Oh haaiiiii.

What started as good, old-fashioned procrastination took a rather unfortunate turn for this happy blog. Actually, I had just gotten out of my funk and was just about ready for two new posts, one about my dad's visit, followed by one about my Aunt Shari's visit. All I had left to do was upload the photos and add some words. If only I had at least uploaded them and gotten them off my hard drive -- before my hard drive died.

Generally, when I dump photos off my memory cards, I put them straight on my portable external hard drive. When that gets full or after a few months go by, the photos get backed up onto the really big external hard drive. The last time we backed photos up was just before Christmas. So I've lost almost everything from the last six months, except the few photos I have saved out for this or that.

I lost nearly all of our Christmas photos. All but a couple from New Year's. Lost everything from Lily's dance classes, and our family trip to Disney except what I posted on the blog.

Lily and I went to Animal Kingdom one day in January with Kim and Quinn. Playdates at Disney and all. I'm bummed that I lost just about everything else, but I do have a couple from meeting Pocahontas. When Kim spotted Pocahontas, I got super excited because I didn't know that she made a regular appearance; I thought we just got lucky. At the time, Pocahontas was Lily's favorite. (Lily's favorite changes regularly.)

I also found a couple from our end of the day ice cream treat that Quinn decided to wear. I lost most everything, but these were my favorite moments from that day.

Sometime this spring, I tried to take a few photos of Cami. Generally, it didn't go all that well, but the best part (for me) was Lily as photographer. She was shooting with an instant-print camera, and her photos turned out pretty darn good. I do wish I had a few more from that day.

Another day, we had a picnic at Curtis Hixon Park. I lost so many cute moments from that day. Dam.

Oh yeah, and then there was my dad's visit. It's likely that he's got a bunch from that visit, too, including all of the beach photos. And the beach photos are fun, but my favorite part was my dad dyeing Easter eggs with us. And those are gone.



I did manage to save out a couple of pictures of the two of them together.
This is the only photo I have of Easter, which was also my birthday this year.

The loss I'm most frutstrated about was our visit with my Aunt Shari. It was a short, but really fun visit, and I was so close to saving at least my favorites from that day. Luckily, I saved this one out to order prints. It's not nearly enough to make me happy, but it's better than nothing at all.

Lost almost everything from Tirin's birthday party.

Same for Connor's birthday party. (Yes, Lily does wear her Minnie Mouse headband randomly.)

One day before dance class, we had a few minutes to spare, and I took some photos of Lils in her dance outfit. All but 2 are gone.

Then one day we went to downtown St. Pete for a picnic dinner and to take some photos with Joy and her family. I had saved out a few of my favorites to print, but I know there were a bunch of others I wanted to give to Joy. Dam.

Khan, Joy, and their mom, sittin' in a tree. Happy to have this one.

Really glad I got this one of Connor; it was my favorite shot of the day. I was actually trying to take a picture of Pearl, but Connor totally photobombed right in front of her. Real, candid shots are always the best. (In my opinion.)

Pearl was my photostar on this afternoon. (Lily was NOT.)

Pearl with her mama and one with her grandma.
And the last couple I managed to keep.

It's not just the big stuff and the events that I'm pissed I lost. Acutally, that stuff is less important to me. I lost so many of our everyday family stuff at home. Capturing these real, unstaged moments is the whole reason I got into learning how to use my camera in the first place. Somewhere in all that stuff about aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, I missed the part about backing up your photos, early and often.

I hate learning lessons the hard way.

(It's worth mentioning that we are still trying to recover the missing files, but the first few attempts have failed, and it doesn't look good at this point, but there's still a tiny bit of hope.)

Saved all her pennies for Belle.

One of the many problems I have with task management and organization in general is the ability (euphemism) to start but not finish a task. If ever there is a post to this blog without words in excess of necessity, it is most surely a victim of this flaw.

So I accidentally posted a few pictures with a title that explained everything without the whole story as I wish to tell it. So what? Right, so what. Well, here I am sleepless in Tampa needing to tell the whole, though obviously obvious, story. Typos and all. (Well, it is coming up on 2 a.m. here.)

Here we go. As you might've guessed, Lily has been saving all her coins in her piggy bank to buy a princess doll -- another in the collection of her most beloved possessions. When the time came that she had enough money, she wanted Belle. And so off to the Disney Store we went with her little purse in hand.
She looked. 

Selection did not disuade her from her intention; she picked Belle.
Even though there was no line, we were scolded for not changing in her coins for dollars ahead of time. Though I generally see the reason for this and will do so next time, I firmly believe that the cashier was a moron. I worked in retail long enough to know the difference, and this girl was a moron.
It just doesn't take that long to figure out how many dimes make a dollar. Sorry. Though props to the manager for backing up his math-impaired employee. (No sarcasm there -- I have much respect for a company that supports its employees, counting flaws and all.)

This photo has no purpose except that my girl is beautiful and I shot this with crappy retail lighting, no natural lighting, and no flash, and that makes me insanely proud of this photo.

Anyway, purchase in hand it was time to head home and add Belle to the princess party. It turns out that Lily required something of an intiation. Belle required a performance before she would join the group. You might've thought the group would require something of her, but who can understand the logic of a 3-year-old?
So, forgive the crappy pictures, and Belle ordered a lineup.

And then each couple had to do a flip. For the most part, they did OK, (as performed by Daddy).

Except Naveen. So let that be a cautionary tale the next time you consider wearing your cape.