Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

Hope everyone had a good time. I did.

Took off early on Wednesday, just because. Thursday was quiet for us. It always is, since there's only the 2 of us, and we're not into football. Had a nice quiet dinner. It always seems strange to me, how you can spend hours preparing for dinner, and then eat it in 15 minutes.

Friday, we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival, north of Houston. Had a good time. Here's a link to the library with some of the pictures there.

Texas Ren Fair 2008

Mainly I got pictures of the parade at noon. I wanted to ride an elephant, but I wasn't thinking, and I work a skirt that day. Couldn't ride an elephant in that! We saw a bird show that showcased lots of different raptors, owls and vultures. The hawks were free flying around the stage, attacking a leather bag they used as a training prop. We also saw a carillion show. It's a 4.5 ton instrument made of cast bronze bells. The player would ring the bells using a sort of piano set up. He'd hit the keys and it would ring the bells. He played "Ring, Silver Bells" (Can't remember the name of the song, but it's one of my favorites), Carmina Burana, and one other I didn't recognize. It was very, very cool, but it was amazingly loud. It woke up the baby, and he started kicking.

I didn't find much I wanted to buy there, but it was fun looking at all the shops. At the end of the day, there was one shop I wanted to go back to, a candle shop in Polonia. He was selling hand-made beeswax candles. Next door was a rock and jewelry shop that I had missed the first time through. How did I miss that!? So we wandered through, and I found some amazing deals. I got a huge piece of mahogany obsidian for $24! I also found a nice large emerald crystal for $3. It's not clear, but I bet I could make a nice cab out of it.

On Saturday, I took the obsidian into the Houston gem workshop and showed it off. Everyone said I got a fantastic deal. Rusty said he'd have happily paid $100 for the piece, and we was salivating all day long asking if he could buy some of it from me. I told him he could when I was done slabbing what I wanted. I spent hours slabbing the thing and only got about a quarter of the way through it.

I had a very productive day at the shop. Ended up finishing 6 cabs, and Rusty gave me one he had done, but didn't like. I had taken a bunch of stuff to the shop with me, so I'd have a lot of options, and I ended up coming home with twice as much as I started with, because Rusty kept giving me extra slabs of stuff he had. Some very nice plume agate and west George (?) petrified wood.