Karlie very carefully picking out the perfect rock bucket to mine today!

I picked the girls up a few minutes early from school on their birthday and took them on an adventure to downtown Greenville.  Our first stop was the Greenville Gemstone store.  A couple months ago the girls studied about various types of rocks for their Science unit so we thought this would be a fun and educational experience for them.  They LOVED mining the gemstones and finding all the cool treasures.  It was a great activity.  They had a blast identifying the various gemstones they found too.

Getting started on mining their rocks.  They were quite excited whenever they found a treasure!

Brina found a huge one and the bonus is it was amethyst which is their birthstone!  Cool find on her birthday!

Karlie was so excited and trying to do her mining task it was impossible to get her to look up for the camera.  She was having a blast finding all the neat stones!

Brina on the other hand stopped every time she found a treasure to show me.  This one was a beautiful green!  “Look Mom your favorite color!”

It was hilarious watching both of them!  Seeing their expressions and hearing them giggle.   Once they found a gemstone they would compare it to the charts that they were given to try and figure out what type of rock it was, there were moments of discussion if they couldn’t figure out which category it fell into.

Karlie pauses for a brief moment to show me some of her latest gemstone finds!

Brina carefully putting each rock into her bag so she doesn’t break any of them.

Karlie still hunting for treasures!

We were thrilled that they enjoyed this fun adventure.

The beautiful gemstones Karlie found during her mining experience!

All the neat gemstones Brina found while mining!

Proud of their cool gemstones.  They couldn’t wait to show Daddy their treasures while mining today!

 After we finished mining their gemstones we headed for a relaxing walk through downtown Greenville.  It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect birthday weather!  We made a brief stop in OP Taylor’s Toy Store to check out all their neat toys.  Talked with Grandma few a minutes on the phone then went to Mast General Store to pick out 5 pieces of candy out of the barrels.  They each picked out different candies and were very good about sharing them so everyone could taste the different candies they found like cow tails and cherry mash just to name a couple!