front of the building just what a fine dining establishment this is. My worst nightmare. Lets just leave it at that.

Then we decided to go play mini golf, so we went to this place...

Again, quite the misnomer, as it was neither pleasant nor in a valley. It's on a very busy highway as a matter of fact. First we were in front of this group of teenagers who, although they seemed very cute, insisted on spewing obscenities whenever they hit a bad shot, which was quite frequent.

I'm the only one who is allowed to drop the F-bomb in front of my kids. It's a perk of being a parent.

Here's Mike. With the amount of time my husband spends on the golf course, I would expect a little more prowess around the windmills and dancing chinamen in the mini golf arena...

I was less than impressed with his skills in this area.

But then Emily hit a hole in one!!

...and Jenna hit a hole in one!!!

So, ok...that part was pleasant. More than pleasant. We had a great time. But then we saw this critter...

Not sure what it was, but certainly not pleasant...a small rodent of some sort, does it really matter what it was?? And now the teenagers behind us thought I was a total freak for taking it's picture.
All in all, we had an unfriendly but ultimately very pleasant evening, on a highway.