worst day of my life...literally.

I have been so crazy busy lately. I went to Utah for my anniversary and to Colorado to visit my family, etc etc. I have been thinking of blogging and what I have been wanting to write. Well I sat down to blog my last post (about my anniversary) and then doom came upon me.

I was happily going to write about 3 more posts after that one. But I could not find the pictures that I wanted to use. Every time that I brought up the uploader, it was only bringing up a few random pictures. I kept thinking to myself, "oh gosh the stupid blogger uploader is at it again."

I go to open iPhoto in my dock. When it opens.. the same random pictures pop up.  I try to scroll through events. Nothing. I go to last import. Nothing. I go to my pictures file outside of iPhoto. Nothing.

I am sitting there and my whole body is tingling. I know that you are supposed to back up your computer. I had backed up my Gateway a million times. Not a Mac. Well yes.. but not very often...Why would I have to back that up??... was my naive thinking.

Now I am searching frantically, and starting to cry. Every photo. Every video. Everything. GONE.

I call Jordan, to tell him the preliminaries and then I really start crying. He soothes me and tells me that I will find it. This is silly... but not really... but I just start praying in my head. I can not just have lost every photo for the past 3 years.

I start searching the internet and figure the very best thing to do was call Apple support. I did. I was on the phone with 3 different representatives (crying hysterically) for 2 1/2 hours. They took me through the ups and downs of my computer. They connected to me via internet so they could see my screen. Each was very helpful, but each time, came up empty handed.

It was even supposed to cost me 50 bucks to talk to Apple because my applecare expired. They waived the fee because they ended up deciding there was a glitch in my iPhoto, a random, must be my bad day in the universe glitch.

The realization is starting to sink in. I don't care about losing photos from high school or even ones of Jordan and I. But Hallie. Sweet little Hallie. There are pictures of her that are my favorite burned into my memory. I want these back I must have them back!

The last apple rep told me about this software.... Data Recovery 3. It is 100 dollars and its not an apple product, but they recommend it.

I downloaded it immediately. Hallie's life of pictures is priceless. I have to have them back.

The software pulled up 50,000 jpegs of randomness. That is 27 GB. So I started the sorting. I have found pictures. Fortunately, If you or anyone you know has posted anything to facebook in your life ever, I probably have found it. Unfortunately, most of the ones of Hallie are gone. I have ones from Jordan and I before she was born, but pretty much nothing after the fact. I am still sorting. Only about 14,000 more to go.

So that is my post. The worst day of my life. Losing all of Hallie's pictures and videos. I have been neglecting scrapbooking for some reason, and now I am kicking myself. I was neglecting finishing my iMovie of the last year because of some random photos I didn't have yet, so that is gone too.

Jordan has been so good to have my try to look at the bigger picture. I have her newborns, and her 6 month and some random ones from my phone from the past 4 months. That helps when I'm at home sorting and about to cry. 

I now have a TB of a hard dive and I will be backing up my computer monthly.

So moral of the story. If you have pictures of your children back up your computer immediately. It is the worst feeling in the world to lose them all. It will probably be the worst day of your life.

Also, if any of you have pictures you have taken of Hallie, or if I have sent you any or anything, will you please e-mail them to me? I would like some pictures of my child's life. Thanks...

four years of love

haha. I just have to laugh at my own title. I just couldn't think of any other way to describe it. Jordan and I celebrated four years of marriage on April 12th. I can't believe that four years have gone by. There have been ups, downs, low points, high points, money problems, college, jobs, job problems, family drama, a BABY! and so much more.

I just look at the last four years and reflect. For those of you who don't know, I got married at 19. Crazy right? Sometimes I still get the look.. that crazy, young, stupid girl look. I have one things to say to these people who judge me getting married so young. I have been married longer than most people in the nation. I never ever have regretted my decision. I would marry Jordan one hundred times over. We have committed ourselves not just for life, but for eternity. Good thing I like him:) haha.

So that sums it up. There have been so many crazy/awful/wonderful things in our life. But that is what love is. It's unconditional. There have been times that I wanted to straight punch Jord in the face (if you're reading this honey, I would never do that. I love you:]), but I am committed. And that is four years of love... and many more to come.

We had such a fun time together. We went to Utah for the weekend (partly because one of my very best friends came home from her mission). I wanted to do something special, so I made reservations at the Melting Pot. I have heard things about the Melting Pot for years. I finally decided it was time for us to partake in the cultural madness.

We LOVED it. Simply put, it was amazing. It was romantic, private, delicious, and just down right fun. My good friend watched Hallie, so we were by ourselves. We got the 4 course meal. It was intimidating to order, with all the food we knew we were going to get. Little did we know that it would take 2 1/2 hours to dine there. I see why Europeans just eat and dine all night. I could totally do that. It was just fun to sit and dip our food in the fondue and make jokes and laugh with each other.

I wanted to take pictures of each part of the meal, but every time I remembered we were half way through it. Little piggies much?

Course 1:

Cheddar mixed fondue with bread, vegetables, and granny smith apples 

Course 2:

Dinner Salads

 Course 3:

Meats: steaks, fish, chicken, etc, etc

Course 4:

Dessert

We ordered the Flaming Turtle (milk chocolate, caramel, candied almonds all lit on fire)

To dip: Red velvet cake, strawberries, bananas, brownies, rice krispies, cheesecake, etc, etc

 

 

 We had such a wonderful time. I love my husband so much and I'm so happy we are married and have a wonderful little family. I wouldn't want to ever be with anyone else!

Easter Sunday

This Easter Sunday was quite eventful. First of all, Jordan and I had to do the ward bulletin for sacrament meeting. That is our new calling. It's fun because I get to practice my skills from school, but it is overwhelming because it is every week!! The person that used to do it complimented us and was so excited. She came up to me and said, "oh my gosh it is beautiful I am so excited that you have the calling now!" That was nice to hear. But I think she was the only one who noticed a difference.. haha.

 I spent FOREVER on it. I wanted it to be perfect. The front I did a quote from President Monson. I have seen these cute arrangements of prophet quotes floating around on Pinterest and I thought to myself, oh I can do that. It seriously took me 3-4 hours. That might be because I am a perfectionist. But I loved the quote, and it had everything to do with Easter and the Savior, so I'm glad that I did it. Here is just a peek....

It's kinda blurry... but it doesn't look like that in person... oh well!

In Sacrament meeting was another thing that was making my nerves all jumbled... singing. oh yes. singing. Hillary ans Spencer (Jord's sister and her husband) are living in the ward until they move to Georgia. It just so happens that the music person in our ward wanted them to sing before they left in sacrament meeting, and it just so happens that we were sitting next to them, and she came up and said, "The four of you sing yes? Ok you will sing in sacrament!"

I think my heart about hit the floor. I have never sang in sacrament outside of the Relief Society singing. Hillary and Spencer chose "Lead Kindly Light." And of course, Hillary and I sang ALONE together at the very first. Let's just say that when we were practicing in front of Blair and Gail I could not keep it together. I would giggle, and have pitch problems, and what not.

Well the day finally arrived and we sang. The four of us. All by ourselves. It was actually not too bad. I feel like I did as good a job as I could do, the other three were AMAZING (the Sautter's are just singers... and Spencer is musical also). I thought that I would be shaking like when I bear my testimony, but I didn't even do that. I was shaky. I didn't look at anyone besides Hallie. And we got through it.

I will probably never sing in sacrament again. But I am glad that we did this one time!

Of course, we did all the other Easter festivities like dying eggs and such. My mom left an Easter basket for Hallie when they came so she opened it. I am not big on giving gifts on Easter (when did it become like Christmas?) But we did get Hallie a sit to stand walker because we were going to get it anyways so we just gave it to her on Easter. And we also got her jammies, but that is only becuase she has grown out of all hers and we had none that fit her!

We watched the new Mormon Messages video on the Savior called, "He is Risen." I really liked it, but I am a big fan of the old one that is about 30 minutes. This new one is about 7. It really got the point across to me about the Savior, after all, that is what the Easter season is about.

The rest of the day was spent outside because it was beautiful out. It was such a wonderful day. So glad that my family could be all together.

Family Visit

I vowed to write a post every week, but last week I was so lazy! I did not feel totally 100 percent, and my house was a mess and I was scrubbing every inch. I feel like I clean more now then when I was pregnant.... So I am going to write two this week. I figure that it still counts :) Anyways...

My family came to visit for Kaylie's spring break. It was such a blast. Hallie turned 9 months. Insane! She is now older than the time that she was in my belly. So exciting. I have loved her out of my tummy way more than in. We celebrated Tristan's 3rd birthday, went to HUNGER GAMES ( I was very pleased with the movie. Just a couple things I was a wee bit peeved about, but not enough not to like the movie. I like Josh Hutcherson, I just wish he was bigger, and taller), shopped for Kaylie's prom dress, shopped in general, hung out with the family, played outside, watched General Conference, went out to dinner at Garcia's, and more that I probably can't even think of.

As I said before, Hallie turned 9 months the day everyone came. And she was crawling before they got here, but when the family arrived she just turned on the crawling gears. She is a mobile queen. Plus she has been able to wave since about 6 months, but now she is doing it on command. When people wave at her she waves back. I'm pretty sure she did it while my family was here, but it could have been right after they left.. so just a side note on Hallie's growing progress.

Also like I said before, we got Kaylie's prom dress. We went to Margene's Bridal. I used to work there (2 years ago!! Ah!! I can't believe it's been that long!!) and Kim and Joni helped us find the perfect dress. It was the very first one that she tried on. It was sequined head to toe, slit up the knee with a black and white zebra-esque print on the inside, high waistline with cascading flowers with jewels, and SLEEVES! It fit her pretty much perfect (she is a shorty so it needs to be hemmed) and did I mention that it had SLEEVES!? It's probably one of the prettiest dresses I've seen. If I was going to prom.... Kim and Joni were so awesome about it, and they gave us a discount! I totally didn't expect it, but I am so grateful for it!! Thanks again guys!

It was such a fun week. I'm always sad to see my family leave, and usually I cry a bit. But there was a mention of flying me out very soon... So I didn't cry. And now I'm flying in on Tuesday!! Just in time to see Kaylie play a soccer game and send her off to Prom:) I can't wait!!