Life imitating art imitating life...

After waiting a year or two to do it, Dave and I recently had three pieces of ours beautifully framed by a local frame smith.

Here's our gallery:

1) I love Pringles. Without doubt, I have got the fever for the flavor of a Pringles' and there doesn't seem to be a cure.

This ailment over my love of the tennis-ball-can-wielding snack chip is no secret. So when D and I had dinner two years ago with his firm's chief marketing officer, it wasn't altogether shocking that the topic came up. And in a strange stroke of good fortune, it turned out that he had been part of the marketing team that launched THE original Pringles product and its accompanying campaign ("newfangled potato chips...great taste and less waste").

Forget Graceland. I was in the presence of a Pringles man.

Out of complete goodness of heart, he shipped us this piece. An original mock-up of the the first Pringles advertising campaign.

I want to be buried with this some day.

2) I have a friend in MN named Megan Jackson (married to long ago children's ministry partner and dear friend Kyle Jackson) who is a very talented artist. As a wedding gift, Zanny and Mike commissioned Megan to make a piece for us. It's a beautiful tribute. I love it. We gave it a big new frame to give it proper attention on our wall.

3) From what I hear, D and I totally drew the long stick on this one. Alaina painted this for a school project, focusing on the work of (you guessed it) Van Gogh. There have been more than a few people shocked that a (then) 8-year old painted the replica of VG's "Sunflowers." We weren't the only ones in the family who wanted this painting, but Alaina wanted us to have it as a wedding gift. Beth had it beautifully framed and I shipped it here from MN this summer.

4) In the last couple of years, we've had the wonderful opportunity to take some trips with D's family when they come to visit. One of them was to Istanbul, one of our favorite cities in the world. D and I bought this ink sketch on papyrus from a street artist on a trip with Norm, Brenda, Aud and Craig.