Meagen's Sandbox

Meagen loved to play in the sandbox in the backyard of our house. These pictures were taken in 1986. In looking at the photos, one would think she was camera shy. My oh my what a difference a few years makes. I love the upclose picture of the sand. When I was web surfing this past week and looking at the international sand collectors website, I saw sand that was star shaped, flower shaped, round, oblong, and many other shapes. There was white sand, green sand, blue sand and even yellow sand. The sand in this photo seems a bit blah compared to those, but, it does have a great deal of sentimental value.

Well, actually, the sand is way cool, but I kinda think that little girl is the best part of the pic!

Don't mess with TEXAS

Scrapbook pages cont. This dirt sample was actually purchased at a store in Dallas. One of the few times that I didn't get down and dirty, I just dug out a dollar! We were headed to Houston, then Galveston in order to board a cruise ship. This is the same trip that took us from Salt Lake City to Dallas Texas, to Houston Texas, to Galveston Texas and on to the ship.
The Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Rhapsody of the Seas then took us to Key West Florida, Belize, Cozumel, and back into Texas. I loved Dallas. It was one of the prettiest cities I have ever been in. The company that made the little foot shaped dirt holder has since gone out of business. BOO. I would have liked to gotten feet with dirt in them from everywhere! If you know of anyone that makes these little treasures still, hook a sister up!

All for the price of a PONCHO

I'm not ganna lie...I love the fact that I did all of these pages so long ago. It makes it much easier (and a little more colorful) to do blog posts. La Bufadora has a whole treasure of memories behind it. It is located in Baja California, Mexico. Yeah, go figure. It is a local tourist attraction and in order to actually get to the attraction, you first have to walk about a mile through a mexican flea market. SO worth it! We bought way more than we should have including a gorgeous blanket that turned out to be a poncho. Go Meg GO! But I digress. So, once you have gone through the tourist tunnel and paid your dues, you end up at this very large body of water wedged between 2 rocks. When the tide comes in the waves crash up, and "buf" adora has happened. The "buf" wasn't all that great, however, there was a man dressed in full Indian dress that refused to have his picture taken because I picked up some of the dirt from La Bufadora. I really think all he wanted was a tip, but either way, I got his picture (even though it was just his backside) and my dirt. All for the price of a poncho.

Catalina Island and Avalon

Another stop on another cruise. This time we took the Ecstacy with Carnival from Long Beach to Catalina Island located in Avalon California. There were the nicest people there that ran a little souvenior shop and they told me about a lot of places I could go to find some really great soil. But, we only had about an hour to shop for dirt, get some grub, and catch the dingy back to the BIG BOAT. The cruise gave us a lot of memories. One that I was really surprised about was how COLD it was on this cruise. So cold in fact that we wore mittens, scarfs, and beanies while outside of our cabin and on the deck of the ship. I'd like to return to Catalina Island again someday. This time to rent a couple of bikes and ride all over. I think this is really a great way to meet with the "locals".

Mayan Ruins of Tulum

On the "Crop n Cruise" trip we got to take an excursion to the Mayan Ruins of Tulum. It was so unbelievably HOT I can't even describe it to you. Jerry and I thought we were prepared for the heat but quickly found out we were very naive as to what REAL heat can do to you.

The Mayan ruins were absolutely beautiful. Even though I was really more interested in the beach sand that I collected from there. Several people told me that the soil from there is sacred and just like Hawaii volcanic rock, it was very "unlucky" to remove it from the ruins themselves. I for one don't mess with karma, so this sample was taken from an area just north of the actual ruins.
Grandma Elza, Jerry and I will never forget our experience in Mexico. The Mayan Ruins have so much history behind them and I still have reading more about them on my list of things to do. Until then, I will enjoy my dirt while sitting in the COOL breeze back here in Utah.