Garnet Mining

On Saturday we went to Emerald Creek with my Cami and her family to go Garnet Mining!! It was a LOT of fun! It was about a 2 hour drive, and then a real short hike up to the mining area. It was so cute watching Matthew and Sydney walk up there! They get along so well. Matthew insisted on carrying his own boots on the hike (even though he refused to wear them once we got up there) and him and Sydney held hands part of the way up there! It was a total picture moment! Then when you get up there you fill up buckets with dirt, as you can see Matthew doing all by himself!! He's at that "Let ME do it" stage! Oh Goody! Then you go to the 'sifting' area, where you try and get the dirt and mud seperated from the rocks. That was the messiest part. Then after the sifting, you go to the water trough where you clean of the rocks and search through them for the garnets! Then you repeat the whole process over again! It was a little difficult with Matthew and Kaity, but we all made the best of it, and as you can see from the balls of mud that Matthew has for feet, they loved playing in the mud!! Before we got in the car we went to a creek that was next to the area and rinsed of our feet. The water was FREEZING! You can kind of see, in the picture with just Matthew in it, that the whole bottom of the creek was purple from all the little tiny garnets in the sand! You might have to enlarge the picture. It was really pretty!It was definitely something everybody should do at least once! I encourage everybody to try it sometime!!