Amor and Art

My man is quite the romantic. 

Saturday night was our typical Steak night.  Sarah joined us, and the two of them tried out a new first course; Beet Salad.  Composed of Beets (shocking...I know), carrots, apples, pecans that were coated in cayenne and sugar then toasted, chives and a champagne vinaigrette.  Not my thing...but I took a picture because it's certainly eye-appealing.

Steak night was typical steak night, perfectly cooked steak, delicious wine reduction, sauteed spinach with bacon, and root vegetable (parsnips, turnips, and potatoes) puree.  SO delicious.  Sarah brought brownies for dessert.  Gotta love it when the guest brings dessert. :-)

Sarah ended up leaving fairly soon after dinner and we were going to call it an early evening as well, until Terry said he had a surprise for me.  The conversation went something like this:

T: I know we don't do Valentines, so it's not for Valentines, but I got something for you....for us

L: Ohhhhh, What'd you get me?!?!

T: Well when do you want to open it? You can't open it on Valentines Day, so when do you want it?

L: Now.  Today isn't Valentines Day.

T: Oh, well I meant sometime after Valentines.

L: That's not what you said, and today fits your original criteria......what'd you get me sneaky?!

T: Fine....go sit on the couch.

:-)

A big cardboard box came out and I was completely confused.  I had no idea what it was. He pulled off his surprise quite well.  So much so, that when I got the box open, I was speechless (and lets face it, that's a rare occasion in and of itself). 

He got the other painting that we fell in love with when we were out in Tahoe and bought our wine painting!!!   This pic is blurry but you can kind of get a rough idea of it's size in comparison to Terry.

There's the beauty on the wall underneath our newly installed lights.  We aren't going to keep it there, but we are going to keep it in the same room, above the couch.  This painting is SO us!  Baking and cooking and wine.  I just absolutely love it.  It's another hyper-realism painting and in different views in the room, it looks like the books are coming off the page and that the creases are 3-D.  It just amazes me how they can capture it in paint to look so real. 

Funny sidenote to this painting, the artist, John Mark Gleadow, is from Delaware.  Raised in Lincoln (where one of my brothers and family live), went to school at Uni. of Del for Art, and has his shop in Dover (where I was raised).  Small small world.

Such an amazing surprise!!!  I'm spoiled!