Saving Photos

I've been on a technology kick lately and here's why - I did something incredibly dumb and I don't want you to do it!
We have a nice older digital camera that we rarely use.  I rely on my phone for pictures of events and when I research as I prefer the document to be digitally available instead of having to lug the book to the copy machine, pay, and come home with yet another piece of paper that I have to then scan to save.
Yes, the camera phone has made my life better but I had taken so many pictures in the past two years that it stopped uploading about 45 photos ago.  Now I knew this because I kept getting a warning that I was out of space but it was one of those things I put off correcting.  I decided I wasn't going to buy more space because I really needed to get into the habit of cleaning out the photos shortly after I'd taken them.
We were going to have an event at my primary job that involved taking lots and lots of photos over a short period of time.  Charged the camera and put in a new SD card but I wanted a backup in case the old camera failed.  I started going through the phone photos and hitting delete one by one.  I guess I got a little over enthusiastic (actually, I got distracted by a phone call on the land line) and must have hit something wrong as I deleted everything at once.  Oops!
I know what I lost and most are thankfully, somewhere else.  I lost a picture of my son petting an armadillo he had rescued out of our hot tub last summer.  The armadillo was making eye contact with him and looked like he was eternally grateful for being saved.  I texted the pic to my daughter who promptly replied son better wash his hands as to not get a disease.  So I have that picture in my texts.
I lost a picture of a peregrine falcon that landed on my fence during the hurricane but that's okay, too, as he now lives in my hood so if I want, I can retake his photo.
What I'm upset about is birthday photos of my husband for the last two years.  I don't post to Facebook and I wouldn't have texted them because everyone who cared was here.  I know I was the only one taking photos so they're gone for good.  Hubby could care less but I'm kicking myself for being a goof.
Hard way to learn my lesson but I think I won't be repeating this mistake.