Is it contagious?

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with my sister-in-law about the unfortunate loss of all her pictures from an external hard drive. I was saying how rough that would be to lose so many memories and thinking I was glad my stuff was backed up.

I think it was two days later when our computer started acting up. We thought it was a cable issue (which it was, at first), but then because the internet wasn't working, we tried to fix some other things and the whole computer went kaput. Blamm-o. No more hard drive.

That's when I realized that I only had my pictures backed up to early July, and I didn't have ANY of my documents backed up. I think I have a copy of my resume on another computer (or at least in my email somewhere from when I sent it to myself), but other than that, everything's gone. No recipes (and sadly, although I never used them, I had quite a collection), no records of bills paid, no password reminder files, no fun games, none of my video files that I spent days recording from old video tapes...

Today we bought a new, really BIG hard drive. That is, lots of storage space, and now that the computer's back up and running, it's going very fast. Of course, that might change once we find all the discs for the stuff we want to re-install. But even though it's the same old screen, same keyboard, same card reader, same mouse, it FEELS inherently different. And traitorous. I don't trust that my things will be safe on here anymore. I may be glad I recently bought some DVD-RWs, as I'm sure I'll be backing up "My Documents" much more often than I had been doing.

But, since it works for now, here are a few pics from recent days. Enjoy!

Here is Sean in his Cub Scout uniform.

He's had a few additions since this picture,

but this was the first time he wore the hat and shirt. Sophie and Dad at Muskegon's Walk to Remember. More about that some other day...but isn't this just a precious picture?

Here are Sean and Sophie enjoying the personal cakes Gramma Christie made for them. Sean's is a hill with a couple of dirt bikes riding on the path, and Sophie's is a butterfly. They made messes of them in quite a hurry, much to their delight, and much to the chagrin of some others!

We had the opportunity to shop for the kids' presents without the kids last Saturday night, and after they were asleep, I brought Sophie's inside. I forgot to put it away when I went to bed, so first thing Sunday morning when Sophia woke up and I took her out in the living room to change her diaper, she pointed to the box and said, "Dis?"...."'Dis?" (that means, "what's this?"). I said, "No, Sophie, that's your birthday present - you're not supposed to see it yet!" To which she responded by pointing at it again and saying, "'Dat?" ("what's that?"). I laughed very much! Needless to say, she got her present a couple days earlier than I had intended. The good news is that she likes it very much!Here's Sean enjoying his "Cars" cupcake. Not very good quality photo, but I have more I'm saving for another post. I'll try not to keep you waiting too long for that one!