Of Friends and Crayons.....

A little over a month ago, I had a surprise comment from a friend from long ago......my mom had mentioned my blog to her and she came over to visit and say "Hi".  I think the last time I saw her was about 13 or 14 years ago, can't remember exactly, but my main memories of her are from my freshman year in high school, which was back in '91-'92. 
 
It's funny how time changes things......

Back then Tracy was my basketball coach for the year, the older sister of a couple of my close friends, a young married momma of two little ones who sacrificed her time to passionately coach my team of rather inexperienced girls.  Oh, I adored her...we all did....but we were worlds apart.  I was not even 14 years old, totally immersed in my friends, surviving biology and dissecting fetal pigs, passing notes in class, and of course gossipping about who had a crush on who....that sort of thing. 

Now.....

She's a mom of eight...yes, 8!!!......her two littles I that I vaguely remember are all grown up, one is even married, has a baby and another on the way, but Tracy also has children around the ages of my children.  How cool is that?  She has a lovely blog about her family called Finding Joy in the Little Things and one about her crafts  - man, she can sew!  She homeschools and has many of the same interests as I do....I just wish we lived closer so I could get together with her.
Anyways, when I reconnected with her on her blog, she happened to be having a give-away, of these gorgeous crayons from Rainbow Resource.

Her kids loved them and she wanted to give some to another family. 

Of course I entered....

and to my great excitement,

I WON! 

(I don't usually win things.....except that one time I won one of the Pioneer Woman's giveaways - have I mentioned that?  Maybe another time....and no, it wasn't one of those awesome cameras or KitchenAids or IPads......but it was pretty cool to win something out of 14,000 entries anyways!)

But I digress.  I was so thrilled to win the crayons, and Tracy sent them to me quickly. 

When we got the package and I opened it, the kids said, "What?  Crayons?  What's so special about that?"

And then they started coloring.

And then all they could say was, "These are the COOLEST crayons, EVER!!" 

They're so smooth, so silky, so easy to use and vibrant to look at....the kids just can't get enough of them. 

She had also thrown in a little bonus, Crayon Rocks.

Annika (3) in particular loves these....in fact, I'm pretty sure she's hidden them from the other kids because she loves how cute they are in their little bag.  :)
So I give a hearty THANK YOU to Tracy - not just for the crayons, but for getting back in touch with me - which is a delight and a blessing.  We're finding joy in the little things here, too!