Collecting things along the way

It used to be shot glasses for BK, it's Christmas ornaments for my family, and now BK and I are working on a new collection to celebrate and remember our travels: paintings. For a while now, we've been collecting art from the destinations we visit. We've also started collecting little postcard size paintings for Baby K as well. I hope to make a book of them for her at some point.

We try to find a local artist who paints the city we're in, with some defining feature of the city in the painting. We've traveled a lot since moving to Europe, and are missing quite a few destinations, but are working on building our collection. We also typically try to just do one from each trip, not necessarily one from every destination. So for example, from our Spain and Portugal trip last spring (three destinations) we only bought one we liked in Lisbon. Here's what we have so far...

The beach we were married on in Maui

Napa Valley, by Kelly Sullivan at Sullivan Vineyards

Just off of De Grote Markt in Brussels, Belgium

Canals in Venice, Italy

Old Town Square in Prague, Czech Republic

Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey

Classic streetcar in Lisbon, Portugal

Landmarks throughout Barcelona, Spain

Collage of Berlin, Germany

So like I said, we have missed a few along the way, but make a point to try and find something we both like to represent the places we visit. We're very obviously missing Basel and Montreux, but are working on those and are kind of debating on what we want to do. For Montreux we're thinking about having someone paint the view from our terrace, as that's a pretty significant thing that we would like to have. We'll visit Basel numerous times in the upcoming months, so hopefully we can find something we like at some point before we leave Switzerland.

I also added these to our collection of maps and travel things around our house for our anniversary this year. They're not paintings, but something a little different. They are city maps of significant places for us with a note about why. Maui: where we tied the knot; Fort Worth: our first home together; Basel: our first move abroad; and Montreux: our second Swiss home. I know, I know, people have asked why Baby K isn't mentioned for Basel, but these are for BK and me, and she gets included in nearly everything else.

We're off to Munich next for Oktoberfest, and I'm sure we'll pick up another one to add to our collection. Who knows how many we'll eventually come home with...