The lost art of Thank You notes

It seems these days, that an email is good enough thanks to someone for doing something.  I suppose I am showing my age, but I was raised with the job of always writing thank you notes and mailing them to people, instead of just thanking them on the phone or in person.  So, I have tried to do the same with my children.

Well, maybe after 6 years, my explaining to my children that it is important to show someone you appreciate the time an thoughtfulness of gifts or helping out.  We arrived home this afternoon after a long weekend away.  Our neighbors so graciously agreed to come feed our fish and take in our mail while we were gone.  While I was unpacking everything, I had only one helper with me which led me to wonder where my other helper was.  Then I started hearing questions like, "How do you spell lagoon?  How do you spell Thank you?"  Of course my little heart did a dance thinking she was making a card to send my aunt and uncle, which is where we stayed.  Then about 15 minutes later she comes walking upstairs all smiles and shows me this.

"Dear Miss Karen.  Thank you for feeding our fish.  Love Emma"

How it warms my heart to know that this was important enough to her that she felt it necessary, of her own free will, to make this for our neighbors.