Hope For The Holidays again this year!

Many of you may remember last year when Vic's dear friend Sue was in the hospital fighting for her life against cancer. I blogged about it here: http://whathollyhasseen.blogspot.com/2010/12/hope-for-holidays.html and here: http://whathollyhasseen.blogspot.com/2010/12/hope-for-holidays-in-action.html and here: http://whathollyhasseen.blogspot.com/2010/12/second-visit-hope-for-holidays.html.

Well a year has gone by and Susans children continue the hope.....

Kids Hold Sleeping Bag Drive In Mother's Memory « CBS Sacramento


*an update on our local homeless people in Venice, Fl is sad...right before Thanksgiving they were kicked off the land that they were staying on and have been re-located to parts unknown as of right now. http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20111020/ARTICLE/111029960?tc=ix

Friends across the net

Several years ago Vic and I became friends with Deb and Lori on Myspace. We left comments on each others walls and followed each others lives through the pictures and blogs that were posted. We later moved them over to facebook and became even closer thru moves across the country, job changes, new pets and so on.

This past week we had the opportunity to actually meet in person when they came to Siesta Key and stayed in one of our rental properties, and the impact of how much you learn about people from social media really hit home. It was as if we had known each other for years and we had such a great time!  We already knew what picture "whores" we all were from the thousands of photos we've shared online so it was no surprise when the cameras and phones came out and pictures started appearing on facebook and twitter. Our night out to dinner was great but I think we laughed even harder once we got home and started reading all the comments on facebook about our photos!

Here are a few from our night at Sharkys in Venice..

Days Like These..

What a great day this has been! In fact THIS is what all Saturdays should be like.

We woke up and decided to take the dogs to the dog park. We went first with the dachshunds. The last time we were there they barked at everyone and didn't really have any other little dogs to play with. Today, however the small dog area had a nice selection of pups. Dexter and DJ had such a good time! They still longed to be over with the big dogs and would run up and down the fence whenever anyone would walk by (by anyone I mean any dog). They barked but not nonstop like our first visit. Their tails never stopped wagging...so I think they were very happy boys!

It was such a good trip that we came home and thought we'd take the big dogs (Labradors) up to check it out too. Dakota about pulled Vic's arm off just walking to the gated area.  We did not even get into the big dog area and Scout started doing his vicious bark. It was embarrassing! Anyone would be scared by him the way he looks and sounds when he's being that way! We turned around and hauled them right out of there. I'm sure people were looking at us and wondering why we would ever bring such a jerk to the dog park...but I swear he is the sweetest dog ever..he just acts up sometimes (today being one of those times!) I mean just look at that face!

So anyway...we let them go with us to get gas and then dropped them off at the house. We enjoyed a nice lunch at Panera Bread and mapped out our plans for the rest of the day not feeling guilty any more about not spending time out with the furchildren.

For the last few weeks we have been talking about buying or leasing a new car. Vic has done all the research online and we've stopped by the Ford Dealership a few times to have a look around. I've exchanged emails with a man named Gary for over a week now so we decided to go have a test drive on the SUV that we've been thinking about. To our surprise Gary told us to just take it over night and see if we liked it! So we spent the evening driving around town, by the beach and then on to cracker barrel for dinner. It is a great car! That was very smart of Gary because now it will be super hard not to keep this car! It is the color and make/model that we were looking for. It has only had one owner, is in excellent condition and is in our price range...what a deal!

I hope that everyone else had as good of a day as I did. Happy Saturday!!

Second Visit Hope for the Holidays

Yesterday we made our second visit to the homeless camp. My mom had given us some money to buy a few more things and we wanted to get the propane tanks over to Pops so he would stay warm in this little cold snap we were having. We were almost there when we saw the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles.

When we saw that it was a man down on his bike we pulled over and Vic walked over to see if it was one of our homeless people. The man was okay, and not one that we recognized from the camp. They took him by ambulance to have his leg checked out. Vic said the police man was lecturing the biker on how dangerous it is to ride his bike by such a busy road. I think sometimes they forget that if the man had his choice he would most likely choose to be in a car and not on a bike on such a cold day.

As we walked through the woods to the camp we noticed more tents than were there last week. We didn't see people but saw the tents scattered along the path back to "Pirates Cove". As we got closer we noticed a large American Flag flying in the breeze that was flying proudly in the camp. As we walked in , three voices from one of the new tents called out to us. Pops, Tony and a new man named Leathered invited us over to the new tent. Pops seemed very happy to see us and even happier when he realized we brought the propane tanks he needs to keep warm.

Leathered introduced himself. He is a Vet and is the newest member of Pirates Cove and as Tony explained , one of his oldest and dearest friends. The flag was a gift from him to Tony with a much deeper story behind it. As tears streamed down their faces we knew it was a heartfelt story that we'd have to hear on another day because they were not talking.

Pops said that they had many people come out and bring food for Christmas and it was the best Christmas he had seen out there. I'm sure the newspaper article has touched other people the way it touched Vic and I. It is comforting knowing there are other people reaching out and helping too.

There are two dogs that stay at Pirates Cove. Mask and Stripes. One is 7 months old and all puppy, and the other one is 6 years old. There are toys strewn all over the place. I played with the puppy for a bit , throwing sticks for him to bring back. One of them peed on my leg before we left. My dogs did not much like that when I got home..but I guess I belong to all of them now. :)

We left with more requests for radios,lanterns and batteries on our next visit. And of course big hugs again from all of them. Pops even called me Holly Baby and kissed me on the cheek!

I didn't get pictures again because I felt strange asking if it was ok. Our dear friends in Sacramento did make it out over Christmas, passing out the sleeping bags and supplies they had gathered for "hope for the holidays" and got some great pictures that I will share. We love you Sue (and family) and are so happy that you inspired us to do this!

Hope For The Holidays In Action!

Today after work as planned we packaged up our goodies and headed out to the homeless camp.

I did not know what to expect and was a little nervous but excited at the same time.

As we entered into the woods we saw tents on both sides of our path but heard voices further in the woods so we kept walking until we were met by a man on a bike. Tony was his name and he welcomed us in and gave us a verbal tour of how the camp was set up  and who all was there. He was heading out to buy cigarattes but we would see him again.  He asked a few gentlemen up front to escort us back to the back camp but they declined so Vic and I followed the path and the voices until we reached the main camp that they call "Pirates Cove".

Tonys wife Carol was there along with Pops and a young lady named Annie. They came out and gave us hugs and talked with us for a while. We were told that 8 people live back there now and that the newspaper article has brought them attention and help. Local organizations were out and coming back with more things tomorrow. We asked what they needed so other people could help too. Pops said propane. Tony explained that Pops uses heaters and they are run by little propane tanks. We promised to see what we could do about that.

While we were visiting , the mayor of Pirates Cove, as they call him (Joe) pulled up on his bike with bags of ice and food he had gotten from the church and with food stamps. They were having chicken tonight. Joe is the cook. He was so nice to talk with us and you could tell , a proud man.

When it came time to leave we were given hugs , Pops gave me hugs twice! And Tony escorted us back up to the truck. He thanked us and told us about moving to the camp this past year after losing his job. His unemployment ran out and he could no long afford his mortgage so he and Carol and their kids (two fiesty dogs) made pirates cove "home".

I wanted to take more pictures but felt intrusive by asking so  I didn't. I found a slide show on the newspaper link that shows the camp and the people..here is the link PHOTOS

What stood out to me the most is their smiles. They had three Christmas trees up, and even joked about one of them being a charlie brown Christmas tree because it only had one ornament.

I feel more blessed tonight in knowing these people..and look forward to going back again and getting to know them better.

Merry Christmas!