I don’t think there is anyone else in the world that has as much bad luck with expensive gadgets as I do. Seriously.

About a month and a half ago, I dropped my phone in the toilet. Luckily it wasn’t or hadn’t just been used and the lack of delay between the phone hitting the water and my hand going in after it is not something I’m proud of. Luckily, a bed of rice for the next 24 hours did the trick. Nothing was lost and all was well!

Fast forward a few weeks later. I was gathering up both babies and all that comes with it to meet my husband and olders at the pool. They had just woken up from a nap which means they were still a bit cranky and we were racing around trying to apply sunscreen, blow up arm floaties and remember the pool key. During all of the chaos I decided the best place for my phone was in the pocket of my swim shorts. We arrive at the pool on a hot day and I am dying to get into the water with my babes and I do so without even thinking twice. You guys. I was literally SWIMMING, SWIMMING! Swimming for approximately five to seven minutes before my hand brushed my pocket and it hit me. I never took my phone out before I got in the water.

My jaw dropped and my hand reached in to pull out my very wet and my very GONE iPhone. No amount of rice was bringing that thing back.

I submitted a claim with my insurance (I pay $10 additional on my cell service to have insurance on my device) and $165 dollars later and I was being sent a new one. All is well, right? Wrong! With my phone not being able to turn on at all OR hook up to iTunes to sync, I realized that the one group of pictures I had not backed up was Miss Blake’s recent birthday. My heart sank.

So, even with a new phone I was without these snapshots which is just not OK. Side note. Do not worry. We gave her a re-do cake and took pictures and I promised her I would include this very funny story along with the newly created photographs so she can look back on it and remember how much her mom did to make everything better.

Or…she can be lying on a sofa discussing these types of memories with her therapist in 30 years. Either way! We have the pictures.

Back to my point. How often do we take photos on our devices and let them sit there? I absolutely loathe anytime I have to plug my phone in to sync with iTunes. Waiting. Bleh. Who wants to do it? And who is to say that someone doesn’t steal your device tomorrow? Or perhaps you leave it on top of the car and forget it is there only to drive off and have it smash to pieces? Or take it swimming? And yes, aside from the stolen device, we have had these things happen in our home. I am hanging my head in shame.

I have a great tip for anyone on the go who may not have thought far enough ahead to possibly losing the images that you carry around with you everywhere. DropBox is an amazing tool for those of you who may not have heard of it yet. I use it personally as well as professionally to store and share files. You can even score a free account which gives you 2GB of storage. But even better than that?

When you download the DropBox app and sign into your account, you are greeted with an option to ‘enable camera upload’. This means that each time you take an image or save an image to your camera app, DropBox will automatically upload the same image to a folder (titled ‘Camera Uploads’) it creates within your DropBox account for safe keeping.

Amazing right? So if the worst were to happen tomorrow or next week, you have confidence knowing that your images have been quietly uploading all on their own and you didn’t even have to plug in your device to sync with anything AND you didn’t have to go out and buy a re-do birthday cake.

Download and enjoy!