The NWA/Delta Family Day and the yakitori restaurant we went to afterwards! : )

Sorry you guys still trying to get caught up with blogging. : ) Anyway last Sunday, August 30th. We went to "family day" at NWA/Delta. This was for employees and their families. We all met up in the terminal, told them our names and they checked it with the list and then when all of us were there, we all got on 3 buses and went inside the ramp type area, where the airplanes are basically. : )

We saw a NWA airplane land and everyone cheered inside the bus. It was sorta funny.

It was a little different being on this side of the airplanes. Usually I am in the terminal or at the gate looking at the planes from the inside of the airport, looking out the windows and here I was looking from this way. Sorta interesting. : )

There was a section they had gated off for us. They were expecting us all Summer for this family day thing. : )

See the green fence all around the airplane? Since the ramp and or tarmac type areas are restricted, and since this is a major international airport for us to even be on here, they had to deal with customs etc etc. So, we were allowed only behind that green fence. Our little sectioned off area was pretty good though. : )

You can see the other 2 buses in front of us. There were about 110 of us total I think. So not too many people got to come. And only spouses and children allowed.

With it being an American airline. There are, American employees working at Delta/NWA. They're all living in Japan as well.

What big tires. : )

Hmm, what was all that stuff inside? You got me! : ) I haven't a clue. : )

Branden smiling, meanwhile Noah looking at someone else. Sometimes trying to take a pic with both looking at the camera can be a challenge. : )

Aha, so this is where all our luggage goes?! Interesting. I always wondered what it looked like inside there. : )

With the merger between NWA and Delta. It might have be finalized on paper late last year. But, it takes a whole lot longer to actually make the switch. These airplanes, are all taking turns to get painted and switch to saying Delta on them. About half the Narita NWA/Delta planes are now painted, yet half still say NWA. It just takes time to get them all painted because the airplanes must fly daily to get the revenue. So, yeah it's still gonna take some time. Flight attendant uniforms have been switched. The flight attendants for what it's worth, do love the new uniforms by the way, I talked to a few of the ladies myself about it, ha ha ha and they dig them. : ) Headphones in the airplane used to say NWA, now they're just plain. So it's a slow slow process, certainly not going to happen over night. And on that little blurb thing on my blog it still says "hubby works for NWA" eventually yes, after the planes all get painted and things look near complete, then I'll go and switch it and change it to "hubby works for Delta", I do know it still says NWA. Ha ha ha. : ) What changes do we personally have? Well, the flight benefits are still the same. We still get to fly unlimited, meaning as many flights we want. And no not all airlines have that. JAL for example does not have unlimited flight travel (one of my husbands dear friends works for JAL). That is probably not well known but it's true, not all airlines have the same benefits. They (JAL) work on a point system and I think they get like 6 flights a year total per family, which isn't much if you think about it. Something like that, don't quote me the actual # of trips but it was a low number and I was sorta shocked to find out their travel benefits were not unlimited like ours are. : ( But my husband's friend's wife still works for NWA so he uses the wife's NWA benefits since it's an easier system. Lots of airlines have limited pass travel, isn't that interesting. Likewise lots also have unlimited as well. It really just depends on the airline. Lucky for us, NWA and Delta both have unlimited. And for what it's worth, interesting little tidbit here... little unknown fact maybe : )..... Since NWA and Delta is a "Skyteam member" we can also fly with other skyteam airline for the smallest smallest fee. Aeroflot, AeroMexico, Air France, Alitalia, China Southern Airlines, Continental Airlines, CSA Czech Airlines, Delta, KLM, NWA, Korean Air, Air Europa,Copa Airlines, Kenya Airways, and we also can fly other airlines too, but just pay a small fee. Hubby flew Alaska airlines from Oregon or Washington once to fly to Denver and it cost him something like $11 bucks or so, I forget the actual price because it happened a few years ago but it was really low cost for him to fly Alaska Airlines, I remember. And the rest of the airlines, we are lucky enough to use a ZED fare since NWA/Delta is a ZED member and while not all airlines are part of the ZED ageement, many many airlines are ZED members the list is huge, and so many airlines are fellow ZED members just for example some of our ZED sister airlines are, like Air Canada, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways our fees or cost to fly these other airlines is quite small. Here's all the many many carriers we all share ZED with. So in a nut shell, our base airline, Delta/NWA we fly for free. And all other airlines that are our skyteam members or parts of ZED, we pay a really really small fee. The only only thing that changed for us personally..... Is that for NWA... employee's kids couldn't fly first class until they were 9 or 12 years old. Meaning nonrev kids. But at Delta, employees kids can fly first class from age 6 (meaning non rev kids). So, as soon as Noah hits age 6, we will be using first class for the rest of our lives for free. So that's the only change and it's a positive change at that. We have just 2 more years in coach, ha ha ha. : ) Anyway I am usually really tight lipped and quiet about the actual flight benefits we do have, but I figure people are probably sorta curious so I will share it here just this once. : ) And an other little interesting tidbit, yes, even when a person retires from NWA/Delta, say they got too old etc, their flight benefits are for life. When Noah hits 6, is when we would like to start travelling to Europe. Also there are no papers to fill out etc to travel, again a few other airlines, they need to submit in writing the trip they'd like to take and be approved which can take a while for the paperwork to go through, but at NWA and Delta..... Our pass travel is all electronic. We are in the system already, there's a private employee only website we log onto, I check the flight see how many seats available for whatever flight I wanna take from my home computer and if the flight looks good/open, we list ourselves up, easy peasy. Nothing needing to be approved or anything. So our airline has a really easy to use system. Anyway just thought this might be sorta interesting for some of you to read, that's all. : )

The boys got to sit on the edge of this engine. All the kids and families got a turn to take a pic like this. And the airplane was off and cold engines, ha ha ha obviously. : )

Do you ever wonder when the flight attendants go to sleep during the middle of an international flight, where they go and what do their sleeping arrangements look like? I'll show ya, if you like! : ) Me and my polka dotted ballet shoe going down the stairs. This is where they sleep.

These are the crew bunks. They are twin size bed type size. They are bunk beds if you can tell in the picture. Each bunk has a blankie and a pillow and drapes they can draw close when they are sleeping. There are about 6 of these down there. The pilots have their own sleeping area near the cock pit which I'll show you later down below somewhere. : ) But the pilots can snooze both places. But mostly the attendants just sleep down there.

Noah sitting on a crew bunk. : ) You know about 2 hours after we had family day...this airplane actually flew to the states. : )

On family day, we all were given lunch. Here's the boys eating their box lunch we were given. : )

3 different types of sandwich and chips, a Snickers bar and a Sprite. The sandwich in the middle was a roasted turkey sandwich. We all really enjoyed out lunches a lot.

They even brought this cargo plane next to us and they started up the engines. So loud!!!! Good thing they gave us all ear plugs beforehand.

It was raining off and on, Sunday August 30th during this family day thing. Good thing I brought their rain coats. They needed them. : )

Here's the pilots private room. His chair turns into a bed. This is right next to the cock pit.

You can see big fluffy blanket and pillow. There is also a meal tray and stuff. They can all rotate naps and stuff and still be close to the cock pit. : )

Ever since 9-11, all the cockpits have to be locked and only persons who know the code can get in.

Safety precautions.

Hi Noah! : )

Hi boys! : )

And by now the rain had really picked up. And it's funny it's just a coincidence but another NWA plain landed just as we were driving away. And the whole bus cheered again. That made me laugh. I thought how cute. : ) Everyone getting all happy like that. : )

A Delta plane side by side a NWA plane. Now the rain was getting even worse. Weather reports said the Chiba area would be hit with a typhoon on Monday. We believed it. Because the rain from Sunday was really picking up.

The "family day" at NWA/Delta sorta marked the end of Summer for us. In just 2 days B would be starting school on Sept 1st and Noah on Sept 2nd. This was our last thing to do for Summer. It was now really drawing near the end for sures. So we said, let's go and have some yakitori at a restaurant. So we did, we went to have yakitori in Narita.

We had so much yakitori! These ones were the all white meat ones. The ones for the boys and I. The boys also had fries, rice and Calpis drinks.

Yup Noah had a Snickers bar smudge on his shirt so I had a spare change of clothes in the car and he switched to a green shirt. We all enjoyed the restaurant a lot.

Hubby ordered yakitori 4-5 at a time. I think he had around 8-9 yakitori. He likes dark meat way better so he ordered whatever he liked. : ) He also had raw cabbage and dunked it in goma. He had a beer and I drove home. We did, "kanpai" and clincked our glases together the four of us. For us this sorta marked the end of Summer for us, being at this restaurant.

Hubby enjoyed many things while at the yakitori place. : ) We were there for about an hour and a half. Sorta just enjoying the mood. I asked my family, what was your best and favorite part about the trip to Hawaii? Noah answered, B answered, hubby answered. And I answered too. What was your best time while in Saipan? Again we all answered. B said the "kids club and the wave rider" Noah replied the ice cream cones! I am kidding you not! That was his answer. @_@ lol. Hubby answered and so did I. What was your best time about grandpa's stay, or about all our backyard pool days and slip and slide days? What was your best Summer memory altogether? And what are you looking forward to this Fall? We just sorta just chilled at the restaurant. Sitting, talking. Fondly remembering. Of course we grumbled in bits about the computer. But we mostly just enjoyed ourselves. Ahh good bye Summer, we'll miss you, see you next year! Bring it on Fall/Autumn let's roll! I think, we're ready! : )

PS: I am so behind with blogging you guys and for that I am sorry. : ( Anyway this post is over 7 days old already, so I am just going to publish it yet not allow any comments. Only because it happened way back on August 30th. : ) And plus I have 1 last post to do before I am officially caught up. So, I do apologize but it's just easier to just push this through. And then clean some house and hopefully do my other post sometime today or tomorrow at the latest. Also with undokai this coming Saturday, things around here are just a little crazy this week.. and the computer issues still aren't totally fixed yet either. And yada yada yada and the 1 post still to do yet. Gah...anyway sorry. : )

Fall/Autumn semester preperations for the boys. Time to get back to the old grind!!! : )

Last Friday afternoon, we ran to the small country mall/shoppette. Hubby bought Branden some notebooks for school. A garigari glue stick. A few pencils and that's about it for B. Oh and he needed some new name labels. Noah meanwhile needed new school shoes. White indoor shoes and the outside uniform shoe we call, "the French shoe" because of the little flag. : ) Not a whole bunch of anything really, but just got what needed replacing. Could barely believe school was about to start.

The eraser has an atari on the stick. : ) Oh and the name labels, thank god we made those Friday afternoon. Because the computer was useless Friday evening on. Ha ha ha.

I hand cut these myself. Not perfect granted, but not too bad a job either. I bought these from like a Nissen type mail order place. And since then... I see them at the 100 yen now, grrr. So now I buy them at the 100 yen.

Noah running about Friday afternoon. Fall is starting to come and the rice fields are starting to lose their bright green color. Likewise, I am starting to see the color slowly fade out of our grass as well. By end of October it should be nearly all yellow. Japanese grass goes very yellow and dry and straw like in winter and then goes back to bright green in Summer.

Have been taking the boys to swimming class like crazy still. They both love it and have a lot of friends there.

Friday night, by the clock on the stove it says 6:19pm. Ahh what bliss we felt. We had gotten the last bits of the boys stuff we needed to get for school. Swim class was done for the day and we were home now ready to enjoy some pizza. A few hours from now (meaning from when this pic was taken) our computer would not only go bonkers but it would go a full fledged BAZONKERS! Ignorance must be bliss, we truly had no idea while we were eating our dinner last Friday night. Blissfully ignorant as we enjoyed our pizza. The boys showered with hubby and then slept, sweet dreams. Jon and Kate is what we watched and then poof good bye computer.

Saturday, the computers not coming on and we know that. It's sadly obvious at this point, lol. So, I just got the boys a bit more ready bit by bit for school. Noah's mendo/clay mat. Cut off piece of plasic table cloth is what most of my mom friends use and I use. I Orange Cleaned the mat, wiped away crusty looking mendo pieces that were on there for gosh only knows how long since it stays at school until the end of a semester. : ) Dried it off good after I rinsed it. Packed it away in Noah's backpack.

Washed B's sneakers and his seat cushion Saturday which was good since it rained Sunday and typhoon city Monday. And hung them out to dry. His seat cushion got very fluffy. : )

I watched the farmers cut or plow the rice on the field to the left. Good job farmers looks excellent! : )

Oh dear goodness so glad Noboru ordered B's undokai shirt before the computer went and crashed. He bought it from a tee shirt manufacturer type place. They sell plain basic of basic tee shirts. It was like 350 yen or so. It was really cheap basically. And why do they all need red shirts? Because for the dance half time thing. They will be dancing to the Ponyo song. And if you recall Ponyo wore red. : ) Branden's undokai is September 12th. So it's coming up fairly soon.

I washed his shirt for him and it's folded and waiting. All the kids have to bring them to school by September 7th.

So, Branden was pretty much set and ready for school to start. Next was Noah. I dug out Branden's 2 navy blue vests that he wore when he went to the same yochien. I got them out and on September 1st after I came back from the laundry mat with the blankets and made the beds, Noah and I went and took these 2 sweater vests to the dry cleaners. They came back today. They are nicely dry cleaned and all sitting in plastic bags on a hanger in Noah's closet waiting for when they switch to the winter uniform in October. At least this way if I get busy with other stuff, they'll be done and waiting for him. : )

A Ralph Lauren vest and a brand X, no name one. But they both work fine and they both do the job. : )

Ran to the 100 yen and got a pair of shoe inserts for Noah. And some wash rags for B, since they help clean the school at elementary in Japan. Now I was done for sures. Ready for school to start a new term, new semester. You betcha! : )

All finished and all ready. : ) I tried my best to get them ready for returning back from Summer break and I think I did an okay job. I tried at least. : )

Grandpa's visit to Japan last week! : )

Hi you guys, : ) If you have read my comment section in the last post, I mentioned yesterday having computer problems. We've been having major major computer problems since last Friday evening. So for the past week/7 days basically. Anyway I have about 3-4 posts I need to get posted, I am really behind with it since the computer problems happened last week. I'll blog more about it in another post later today or down below at the end if I can. But for now I wanted to get the post from my dad's visit up at least. : ) Phew, okay where should I start? : ) Well, he did bring some food stuff for us. He's pretty thoughtful that way and we appreciated what he brought big time. : ) Thanks again dad. : ) I think every thing's pretty easy to identify from the picture. Lucky Charms (the boys favorite cereal of the moment) And the cheaper version of Fruit Loops, we don't mind store brand at all, they all taste the same to us. : ) Frozen waffles for when school starts. Frozen burritos because he knows how between school and rushing to Kumon and swim club they have just that couple minutes to grab a quick bite and leave. For that, thanks dad. Bacon, lots of cheese, string cheese, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese. Stuff for enchiladas for winter, not very authentic maybe since the sauce came from a can but they taste pretty good to us. : ) And a big frozen lasagna. Just a few things that he was able to throw in his suitcase and bring us since he was visiting anyway. : )

Oh yeah, these were tucked away under his shirts in his suitcase, and while we found them after I took the pic up above, we left right away and didn't get a chance to picture them until a few hours afterwards. Pepperoni, longhorn cheese and sliced cheese for grilled cheese. Hmm, I think we are officially cheese maniacs now. Gomen, gomen. : )

He ran and played every single day he was here with the boys.

Run Noah, grandpa's right behind you! : )

My dad taking a picture of the boys. He took pictures of them all over the place. At the store, of them in the backyard, of them in the front yard. I was like, okay dad, you can stop taking pictures now. : ) Ha ha ha. But he just loves them dearly. They are his only grandchildren, he has to dote on. I am an only child. So he is really really proud of them. And ps, I think the feeling's sorta mutual. They are just crazy about their grandpa as well.

Grandpa standing by. : )

Dinner time, karaage, rice and broccoli. Just really simple. My dad sat right between the boys and listened to their stories. My dad was listening to B while I clicked this picture. : )

And this is a game, that my mom and dad used to play with me. It's called..."the stretch" I loved this while growing up. And I do this to both boys and even Noboru does this to both boys as well. And when my dad came, he gave them the stretch too. Noah was first. "let's make Noah a little bit taller" wink wink. So my dad grabbed his arms and B grabbed his legs and they pulled like they were pulling salt water taffy. And Noah wiggled and laughed and laughed. Of course they didn't pull too hard but just a bit so he really believes he's getting "the stretch" : )

And of course a few tickles for the road! For good measure!!! : ) And afterwards, he surely felt taller! Ha ha ha. And then, my dad grabbed Branden's arms and I grabbed his legs and we both gave B the stretch. And even he felt taller afterwards. And so there you go....that's our family fun thing that's been in our family since I was a kid. They totally got "the stretch"! : )

Pushing each kiddo on the swings. "higher grandpa, higher" : )

Our backyard BBQ. This was taken last Tuesday. The weather was awesome, it was hot but not humid or steamy type hot. I'd say about 80 degrees F, maybe 83F. A few cool breezes every now and again. We all watched the kids play, while the BBQ baked the potatoes and stuff. It was just really relaxing. Just kicking back out there. Talking. Noboru and my dad were talking about something during this picture. Probably talking about the kids or maybe the grass, who knows. : )

Noah walking around the backyard. : )

My dad is a pretty fun grandpa to the boys, here he is showing them how to shoot rubber bands with your fingers. Just guy type stuff.

Pushing both of his grandsons at the same time. Good grandpa, good good grandpa. : )

Corn was a grilling, potatoes done. Chicken and mushrooms nicely marinated. Meanwhile my dad and the boys are crawling around in the background in this picture just being silly together! : )

See the rice in the background? It's not as vibrant green as it was last month. It's about ready for harvest.

All five of us sat down and enjoyed our family BBQ. It was really great my dad could be here. We were all so happy he was here.

Chicken grilled and, baked or should I say grilled potato, corn on the cob, some kernels were toasty but it made that hot buttery corn on the cob taste even better. Dinner was great. Lots of chatter going on at our house during dinner time. As what a pile of beef in the background.

Branden eating a piece of lettuce before he wrapped his meat and rice in a lettuce leaf. My dad filling Branden's drink. And Noah watching grandpa fill the cup. : )

For dessert after yakiniku we had a choice of the regular garigari or the chocolate garigari. And I have to say, the chocolate garigari taste almost exactly like Fudgesicles. Growing up in the US, and we'd wait for the icecream man and get an icecream. Sometimes I'd get the red,white and blue rocket popsicle or a fudgesicle. Ahhh what awesome memories. Anyway if you grew up in the US and liked fudgesicles, you'll love the chocolate garigari. They're so yummy!

One morning Noboru was at work : ( and so my dad and I took the boys to Coco's for breakfast. We all enjoyed the french toast breakfast sets. My dad thought the drink bar was awesome.

Also my dad was able to enjoy Wednesday swim night. We took both Noah and Branden. We were there for 3 hours. @_@ Noah's in the A course, we sat and enjoyed watching that and then we twiddled our thumbs during the B course and then watched B swim the C course. He waved and waved at Noah when Noah swam. And when B swam, he very proudly watched as he swam against his very nice partner in the water. Typical stuff for me to watch but it was pretty exciting for my dad to get to see. Wednesday night after we came home, I quickly made cream stew. All 5 of us enjoyed cream stew.

Thursday morning, we took my dad back to the airport, wow we had so much fun it seemed like his time here just zipped right by in no time flat. All of us went and saw him off and said goodbye at Narita airport. The kids were very sad to see him leave, even though he talks to them twice a week on Skype like clockwork and he talks to me about every day or every other day on Skype, but it doesn't mean... we still won't miss him heaps and tons and it really is a bummer to say good bye isn't it : (. All of us were a bit sad to see him go. But we had an excellent time with my dad. And so so glad he came to spend sometime with us here in Japan. Thanks for coming dad, and please come to Japan anytime. We miss you dearly already. : )

Little blurb at the end of this post here: So Thursday morning my dad was on his way back to Guam, a short flight. He made it and skyped me when he arrived. Thursday was spent mostly really low key, just at home. For supper we had leftover cream stew. It was just a nice day, Summer vacation was drawing near. And we sorta wanted to be chill, until it was over. Do you know what I mean? : ) Just enjoy the quiet at home. I did get online to check email. Umm what else did I do with the computer Thursday. Oh yeah I placed a small conservative order at Gap/Old Navy for the boys. Picked B a really cool winter jacket in yellow at Gap. A pair of jeans from Old Navy for B, a pair of sweatpants for B. Two long sleeve tops for B and 1 long sleeve for Noah and I think that's it (Noah gets loads of stuff from B that he used to wear that's all nicely packed in a plastic box in the attic and so Noah has stuff already, Branden meanwhile is oldest so he starts from scratch, so that's why it might seem he is getting more stuff, it's all very equal and fair I assure you, lol. Just trying to slowly get the boys ready for Fall and Winter, little by little each month. So last Thursday after my dad left....I thought about blogging about my dad's trip to see us but I was enjoying my time being a lazy bum so I put it off. Friday rolled around. And we sorta were lazy bums again. I did however start to slowly get the boys ready for school/preparation type stuff you know. I did a load of their uniforms (gym uniforms and white dress shirts for Noah's uniform. Ran and picked up some yochien shoes for Noah since his feet grew over the Summer. Picked up some glue and small whatnots for B. And basically other then that, just hung home and got the boys ready for school in bits and pieces. Also, we got an email a week earlier from B's school telling us.... all 2nd graders need red shirts. They need them because of the undokai dance they'll be performing. So, we went online and bought a cheap red tee for B for like 350 yen. Just a plain basic red one like the school asked for. So again just trying to get these last minute things knocked off the list. Even though the boys weren't going to be starting school until September 1st for B and the 2nd for Noah.

Friday night rolls around. And the boys are long in bed asleep. Noboru and I are cuddling on the couch watching Jon and Kate Plus 8. We watched 3 episodes. And then he said "pause it honey, let me check my email", We both hadn't checked our email since Friday afternoon. Not since Noboru found B's red shirt he needed for undokai. Anyway, as soon as hubby sat in the computer chair, he said the computers restarting itself. "must be an automatic update" he said... I said, "yeah must be." And then it restarted itself like 20 times one right after another. Again and again and again and again. It was like going nuts! We could no longer even access our desktops. It just restarted again and again. We didn't push any button or do anything. Yet the computer was going cuckooo puff, right before our eyes. Jon and Kate DVD, was still paused and popcorn still sat in our popcorn bowl at this point. Hubby tried for about 30 minutes. Putting it into safe mode wouldn't work, nothing did. Finally we just stopped Jon and Kate all together. Talk about putting a damper on a relaxing nice night. :( We went to sleep by now it was way late and nothing could get fixed when we were both tired. The next morning, we woke up and went downstairs and we turned the computer on and it never turned on. No on/power light, nothing. It didn't even restart a hundred times like the night before. By all accounts it was dead. This is the moment when we look at each other and think...."oh shit" He's going through the list of things he needs from the computer, hubby says "my daily schedule is on there" and yada yada and as he is rattling off how many important things he needs off there. I said...."the kids pictures!!!!!" "Yes the pictures" By now, we didn't care about anything else... schedules or anything we just wanted those pictures. For those of you that know us from this blog, you know....yes we as a family do take lots of pictures. I am the family memory keeper, it's my job to take, and keep and store all those lovely memories we take and make. And I do take gobs of pictures. Trying to preserve every memory I can. Once a year, I make a disc copy of every picture I have taken of that year (if you put the disc in the computer it's all organized, 2008 disc, and once it's in, it says Jan, Feb, March. etc etc. January Guam trip is even separated, it's all organized and each disc must have thousand of pictures on there. And I have about 10 discs of our family, some CD's before we had kids and when we were newlyweds. So many when B was a baby, all those are backed up. I am pretty good at backing up memories and saving them in case of something like this happens. However, I was due to burn another disc in October. And therefore I have about 10 month's of pictures of my computer not backed up at all. I know....I know how stupid of me not to back them up more frequently. Believe me, I know that. I have now told myself to burn a disc every month from now on. And I could point fingers at myself all day long and blame myself and say..."Gina why didn't you back up those pictures!!!???" Bottom line though... it wasn't going to get those pictures back any faster by pointing fingers or playing the blame game. From last Friday, I sat and thought about all the memories I might have very well just lost. Gone, finito, lost in space, quite possibly never to be seen again. Moments we could never gain back. Branden's last years undokai, our Thanksgiving last year, our Christmas, and not just holidays just the day to day type pictures too, the smiles at dinner or wave from swim class type pictures. All along the way just gone...like poof??? From last Friday, I swear I had a headache that just wouldn't go away. How could I be so careless with the pictures? All those memories captured and frozen in time in a picture. I should have known better. I was so mad at myself. I sat and thought some more. What else did I risk losing? Last January when Noah started school. Noah's official entrance ceremony last April, were those pictures all gone too? The Hawaii pics from this Summer? The Saipan pics, all gone in smoke? Hubby and I had 1 objective and that was to somehow get those pictures. He said to me, if it's the hard drive that crashed the picures are gone. Totally! He checked each thing, and he said the hard drive is running, he took it apart and checked one by one. He checked it all and said it was the motherboard. He was sure, meanwhile I don't know squat diddly about the insides of a computer, so I took his word for it. : ) Our computer is semi old so buying a new replacement motherboard for our model at a shop was out. And buying online at an auction would have been out... but thank god Noboru had his i-pod touch. He was able to get online and get a motherboard. The auction ended Sunday and the guy took an eternity to ship it, we got it Wednesday, so 2 days ago. Noboru thank god took it to his coworkers house Wednesday night. He says his friends a computer nerd and so glad for that. From 5pm to 11:30pm. They spent working on our computer. He said it was our power unit that actually went bad and what caused it to fry the motherboard. He lent us a spare power unit for just temporary. And he also gave, Noboru an external harddrive. Even though we obviously have an internal one. He said it's to make sure if anything ever crashes in the future everything will be saved. Oh and the pictures, his friend was able to retrieve all our family pictures!!!! He also put on the pictures already on the external harddrive and the internal one. So this way they are saved and this makes me breath a huge sigh of relief. And we will be burning the pictures onto a disk as soon as the computer gets fixed. It is not fixed 100% right now at all. It's fixed temporarily. And why temporarily? Because we can't locate the power unit yet for the model our computer is. We've been checking everywhere we can and so far nothing. And when we do locate the power unit the computer will have to be down for a day or two as well. And again trying to get everything back, favorites, and all that stuff again. Errr. We weren't expecting this to happen to the computer that's for sure. And I totally learned my lesson about backing up my pictures. : )