Crater of Diamonds State Park Trip

This past weekend our family traveled with the Lyons (our good friends) to Crater of Diamonds State Park. We left Friday morning and came home yesterday evening. We had a wonderful time. Clyde cooked us wonderful meals. We had ribs, corn on the cob, monkey bread, momma Fletcher's orange bread, and fajitas. I am grateful that Clyde has learned how to do all the cooking on an open fire. I guess that comes from years of being involved in the Boy Scouts program. Sarah brought her best friend MaKayla along with us. We usually don't allow the girls to bring friends. Seeing that there would be no one else there her age, we caved in. It really wasn't bad at all.

Friday we spent the afternoon setting up camp and exploring the park.

Friday evening while we were waiting for our ribs to finish cooking we gave the kids different assignments for skits. Sarah and MaKayla had to do a skit and had to say the words "martian chocolate." Hannah and Emma had to say "use the skillet." Georgah and Ethan had to say "what does that button do?" Rebekah was our MC for the night. She was great! They all were! Rebekah came up with her own jokes saying things like "That was a funny as that guy." Pointing to Clyde. We laughed so hard. We gave out prizes for each skit. Each group received the ingredients to make S'mores.

Saturday we spent most of the day digging for diamonds. It was a lot of fun having a reason to get dirty. We found lots of crystal and quartz, but no diamonds. The weather was freezing cold on Friday night and warm on Saturday.

Sunday morning before we left Teresa and I took Sarah, MaKayla, Hannah and Emma to try and find a diamond. We tried digging and came up with nothing. I think we were all getting a little discouraged. I was wondering off by myself, thinking "ok there has to be a lesson somewhere within our vacation. What could it be?" All of the sudden I heard, "Mom, Steph, Mom" Their voices where happy! I could see their excitement. Hannah came running over to me. "Look what I found." I was ready to say, "Honey, it's just another crystal." But to my amazement. . . It was beautiful! A beautiful yellow clear stone. I told Hannah I think you found a diamond, let's so have it checked out. All of a sudden she had dropped it! Our hearts sunk. She found it! I had Hannah put it in her bag of rocks. I didn't even think to tell her to zip it up.

As we were trying to hurry as fast as we could across a 37 1/2 acre diamond field. Hannah tripped and dropped her bag. She lost some rocks. OH NOOOOO!! She was lucky that it didn't fall out. We finally made it to the certification table. When Hannah placed her stone in the lady's hand, she said, "OH, It's beautiful!" It was a DIAMOND!!!! They rushed the diamond to a closed room slammed the door shut and withing a few minutes they came back. It was alike Hannah had just given birth and they were taking the baby away to make sure everything was ok. HAHAHA

When they came back they said she had found a 1/2 carat yellow diamond. She was so proud! They boxed the diamond for us and gave us a certificate stating how much the diamond weighed. They also took her picture and wrote a statement about her for the bulletin board. The park also sounds a horn when a diamond is found. It was exciting to hear that horn. Hannah had several people ask to see the diamond.

This week we will have the diamond appraised. So, what does an 11 year old girl do with a 1/2 carat yellow diamond?