Stop what you're doing and go back up your computer right now. I got a call from Gillware today about our hard drive, and the news is not good. at. all. They are sending back the hard drive and said that I was welcome to get a second opinion, but that this is going to be a VERY difficult case so don't bother with anyone that charges a fee to evaluate the drive. Soooo... All the pictures we have taken since October are gone. All of Suzanne's art work from the last six months is gone. There is a VERY small chance that someone else may be able to recover the data, but as the Gillware rep put it, "you have a physical failure as well as a logic failure on your drive, so it is beyond us".

As with most things Don, there is some irony in this story. We have owned an external hard drive for about 4 years now. We bought it to store pictures and Suzanne's artwork on while she was going to school and it served its purpose quite well. Being an external hard drive, it has been ported all over the place. It has moved from exotic Ramona to Hillcrest to Rancho Bernardo to London to Rancho Bernardo to San Marcos. I looked at the hard drive one day last fall and decided I really needed a solution that wasn't quite as old... It would really suck to lose all that work... So, I built a server, put the art/pictures on my newest hard drive and was happy with the work I had done. My external hard drive still works just fine... And hasn't been updated since I built a server to make my files a little safer.

Could you afford to lose every picture on your computer right this second without any heartache? How about the music, documents, etc. you have stored on it? Stop what you are doing right now and go back it all up.

As Suzanne has mentioned previously, our neglecting to back up our hard drive has caused a fair amount of stress. Yesterday was day 11 since Gillware received the hard drive and we had received no word on its status. So yesterday, I made one of the most stressful calls in recent memory. The good news is that there is no news yet, and that the customer service rep thinks we will have a file list of what can be recovered in the next couple of days. So the hand wringing continues...

If you have an interest in backing up *your* data, and have bouts of laziness that keep you from driving to the store to pick up a ton of DVDs so you can get over 200GB of information all backed up, I recommend this little beauty. The windows home server software will back up every Windows based computer in your home every night so that you can completely recover your information should something go wrong. It is expandable to 4 internal hard drives and it has the ability to attach external hard drives too. You don't have to have a monitor, keyboard, etc. to get it running, just another computer in the home running Windows XP or better. And for the geeks out there, you can hack the heck out of it... www.homeserverhacks.com is a great start for just some of the stuff you can do.

Guess who got new sunglasses for the summer :)

She's now super glamorous

Auntie Andra just had her birthday. It was a lot of fun and there were a few other little girls there for Emma to play with.

waiting for cake

here comes the cake

sharing some off the top

a bit for Kevin

the happy couple

Emma wants to share some too

only the strawberries will do
a new little friend
sisters
all smiles

through the windowEmma's busy hands finally landed her outside with daddy watching the party through the window

Our Flower

Today when I was getting everything ready for Emma's nap, she wondered out onto the patio and started laughing and giggling and talking really excitedly. I knew she just had to be up to something so I hurried out to see what she had gotten "into". Apparently she is our flower. I had an empty flower pot on the patio and she planted herself right in it. Thought it was really cute so took a few pictures.

Messy Hair and All

A Perfect Fit

A Day at the Beach

Donald has been working about 6 days a week since October so it is really hard to find time for just the three of us. Usually when Donald finally gets a day off we have tons of errands to run and people who want to see Emma, that it is very rare for just a bit of family time. Last Sunday we decided to forget the errands and take the very much needed family time. We went to the beach even though it was cloudy, windy and very cold. We had a blast and it's a thrill to get to share this rare opportunity.

Emma Arrives At The Beach In Carlsbad

My Two Loves

Sand Hands
Splashing in the puddles


Rare Photo with Mommy

Beach Stroll

Finding our First Shell

Playing with Daddy

A Run for the Water

Tired Little One After A Day of Fun

Emma's outfit and Shoes were a gift from her Godfather Michael. He got the sweat suit from Baby Gap and the shoes (K Swiss) and socks from Nordstrom. The sweat suit has been wonderful and washes up great and is very soft and cuddly on our little Bean. I love Nordstrom socks!! My friend Nancy gave me my first pair when Emma was 4 months and have been thrilled with them ever since. And of course how can you go wrong with little girl K Swiss shoes! Thank you Michael.

Easter 2008

OK, so the hard drive is still out but I can at least get you updated on Easter. Here are a few of my favorites. Emma has learned to make some amazing faces that I think are wonderful. Hope you enjoy a bit of her Easter celebration.

Finding Eggs with Sassy

A Little Help From Daddy

After a Nap

Talking to Daddy

My big brown eyed girl


Funny Face

Sleepy Daddy

Emma

Fish Face

Busy Little Girl

Waking Daddy

The Best of Friends