I think you should definitely buy the painting for yourself if you want it. I don't know Joe and Aimee, so I don't know how they'd feel about it, but original art, if you really like it, is a good investment. Asya bought a painting in Paris, I encouraged her to do it... fairly sure she spent over a hundred American... it was at an outdoor antiques fair, near Montparnasse, and the artist was well-known enough that you can look him up in really big art books, but not big enough that anyone's ever heard of him. Her painting got minor damage near the corner, sitting in her car on the way home, because she was having car troubles, that would have driven me crazy, but it can be fixed and she hasn't bothered to do so.

I'm not really crazy about lladro. I like german porcelain a little better. It *is* very easy to break. I mostly look for swords, myself... but I did buy a very risque 1920's figurine at the antique festival