Friday, November 26, 2010
Rachel's Book
I volunteered to make Rachel's wedding signing book, one like my own where it's kind of a yearbook of their acquaintanceship through engagement. I have thoroughly enjoyed the task :) I'm finally done, and I'm sending in today so it will miss the Christmas rush and I don't have to worry about it while vacationing next week ;)
Thursday, November 18, 2010
J&B Wedding HotPrints PhotoBook
As I wrote that title, I realized that I still haven't put any pictures of the wedding up here. Oh well, this has most of our favorites, so it will do well enough!
While looking, for me, for a good site to use for Rachel's wedding signing book I'm making for her, John came across this other site that doesn't do full-out photobooks. It's called HotPrints, and they claim their goal is to provide FREE products to all of their customers. Right now they're at the point of giving every customer four free photobooks a month. No catches! Well, kind of. You do have to pay shipping, their books are only 16 sheets -- including covers -- so it's really more of a booklet, your back cover is doubled as the printing label, and they stick some advertisements in the middle. However, shipping is only $2.99 worldwide (at least for the US and Mexico...I haven't tried anywhere else), and their advertisements are easily removable. Also, you can choose to pay $3.99 for the book and have no advertisements and a separate shipping bag (so your book itself is without a shipping label). I don't know what else paying for the book adds, if anything. I have yet to personally see a copy to know about quality since we're still in Mexico, but we had my MIL check out the one we sent home and she was very impressed. Shipping time was great for home. Even though I'm pretty sure they're based in the UK, it only took 2 or 3 days (Carol wasn't sure which day it arrived) for it to get to Utah. However, here in Mexico it's been about 3 weeks and I still have seen no sign of the one we sent here -- but that could be a separate problem, who knows? We'll call them by the end of the week to be sure everything went well on their end. Two last things: they give you a free digital pdf copy that's easy to download, which I think is pretty swell and should be a necessity for any photobook site. However, their interface for creating the book needs a lot of improvement. Some people really like their auto-fill option, but I like having complete control over what my product looks like. If you like having the site make your book for you and you just make a couple adjustments here and there, then they're great. But for me, I need more options.
Sorry to blab on about some random site. I in no way was compensated for it, I'm just way excited about it. I'll totally pay $3 each to have a plethora of cute little photobooks, especially since they're perfect for gifts!
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| John and Brin 3.12.10 |
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John Bryan and Brin Michelle For Time and Eternity |
While looking, for me, for a good site to use for Rachel's wedding signing book I'm making for her, John came across this other site that doesn't do full-out photobooks. It's called HotPrints, and they claim their goal is to provide FREE products to all of their customers. Right now they're at the point of giving every customer four free photobooks a month. No catches! Well, kind of. You do have to pay shipping, their books are only 16 sheets -- including covers -- so it's really more of a booklet, your back cover is doubled as the printing label, and they stick some advertisements in the middle. However, shipping is only $2.99 worldwide (at least for the US and Mexico...I haven't tried anywhere else), and their advertisements are easily removable. Also, you can choose to pay $3.99 for the book and have no advertisements and a separate shipping bag (so your book itself is without a shipping label). I don't know what else paying for the book adds, if anything. I have yet to personally see a copy to know about quality since we're still in Mexico, but we had my MIL check out the one we sent home and she was very impressed. Shipping time was great for home. Even though I'm pretty sure they're based in the UK, it only took 2 or 3 days (Carol wasn't sure which day it arrived) for it to get to Utah. However, here in Mexico it's been about 3 weeks and I still have seen no sign of the one we sent here -- but that could be a separate problem, who knows? We'll call them by the end of the week to be sure everything went well on their end. Two last things: they give you a free digital pdf copy that's easy to download, which I think is pretty swell and should be a necessity for any photobook site. However, their interface for creating the book needs a lot of improvement. Some people really like their auto-fill option, but I like having complete control over what my product looks like. If you like having the site make your book for you and you just make a couple adjustments here and there, then they're great. But for me, I need more options.
Sorry to blab on about some random site. I in no way was compensated for it, I'm just way excited about it. I'll totally pay $3 each to have a plethora of cute little photobooks, especially since they're perfect for gifts!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Family of the Famous
Can I just say how cool it is to be related to a semi-famous person?
John's sister is married to Bryce Neubert. So he's my brother-in-law, and his daughter was my flower girl. He's an LDS musician and he's done a few cool things. Right now he's working for the church and doing some more cool things. Pretty much, he's just plain cool. He's not super famous, since the world isn't mad about LDS music, but for those who listened to a lot of LDS music in the 80's and 90's, they know who he is.
Silly fact? I've still never heard him sing. I've heard him in his recordings, but in the year and a half I've known him I've never heard him sing by himself, in person. He was supposed to sing at our wedding, but he had to take the kids home early :( Ah, well. If we're both in the same family for eternity, I'm sure someday I'll get the chance :P
Why am I writing this? Today I was going over family birthdays. For my side, I have half of everyone's information totally memorized, another fourth half memorized, and for anything else I have a handful of resources easily accessible. For John's side? You're lucky if they can even remember what their own information is. Okay, so maybe not quite that bad, but it is definitely true that no one knows everyone's information. It's driving me crazy. I just want some simple birthdays, anniversaries, and middle names!
Anyhow, Bryce is the only one of the siblings and siblings-in-law whose birth year I don't know. So I thought it'd be worth the shot to check facebook. Nope, just his birthday.
But...
I look down his page (not fan page, but real-person page, mind you) just a little, hardly more than a glance, and I see "Kenneth Cope." Well I've certainly heard that name before. But is it on his list of pages? Nope. It's one of his real live friends. So is Kurt Bestor! And...me! All in the same quick pick of 6 people, along with his wife.
John's sister is married to Bryce Neubert. So he's my brother-in-law, and his daughter was my flower girl. He's an LDS musician and he's done a few cool things. Right now he's working for the church and doing some more cool things. Pretty much, he's just plain cool. He's not super famous, since the world isn't mad about LDS music, but for those who listened to a lot of LDS music in the 80's and 90's, they know who he is.
Silly fact? I've still never heard him sing. I've heard him in his recordings, but in the year and a half I've known him I've never heard him sing by himself, in person. He was supposed to sing at our wedding, but he had to take the kids home early :( Ah, well. If we're both in the same family for eternity, I'm sure someday I'll get the chance :P
Why am I writing this? Today I was going over family birthdays. For my side, I have half of everyone's information totally memorized, another fourth half memorized, and for anything else I have a handful of resources easily accessible. For John's side? You're lucky if they can even remember what their own information is. Okay, so maybe not quite that bad, but it is definitely true that no one knows everyone's information. It's driving me crazy. I just want some simple birthdays, anniversaries, and middle names!
Anyhow, Bryce is the only one of the siblings and siblings-in-law whose birth year I don't know. So I thought it'd be worth the shot to check facebook. Nope, just his birthday.
But...
I look down his page (not fan page, but real-person page, mind you) just a little, hardly more than a glance, and I see "Kenneth Cope." Well I've certainly heard that name before. But is it on his list of pages? Nope. It's one of his real live friends. So is Kurt Bestor! And...me! All in the same quick pick of 6 people, along with his wife.
Friends in common? Family. (my hubby, Krista's son, and our sister-in-law)
Other Friends:
Kurt Bestor: amazing pianist whose music I've fallen asleep to more times than I know.
Thurl Bailey: a freaking Jazz basketball player
Krista Neubert: Bryce's wife and my husband's sister.
Brin Nelson Coulter : ME!
Dave Neyman: an LDS Production Manager, Actor , and Assistant Director (according to IMDB)
Kenneth Cope: another awesome LDS musician
Am I the only one who thinks this is cool?
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A Family Man
Today I express my gratitude for my wonderful husband.
Today he is wonderful because he loves to support and be a part of my family.
While growing up, I loved spending time with my family. Though I knew we weren't perfect, I still thought we were pretty amazing. How many little girls these days gets to grow up with nieces and nephews, who make being the youngest truly the best because you still get younger kids in the family, but you don't have to deal with most of the bad things about younger siblings! What a life!
Now that I'm older, I still love my family. We don't get to spend as much time together now. Unfortunately, the older siblings' families have gotten into other obligations and so we only spend a few hours together every few months, if we're lucky.
One thing that I learned about my family while young and still now, is that I want to always be an active part of it. I knew that to do that, I needed my husband to stand by me in that. Too long have I watched my brothers-in-law avoid spending time with my family, making it hard for my sisters to appreciate time with us. Out of my fours sisters, only one got a catch who makes an effort to fit in with the family.
So, when I was young I dreamt of and while dating I searched for a guy who wouldn't be scared of my parents, who could have conversations with my brothers, who could make my sisters laugh, who fit in as well as my in-laws, and who the kids would beg to play with. I could hardly expect him to be void of being critical of my family when I sometimes tend to do so myself, but I wanted at least for it not to keep him from loving them.
I got better and more! John loves my family, and is everything I could have asked for. He makes an effort to include them in our life and looks forward to spending time with them. He supports them and cares for them. He helps me when I am impatient with them. He's excited to do things for and with them.
I love my husband, and I am grateful to have a family man.
Today he is wonderful because he loves to support and be a part of my family.
While growing up, I loved spending time with my family. Though I knew we weren't perfect, I still thought we were pretty amazing. How many little girls these days gets to grow up with nieces and nephews, who make being the youngest truly the best because you still get younger kids in the family, but you don't have to deal with most of the bad things about younger siblings! What a life!
Now that I'm older, I still love my family. We don't get to spend as much time together now. Unfortunately, the older siblings' families have gotten into other obligations and so we only spend a few hours together every few months, if we're lucky.
One thing that I learned about my family while young and still now, is that I want to always be an active part of it. I knew that to do that, I needed my husband to stand by me in that. Too long have I watched my brothers-in-law avoid spending time with my family, making it hard for my sisters to appreciate time with us. Out of my fours sisters, only one got a catch who makes an effort to fit in with the family.
So, when I was young I dreamt of and while dating I searched for a guy who wouldn't be scared of my parents, who could have conversations with my brothers, who could make my sisters laugh, who fit in as well as my in-laws, and who the kids would beg to play with. I could hardly expect him to be void of being critical of my family when I sometimes tend to do so myself, but I wanted at least for it not to keep him from loving them.
I got better and more! John loves my family, and is everything I could have asked for. He makes an effort to include them in our life and looks forward to spending time with them. He supports them and cares for them. He helps me when I am impatient with them. He's excited to do things for and with them.
I love my husband, and I am grateful to have a family man.
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