In Chihuahua, Mexico, my dad's side of the family, they were ranchers.

They had a big ranch.

And, one day, one of their You know, one of their ranch hands discovered these these funny looking round rocks.

They weren't really interested in them, but they let some rockhounds come in and do exploring and do some digging.

They convinced my grandmother, at the time to kind of jump on the bandwagon and do some of her own claims.

And then my mom's side of the family, they, they received a stone collection in trade.

So that's how they got started in the stone business, because my dad was a delivery guy of the geodes, and my mom was the, you know, shipping and receiving person.

So they, they, met and they, they got married and bought the business from, from my mom's parents.

And so they, you know, we've been miners and cowboys since the 1960s.

We have about 20,000 customers worldwide.

So you might be at a touristy spot around the world, and you'll see people cracking our geodes.

My art geodes they're formed in a volcano, 44 million years ago.

And so basically it was a volcano that erupted, there was gas pockets in the lava and the gas pockets filled in with silica, making the crystal structures inside.

So, if you will, it's kind of like the concept of a mini cavern, you know, just a bunch of little mini caverns that formed.

And, and so we, you know, we dig those on our ranch in Mexico and we've, we've kind of tested the mine, they're going to be as deep as 200 feet below the surface.

We're always, wholesale business.

And then we just kind of started playing with the retail.

After Covid, we really experienced like, this massive surge of the young, the young folks coming out here, you know, high school students, college students.

Before it was mostly older folks buying stones, because in the old days it was more about just cutting and polishing and making jewelry.

And now it's kind of transitioned more into the healing properties.

Every stone has, an energy signature, you know, but because of its molecular structure and depending on what books you read, they tell you what the different crystals mean and how they can help you.

For example, green aventurine, because it's the color green, it's supposed to help with fortune and money, you know, and rose quartz, it's the pink, you know, it's a pink color quartz helps with your your romance, and for the stone of love.

We travel the world, purchasing materials for our wholesale business.

So we, you know, we came across these really big pieces, you know, as we were traveling.

And so it was great to start a big, you know, we started a collection of really big pieces.

So that kind of evolved into a museum.

And, you know, it's just it's nice to it kind of helps customers remember us because they'll come in and see the store and see the museum and see the spectacular pieces that are in there.

I mean, you have to travel, you know, like to Las Vegas or the Smithsonian or, you know, those type of places to see these kind of pieces.

And we have them right here in El Paso.

This is a very unique store for the area.

But there is a community here.

There's a general mineral society that's involved.

There's also, gem shows that are involved throughout the year.

I know in December, they put on a gem show here in town that my, you know, folks can check out.

I know, and also in the area like an Alpine, there's a gem show coming up in Deming, New Mexico, so this whole area, there's some really neat places to discover stones and see nice stones.

It's nice to be part of that community.

And it's just such a great experience to pick out a rock that's been forming for 44 million years, and you get to be the very first person to see.

And of course, you know, enjoy our, you know, our museum.

We have really, unique and really big pieces.

And it's just it's a great family entertainment place.

It's my parents and it's four brothers and, so we all work together.

I mean, we're very fortunate that we get to see each other every day.

I'm the oldest.

The second oldest actually lives in Chihuahua City, and he's in charge of the Mexico operations.

And but the rest of us are here managing the retail store and the wholesale operations.

And we all travel together.

You know, we've gone buying trips, go to Brazil, you know, we've, we've done some really nice trips together, looking for stones.

So, you know, it's, it's, just we're very blessed.