preserving a memory

After travelling with my kids I can't help but wonder, will they remember anything about this trip?  Will they remember how significant it was for our family?  Will they remember little snapshots in their mind?

I usually make some type of photobook to remember our trips but I also wanted something they could directly remember...something more tangible.  

We collected sand at each of the beaches we visited while we were away.  When we got home we funneled the sand from the different places into little glass bottles.  We wrote on a little slip of paper the date we were there and location of the beach and inserted it into the bottles.   My big girl has her little sand bottles on the dresser in her room and loves to look at the differences in the sand and talk about her memories of the places we visited.  Maybe, just maybe, she will recall this trip in her mind longer with something to jog her memory.