Living overseas has challenged our ways of creating personal relationships with our loved ones back home. As a picture captures a thousand words, we have tried to update Augustine’s growth through taking lots of photos. A resource I would recommend that has helped our family is Walmart.com. I simply upload an album of our latest photos (I can edit the photos as well for red-eye, cropping, etc). Label it accordingly (i.e. Augustine 3-6 months, 6-9 months, etc). Then click the option to email the link to my family and friends (list as many email addresses as you like), and include a personal note explaining what they are about to view. This a condensed version of what the email looks like (You can click on the “You’re Invited” line to see the photos yourself!).
You’re Invited to View Joy’s Album
photo at walmart
89 photo(s)
A Note From
Joy:
We hope each of you are doing well!
This is an updated photo album of Augustine (and us)! I thought you might like to see this since we are far away. You don’t have to buy any photos to view them. Once you are done, you can simply delete the email or you can order prints or create Photo Gifts should you want to. Enjoy! We miss each of you and look forward to seeing you around the holidays.
In Christ,
Shaun, Joy, and Augustine Price
The one thing I have to say about Walmart photo storage is you MUST purchase something within a given period of time for them to continue to store your photos. Don’t buy … and one day everything you’ve uploaded will be erased. So if you don’t intend on buying, it’s not a great idea to rely on Walmart for actual storage or backup of your photos. I personally like Picasa – you automatically have an account if you have a gmail email address, there’s software that you can keep on your computer as well as web albums, and you can edit your photos a la Photoshop for free with their Picnik software (which can also be used online in the web albums). You can make the albums there totally public (not advisable in my opinion) or only invite people to see them, in which case they get a personalized link just like Walmart and other sites. I just did this with all the first pictures of Owen this weekend for some family members.
Thanks Allie- that is really helpful information! I might update this post accordingly. Question: does Walmart delete your photos after your purchase something? I have two albums stored, but have purchased something from both albums. One has already been on the site for 3 months. I will have to check out Picasa. The main reason I like Walmart is because it is so cheap. We save all our pictures to our computer and to a back up drive, but are not saving them online for storage reasons rather for purchasing reasons.
How is little Owen? Are you doing well?
I like Walmart for that reason, too – we usually order prints through them, it’s really just a matter of not wanting to use them as backup. We do our Christmas cards through them every year, too – you can usually get a personalized short greeting and a picture for not much more per piece than regular cards. I just looked it up, and it actually looks like they’ve loosened up their storage policy since last I tried to upload pictures (I’m about a year behind on printing pictures!). You only have to order once a year now, it used to be more often than that, so I mostly take back my warning. You just have to make one purchase in the given period, it doesn’t matter from which album, what type, money amount, etc., which is definitely a more generous policy than some other websites.
We’re doing okay, Owen’s not a good sleeper so we’re all in a semi-permanent fog but hey it’s just a phase. In a few weeks we’ll forget it ever happened (well, maybe not forget but at least forgive
). Love seeing your pictures and blogs to keep caught up with your family!