Trusten's Birthday

Trusten's sixth birth anniversary was on May 26, but that was the day I took oldest three kids to meet my parents the day before Nathan and I left with Elizabeth to go to St. Croix.  Before we left he got his two small gifts, but the birthday trip was delayed until July.

I'd brought up going to a cave to Trusten over the course of several months, as there are numerous caves in our area.  He decided he wanted to see dinosaurs.  There was a little dinosaur museum in Eureka Springs that we'd taken William to on his fifth birthday, but I discovered it was relocated to Dallas, TX.  It's NOT worth driving that far to.  Nathan and I decided, after I did more research, that we'd go to Chicago's Field Museum, which is something we've sort of wanted to do before, anyway.  We were going to need to drive a full day, spend a day there, then drive a full day back.  We also discovered that Chicago is very expensive, so we figured we'd just stay in a hotel around an hour outside of the city.  No big deal.  But then when we were planning to go, Trusten made it abundantly clear that he did not want to drive anywhere that far.  He said when we visit family in Arkansas it's so bad to him, and this was twice the length of time.  He said he wanted to go to a cave.  We had kind of looked forward to seeing the largest and most complete T-Rex skeleton, as well as all sorts of other great things in the museum, but the change was ok.

We chose to visit Cosmic Caverns outside of Berryville, AR.

That was our first visit to a cave since Trusten was five months old and we visited two during the week of Feast of Tabernacles the year we went to the Lake of the Ozarks area.  Elizabeth gets nervous when heights and such things are involved, so she'd cling to us for her life when Nathan and I took turns carrying her down the steps and across a bridge, etc.  She never cried or anything, though.  She's such a wonderful child.  I think all the other kids enjoyed it.

The gift shop sold bags of sand and grit for gem panning.  They had a place to pan for there, but we decided to take the bags home.  The two boys each got one, and Liv got to pan a bit from each of their bags.

So the next day they panned for treasures, which was a big hit with them all.  We used a small plastic colander (perfect for occasions like this one), and the chicken's water pan.

Trusten's gems on top, Liv's at bottom left, and William's at bottom right

Jaden William made out pretty well in this deal, because he has long wanted to pan for gold or some other treasure.  The purple pieces in the pictures are all amethyst.  They all ended up with some.  Then there's pyrite, clear quartz, and others.  Jade started naming some of the stuff that I didn't know, because he's got rock knowledge fresh on his mind from studying such things.  They all had fun and enjoyed the cave and the gem panning.

Until next time...