Rocks and Fossils, oh my!

P's big fascination of late is rocks and fossils. We visited the American Museum of Natural History right before we left home and the little man eschewed the gift shop toys for fossils. So it was only natural that we would schedule a stop at the Red Rose Rock Shop while we were out west. P was overwhelmed with happiness, and options. He very carefully stuck to his budget... and planned ahead for his next visit :)

Returning to our cabin, we had to open his geode. The fabulous Uncle Seth and amazing Aunt Alicia had surprised him just a few days before with some special rocks - and he'd had such a great time chipping at their geode that he was super psyched to do it again. This one, however, was crazy solid. P hammered away at the thing. Uncle Blaine gave it a whirl. Uncle Seth tried his hand. They tossed it on the concrete sidewalk. (It was a small geode, by the way :) They heaved a huge rock at it, but to no avail. Finally, Uncle Seth slammed a boulder down onto the miniscule geode and it popped open. It was great fun :)

P also scored the following fabulousness: A trilobite fossil (his favorite), a cephalopod fossil, a squid fossil (also his favorite), and a smattering of small crystals. Since our return to Kansas, the kid has been fossil hunting on grams' limestone rock wall a number of times, scouting out quite a few fossils and a frog skeleton. And from all of this has evolved a dream for the future, when pressed for such things: a rock and crystal shop. To be run by P and his Mama and Papa. We'd scour the world for rocks and fossils, keep most of them and sell a few. He's happy to finally have an answer to the "what will you do when you grow up" question that has always irked him, as his answer of "just be Phoenix" usually garners chuckles. A seemingly strange response, according to the little man ;)