Steve & Liz Starring in..."The Crater of Diamonds"

This past Monday, we celebrated our second anniversary (our anniversary is June 17th, so we were celebrating a bit late, but better than not at all). What better way to commerate an anniversary than digging for diamonds?

We got lost on our way there and ended up at the wrong state park (only Arkansas would have so many state parks that you can end up at the wrong one). After getting to the Crater of Diamonds State Park, though, we rented the tools we needed, gave ourselves a little crash course in what we were supposed to do, and hit the diamond fields (which we believe should be renamed Useless Rock fields).

We pretty much knew we were in major trouble when there were signs warning us that the diamond fields get up to 11o degrees and "fields" don't promise much for shade. When we got out to the fields and picked our spot, we stood there for a moment before Liz said, "Well, now what?" Hmm...good question...

We were given a shovel and a sifting screen, so we deduced that we should dig and sift. Yup.

This trip forced us to accept that we really aren't hardcore outdoors people. Hiking and biking...fun. Paying somebody to do manual labor...not as fun as we hoped for.

When we got back to Conway, we went out to Smokehouse Barbeque and ate food that somebody else prepared for us in airconditioning.

Digging for diamonds has a lot in common with marriage: its a lot of hardwork mixed with guesswork, has small but exciting payoffs along the way (for us it was a couple of RingPops), and as long as you picked a good partner, you'll be able to survive just about anything and leave smiling.

To all of those who have been reading, thanks for the comments! We may not reply to all of them, but we read every one of them and it keeps us dedicated while we form this new habit.

At this point, though, it is time to finish packing up and prepping for the move on Tuesday.