A great gift idea

For christmas, my father in law gave David and I the gift of Wine and Design.  We've been there before and had a blast.  This time, David pushed us to be even more creative by doing Picasso like portraits of each other.  At first, I resisted.  I resisted a lot, but he kept on and eventually I gave in.  I am glad I did though!  

Our evening started with a shared bottle of wine and Kinect bowling.  We all needed loosen our inhibitions and get the creative juices flowing! 

Once we got to Wine and Design, we all stared at our blank canvas for far too long.  Except for David.  He's irritating like that.  

My canvas developed a rough facial sketch.  Don't mind the neck.  I sure didn't.  

Then we all added some color.  

We had made an arrangement that the portraits would be a surprise, until they were competed.  

The portrait of David (above) and Billy (below)

These are the two images we had to look at, and go off of.  

Surprise!

The completed works.  

Mine does look like the original, but as David said "It's not his fault they modeled it after me!" ; )

We all had such a good time.  After painting, we walked down to Pierro's and had dinner together, before heading back home.  

When David first suggested these paintings to me, I said no because they didn't "go" with our house and I had no idea where we would even hang them.  I didn't like the way they looked.  After doing it, I couldn't be more proud of our paintings, which hang proudly in our hallway.  What's more, I have the wonderful memory of doing it.  We all laughed so much.  It's was that deep laugh that hurts your cheeks.  

Date night

Remember that sleepover arrangement Michelle and I created.  I blogged about it here.  Well a couple weeks ago, Michelle took Hannah and Riley.  I must admit, I was a little nervous because it was going to be my first night away from Riley.  I don't know why, as moms, we feel so anxious about leaving our little ones for the first time.  Of course, maybe not all moms do.  However, I teared up a little saying goodbye to her.  

The first thing I did: went for a run!  Then I went home to get ready for our date.  We had decided to go to Wine & Design with another couple, Rebecca and Ryan.  So Wine and Design is a cheaters way of painting.  That way, those of us that are not artistic can still walk away with a decent looking painting.  

This is the painting we did the night we went.  

David, creating the border of his painting.  

Creating my canvas.  You can already see how different mine and David's are.  It's not intended for everyone to have identical paintings.  

If you look under my canvas, you can see the array of snacks Ryan and Rebecca brought.  We had a variety of nuts and bread, with our wine of course!  

Rebecca

As usual, David was the first one finished.

Here's our two paintings.  We had such a good time.  It was relaxed.  We chatted, we sipped wine and snacked.  The teacher was very sociable and friendly.  He even had a glass of wine with us.  

The end of the night.  

Notice David and Ryan are the only two guys there.  We all agreed that we would do it again.  

The way I see it, every time David and I go, we get a new painting for us and a gift for someone else!  

From there we went to Peirro's and had dinner.  We sat next to a bacherlerotte party, and had a great time imagining what their night would be like!  

The next day, David and I went geocaching together, and I have some photo's from that but they're not on this computer, so I'll have to share those with you later.