First, allow us to apologize for the uneven email behavior you may have experienced over the last couple of weeks.  We noticed an issue cropping up where more and more of our emails were not making it to your Inbox.  Many thanks to our parents who alerted us to the issue.

So what went wrong?

Unfortunately, the world is overrun with spam and that has made it increasingly hard for honest folks, like ourselves, to get email messages delivered to those who want it.  Most email providers these days have built in a number of different defense mechanisms to keep your email account as pristine as possible.

While we had taken many of the initial steps required, we didn’t go quite far enough.  There were a few settings that we didn’t anticipate needing, but it turns our that we did — no two email providers have the same rules and that means making lots of small adjustments until everyone is satisfied.

Two weeks ago, our host had a range of their IP addresses added to a “blacklist”.  Basically, a blacklist is a listing of servers that can’t be trusted and many email providers, like Hotmail, consult with these blacklists before determining if they’ll accept and incoming email message.

Let me assure you that we were not involved in any sort of spamming of any nature and there were no reports on our behavior.  In this instance, our host had a problem and it took quite a bit longer than expected to get the issue sorted out and our server back into the good graces of the email gods.

I’m happy to report that email is arriving happily in the inboxes or Google, Yahoo, and Hotmail users.  We welcome you letting us know if you continue to see issues.

Most importantly, we recognize the incredible importance of our email system and we’re preparing to take our email delivery to the next level.  While this area is manageable from our end, we’d rather know we can have a dedicated team on the job.  We will shortly be moving our email delivery to a secure, hosted partner that monitors and tracks delivery 24/7.  This will keep your memories safe, secure, and delivered.