The celebration has not stopped! On Wednesday evening, we went out to have a family dinner and it was Joseph’s choice. He wanted to go to TGIFridays so that’s where we went.

My first reaction on entering the venue: “It’s dark in here…I wonder if I can get away without using flash”. Always with the photography! The Mark IV did a splendid job set on P mode and at ISO200.

I hated the reddish tinge though but could not fix it since these were all taken as flat JPGs. Still alright considering the conditions we were in.

I was exhausted that evening and the low lighting only helped to induce an overwhelming urge to sleep. But first, food! I ordered a roasted pepper sauce based rigatoni, Eibee had the lobster tortellini, Joseph had Tennessee Chicken, Bernie had a massive burger and Patrick had the kiddie burger.

I could not finish my food – it was too much plus the pasta was not quite well-cooked and I fear my jaw still hurts from all that chewing. The Lynchburg Lemonade was awesome though.

As with TGIF’s tradition, their staff gathered around to sing (and embarrass!) the birthday boy. I used the HD video feature of the Mark IV to capture the moment but have not been able to convert the file into a smaller AVI. It was quite sweet though – as was this stack of 3 brownies under a scoop of vanilla ice cream and choc9olate and caramel sauce!

To make the weekend worthwhile, we had a family lunch at More Cafe, Dubai Festival City. I was being sneaky though since it was the venue of our knitting club meeting too so I wanted to scope out the place before everyone else arrived. Eibee took this photo of us using the Mark IV and a 70mm lens.

It was all we could do to make 3 heads fit into the 70mm lens! The sunlight coming from the window on the right was a bit too harsh though.

Stack of heads! It took a while for our orders to come through so we were all fooling around with the cameras. Yes, even my 400D was in on the action.

See? She’s still well loved. Patrick was having fun taking photos – I just dread going through the CF card now and finding out what he’d been taking pictures of!

His hair is making me go nuts! I swear he has to get a proper haircut soon or I will snip away while he sleeps. Fourteen…still can’t believe it’s been that long since he was born.

It was a great day. More to come as I share the first ever Magrudy-More Cafe sponsored UAE Amiras meeting.