Ahhh...

We made it. It seemed like Spring Break would never get here. It's been one long, cold winter. Would you believe they're predicting snow here for Monday? Hah! You can't get us, we'll be warm and toasty on the beach in Gulf Shores. We head out this evening and should be there tomorrow night.

My laptop even made it. I got it back last night. Of course, I had too much packing to do to play with it much, but I do have one thing to say.

BACK UP YOUR STUFF!!!

Seriously, back up your computer files. I was foolish and didn't back up my files for the longest time. It was always something I was going to do. For some reason, I started to get really nervous on our Christmas break. I started burning all of our photos to cds. I still haven't figured out how to burn our videos though. Then one day in January, I went to Amazon and did an impulse purchase. Jim usually handles our electronic purchases, but I ordered a 1 terrabyte external hard drive. It arrived in a few days. We asked a friend over, and he hooked it up to our home network. It's large enough to hold the backups for both our computers, so Jim did a partial backup of his while I did a full backup. It took forever or about 15 hours. I had a lot of stuff on my computer, mainly photos.

In the two months since backing up, I really hadn't taken too many photos. That's actually a good thing because I hadn't updated my backup. When my hard drive crashed last Sunday, I was just filled with the sense of inevitability. I wasn't upset. I wasn't worried. Okay, maybe a little worried.

Jim took my laptop and our external hard drive to our computer store. For well under $200, they replaced my hard drive and did a complete restore. Everything is back. The only thing I lost were any files I saved since my January backup. Some photos and some recipes. That's it. To make it even better, my favorite photos from those two months would have been posted on my blog, so I can still retrieve them. And the recipes? Odds are good I would never have made them anyway.

Now to get off my backup soapbox, I never posted Sera's new stats. I've got to keep track on my electronic journal here.

As of April 1, 2009, Sera is 34 1/2 inches tall and weighs 26.8 pounds. She's in the 10% range for height and between 10 and 25% in weight. Her doctor was very impressed with her language and motor skills. She's a tiny peanut, but she's no pushover!