Six weeks ago I redeemed accumulated frequent flier miles for a Best Buy gift card.  I had enough miles to get a Nikon DSLR (the 5100).   After getting the camera, I even took a one-day refresher photography class to help me get back in the game.

Well (sigh…) last week while I was making smoothies in the kitchen with the boys, I dropped my new camera on the kitchen floor and the lens mount broke.  And the flash was messed up.  And it was making a weird noise when it was focusing.

Bad, bad timing to break the new camera I was beginning to really like.  Not only have I enjoyed posting much better-quality pictures on my blog recently, I also realized that I’d been missing out on chances to take great photos of my rapidly-growing kids.

And this past weekend, I missed getting some great shots of my 5-year-old’s birthday party. Thank goodness for my next-door neighbor and his photo skills!

And also this past weekend, Asheville was the host city for the Garden Blogger’s Fling 2012  — which included tours of some awesome gardens around town.  Well, at least I live close enough that it’s not too inconvenient to go back and get some photos of things I really admired — like the artichoke plants at Nan Chase’s house.

Well, the happy part of this story is that, for the first time in my life I purchased the damage protection plan on the camera, so I was able to take it back to Best Buy and let them handle getting it sent off and repaired at Nikon — at no extra charge.  They’re telling me it will be another week or so before it’s back in my hands (which will be much more cautious when holding the camera and trying to document sneaking beet greens into my kids’ smoothies).

And here are some photos I took in my yard just before I broke the camera…I’m looking forward to getting back out there with it!

I bet this is one of our bees….she was loving the sage blossoms!