We had a great day at the Biltmore on Thursday but on Friday we had planned to do activities a bit more focused on the little ladies.
A co-worker of Chris's recommended gem mining. There's a ton of places in Asheville but we went with the one that had the best reviews on Trip Advisor.
As we were headed towards Gem Mountain, Chris and I both spotted a little surprise visitor coming down the hill.
We made eye contact with Mr. Bear who just walked in front of our car across the street and into the woods.
It was so cool! The girls were on the look-out for bears the rest of the time.
I was a little nervous when we got to Gem Mountain because it pretty small. But - we had the BEST time.
We wandered around the store for a bit and looked at all kinds of rocks.
Then we bought "The Big Green Bucket" for the girls to split.
Ready to mine and find some cool rocks!
We taught the girls to scoop some dirt into their mining tray.
Then swish it back and forth in the water.
Then pull out their treasure!
And boy did we find a lot of cool rocks!
Each girl filled up several ziplock bags with gems.
We got a geode which we took inside and had cracked.
Afterwards, you can take your rocks to the owner to share. He sat down with both girls and went through their collection, telling them about the different stones and fossils they had mined for. Surprisingly they were very interested and listened really well. They loved doing this and have talked about it a lot since.
We had some lunch and then we went to the Mountain Play Lodge. This play was so neat - I seriously want to open one here in Kentucky.
On one side was a huge climbing structure with multiple slides.
On the other was a kid-sized town. The girls loved running in and out of the fire station, the barber shop, the doctor's office, etc.
Maddie locked Syd in jail.
I hope this isn't foreshadowing!
The climbed to the top of the castle!
And mostly looked like a blur for two solid hours!
The girls loved Maddie and Sydney day!
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