Sunday Rocks!

Sunday is usually a sleep-in day and a clean house and kick back day. But yesterday, Sunday was a rock day. Twice a year the G&LW Inc show holds a wholesale only event at one of the hotels near the Mall of America and we've been attending this show every spring for almost twenty years now. This time we were ignoring any products we might purchase for the store and concentrating on rocks and fun things for ourselves. After the show we were going to go to the hospital and visit Matt for a while, finally wrapping things up with a nice dinner out. And it all worked according to plan! (That doesn't happen all of the time.)

Red Lace Agate. I just loved that orange stripe going down
the center. I want that color in the next piece I'm designing, so
had to have the stone. I'm hoping it cuts true and doesn't turn
to mud under the saw blade and polishing disks. 

I bought several very lovely slabs to cut up, polish, and use in jewelry that right now is just perched in my head. It will be fun to work with these, though. The first picture is Red Lace Agate. I'm happier with Jaspers, usually, but the color was brilliant and bright and I want that color. So into my little box it went.

Serape Jasper - the banding on this is so beautiful. I'm hoping
I can control that and get it through the process in one piece. 

The second rock was Serape Jasper - probably named after the brightly colored serapes worn in Mexico. These stripes are wonderfully delineated and I am super stoked to play with this one.

Willow Creek Jasper has wide bands, but they are
not usually this evenly distributed. It's geological time
in the palm of my hand. 

The final slab I bought was a piece of Willow Creek Jasper. I was just bowled over by these regular, almost symmetrical bands of time set down in the rock. It's just exceptional and so darned pretty!

After a few hours at the show and other fun little finds, we wandered out and headed over to the hospital to see Matt. We had a chance to spend an hour with him and Liz without their kids or other visitors. That was fun, because we actually had a chance to talk. We didn't talk about anything major - grocery shopping, using computer apps, even the rocks that we had just bought - but it was nice to spend some time together. We're trying to have at least one of us drop by to say "Hi" every day when possible. I think it's really important for him as well as for both of them to know they have people other than family that they can call upon if needed.

Chili's has good food and their Patron Margaritas are steller!
We had a great meal to cap off a fun and productive day. 

After our visit, we headed to Chili's for dinner. It was the perfect cap-off for the day - a great diner and a Patron Margarita. Yummy! Now it's off to the pool to swim off some of those calories, but it was well worth the small weight gain for a great day. Have a wonderful Monday!