Surprise Birthday Party Given Clinton : Vacation: He turns 47 Thursday. Celebration in Arkansas featured a cake depicting him jogging, with a McDonald’s cup in his hand.

SPRINGDALE, Ark. —  President Clinton spent the first day of a two-day vacation swing through northwest Arkansas the way he says he likes to vacation: With relaxation, reading and a heavy dose of old friends.

The day culminated with a surprise birthday party that drew 34 Clinton friends, including some Arkansas political leaders, to a well-known family restaurant here.

Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter, Chelsea, arrived Monday to spend the two-day sojourn at the summer home of friends Jim and Linda Blair on Beaver Lake, northeast of Fayetteville. The President and First Lady lived in the city in the mid-1970s, when they taught at the University of Arkansas Law School.

Clinton’s 47th birthday is Thursday, and his party was held at AQ Chicken House, a local landmark on Arkansas Route 71B here. The family entered the restaurant at about 7:30 p.m., to join a crowd of about 34 Arkansans at a private dining room.

Clinton appeared at a restaurant door after dinner and was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” by a crowd of about 125 persons. Among the group was Dr. Morriss and Ann Henry, at whose home the Clintons were married.

Clinton was beaming. “It was great to see all my friends, and to be in the AQ,” Clinton said afterward, confiding: “I ate too much.”

The cake, he said, was “a plain white cake,” and “a beautiful thing.”

It depicted the President jogging, with a McDonald’s cup in his hand, and “Arkansas” emblazoned on his shirt.

David Matthews, a former state legislator and longtime friend, said Clinton “looks great. This has been great for him; he needs to come back more often.”

The President spent much of the day reading a book, napping and calling friends from Arkansas. The First Lady and Chelsea went water-skiing. In the late afternoon, Clinton and Chelsea appeared on the Blairs’ dock. He was later seen diving in the water.

The only intrusion came in the form of crews of photographers who bobbed by the Blairs’ private beach on rented pontoon boats. But when they ventured too close to a perimeter of buoys strung several hundred yards offshore, they were shooed back by the Secret Service agents aboard motor boats.

Jim Blair is general counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., the world’s largest poultry processor, and Diane Blair is a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. The Clintons occasionally spent time at the Blairs’ summer house when Clinton was governor.

The home is on a private beach on Beaver Lake, a man-made lake with a 478-mile waterfront. Set in a 22-acre site, it has three bedrooms, a large porch facing the lake, a tennis court and an indoor pool. Three boats are moored outside.

The northwest corner of Arkansas has long been a Republican stronghold, but many residents have shown their warm feeling for Clinton since the family arrived Monday afternoon. When he landed at the airport, Clinton saw a woman wearing a T-shirt that showed a picture of the Clintons’ cat, Socks, and read: “The Mice in Little Rock Are Nothing Compared to the Rats in D.C.”

En route to the Blairs’ house someone erected a sign that read: “Welcome Hill Billy.”