Rock and Gem Show!

On Friday afternoon we went to the local fairgrounds to see the Rock and Gem show that was in town. Wow! It was so awesome, I learned so many things I'd never thought about before :) This is only about half of the pictures that I actually took, but they're enough to give the general idea. If you ever have one go through your area, I would highly recommend going, because everyone hosting booths at this one was more than willing to answer all of my silly questions!

So, this display case was of a form of opal; notice the shimmery colors, but it's much darker than what we normally think of as opal.
This was supposed to be a den activity, but Michelle and I ended up being the only ones there until about the last half hour, and that was only one more person. The rest of the group doesn't know what they missed!
Kellen had a great time looking at all of the rocks in the display cases, played a couple of 50 cent games to win rocks, and even won a door prize that got him a $5 purchase at any of the booths. He was quite pleased with his haul :)
This is one of the games that the kids played. The girl is holding a wooden embroidery hoop and has to toss it so that it lands around some of the rocks on the board in front of her; whatever it circles, she gets to keep. Michelle was rather bummed that the hoop leaned on a couple of rocks she wanted, but leaners don't count; it has to circle the rock. Oh, well.
This may not look like that much, but the entire sculpture is assembled out of different kinds of rock put together into this beautiful, delicate piece. Very cool.

I took this picture to show to Steve and to Bob, because the both really like knives and this one is definitely a little unique! I don't recall what kind of rock it was made from, but it sure looked neat.
This is a form of jasper, and I think it was from Africa, but what you see is not a piece made by assembling different stones. This is a slice of the way the rock itself looks. I thought it was pretty amazing, and it was certainly one of my favorite displays!
This was another favorite; the Mexican Crazy Lace. The layers of color and intricate lines are just so beautiful!
We definitely want to put this on our calendar again next year because this was a great experience. Not only did Kellen get to learn all kinds of things about rocks on this scout activity, but I learned a LOT of things myself. Truly a fantastic afternoon!