Good as New!

Some of you know the saga of my camera while others may only know bits and pieces. Now that the saga is over, I will enlighten everyone. Aren't you excited?! :)

Back at the end of June, I took the kids to the zoo. We hadn't been for awhile and it was a gorgeous day, so off we went. We saw the giraffes first, as usual, and then headed up the road to the lions, then the monkeys. As we were walking out of the monkey house, we spotted one of these......We love the peacocks, so we started taking pictures. One of my girls wanted to take some so I let her, forgetting to put the strap around her neck. I never forget to do that, but this time I did. And sure enough, she dropped the camera. I was very concerned, but after looking it over, found that it seemed okay. WHEW, thank goodness. So off we go to the prairie dogs and on up the hill. When we stopped to take a picture of this...I heard something drop to the ground. It was this...I was in pain to know my camera was truly broken. It could not take any more pictures. I was devastated!!!! Anyone who knows me, knows that my camera is really another appendage of me. I don't go far without my camera. Now it is not a nice, really expensive SLR camera (BTW--I really do want one of those but I just can't bring myself to pay that kind of money), but it is better than the skinny, compact one that I have been using since this incident. So needless to say, it was heartbreaking for me to have this broken.

What to do next......it was a fairly new camera so I really didn't want to buy another one so soon after getting this one. Besides that, my hubby had just bought me an 8GB memory card for Mother's Day the month before. My summer was a crazy one and I never got around to looking into getting it fixed. I asked M if I could use her camera she had just gotten for Christmas and she was so kind to let me. (she is a great girl) It was hard for me to go through so many "picture perfect" shots without MY camera.

Finally this week, I decided that I should really find out if it was fixable. It seemed like a pretty simple repair-replace the shutter button without opening up the whole camera. After taking it in to the only camera shop I knew, I found out that it would cost $251 to fix AND it would take 4-6 weeks. I was again, devastated. It would be better just to buy a new one. I know, I can hear you all saying, "Go for it!" but just having finished our basement and spending that kind of money on that, I didn't feel like that was something we could really afford to buy. But again, I can not....CAN NOT....live without a camera, so what was I going to do. Of course, I called my hubby and he said, let's go out tonight and get you a new one. He is so wonderful. But after talking a bit, he said he was going to check online. Not an hour later, he said he had ordered a part for $26 and it would be delivered in a few days. We decided that we couldn't break it any further since it couldn't take pictures, so it was worth a try to fix it ourselves.

IT WORKED!!!! My hubby sat down tonight and took all of 5 minutes to get the old button off and the new button on AND it works---for only 26 BUCKS! I was so thrilled. I have my camera back. I feel whole again!!! Now after 2 months, I feel like my old self again. Life is good! Why didn't we do this sooner?THANKS HONEY-YOU ARE TRULY THE BEST!!