There's some good news and some bad news...

First, the bad news so the good news makes sense.

Last week, Bobby FINALLY received the hard drive he ordered. I say finally because it took almost two months to find it's way to our home, and that was after canceling it and reordering .

Bobby decided to use the new one as our external hard drive and to use our old one for Britney's computer. We transferred all of our pictures, music, documents, etc. over to the new one. The next day, Bobby was clearing out old folders and deleting stuff off the computer we don't need and is taking up space. I was in the kitchen making supper at the time; meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and corn...very good:) Anyway, the next thing I hear is something along the lines of "OH CRAP! Gina, I think I really messed something up!" Here's what happened...He had clicked on the pictures folder and was dragging it to...somewhere else...his finger slipped off the mouse and he accidentally put it into a folder we can't open. I don't know why we can't open the damn thing, but we can't. It says something like DENIED or ACCESS DENIED or YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR PICTURES BACK FOOL!

It took me awhile for the news to sink in and even now I can't believe I don't have easy access to my bazillion memories caught on camera. It's sickening really. I didn't get very upset right away. I remembered we had put our pictures on disc not that long ago. We found the discs, only to find out that the last date written was January 2009. Um, it's February 2010 now which means there's a whole year missing. A year? And not just any year, but last year. Last year we had more wonderful, exciting, new adventures than ever before. I felt awful, but Bobby REALLY felt horrible. I can't even be mad at him. I know it was an accident and if I had done it, I wouldn't want someone mad at me.

He went online and downloaded several different file recovery programs. He has managed to retrieve some of the photos, but of them A LOT are messed up; grayed out, scrambled, or there's a thumbnail of it, but nothing there when you try to open it. It is SO worth it to us to hire someone to help. Maybe it can be Geek Squad to the rescue.

And then some good news...really great news actually.

Last night, I was going through a box of movies trying to find something to watch as a family. We were going to watch Get Smart. It came in the mail yesterday, but after opening the envelope, found several pieces of disc moving around the sleeve. I hate when movies come in broken. Anyway, I was looking and there they were...the discs we made not that long ago! We have almost everything; our first trip in our camper to Mobile and Panama City Beach, Cheaha State Park, our Earth Day hike, our multifamily Summer Kick-Off trip to TN, GA, SC, and NC, Seussical, Burchfield Branch, Fort Mountain State Park, not to mention play days, birthdays, experiments and just all the random pictures I take every single day! I'm beyond excited and thankful. I was jumping up and down like a maniac!

As far as I can tell, we have up until August. So we still don't have my birthday, our anniversary, or anything from the holidays or proof that it snowed in Alabama. I haven't given up on the possibility of having all of the pictures again. I'm serious about taking the hard drive somewhere and having someone else see what they can do.