Stretching it out

My birthday is tomorrow but I started celebrating Friday with dinner out with my friend Sue.  We had delicious Italian food at Trattoria da Luigi here in Royal Oak -- mmmmm.  Sue gifted me with two new pair of scissors from Merchant & Mills along with coil-less pins -- looking for to using all of it soon.

Yesterday I had dinner with my son, using my free birthday dinner certificate at Lockhart's Barbecue -- mmmm, mmmm good.

I've been reading up on my new camera, a Canon EOS 70D, and played around a bit with the default auto focus setting.  There is so much to learn about this camera.  One really cool feature is that you can load the Canon app onto your smartphone, set up the WiFi on the camera, and actually take a picture using the camera by clicking on the app -- crazy!!

Today I had lunch with Holly's family at the Rain Forest Cafe.  My grandson is still not too sure about the motorized alligator or even the 'thunderstorms' that occur every 20 minutes there.  We all had a super time, though he did have a meltdown when he didn't get to take home every toy he picked up in their store.  Hard lessons to learn at age 3 1/2.

I got a few nice pictures in my first outing with my camera.  Makes me want to just click away.

Pardon the 'chewing with my mouth open' pic:

Miss Lilly is getting so big.  Over 20 pounds at 8 months, with at least 6 teeth that I could see.

One of the fish in the restaurant's aquarium:

My Mom was always the family photographer.  She adored taking pictures, going back to the Polaroid days.  I am really missing her on this first birthday without her.  She would love my new camera and the fine pictures it takes.  I miss sharing all this with her.