My Nugget

He was 10 years old last December and I thought he was aging nicely. Until the last month he started to deteriorate quickly right in front of my eyes. Harold started noticing also. His back hips are very bad with his legs going out in all four directions and sometimes his not being able to get up on his own. His appetite has also decreased. I cannot explain the relationship I have with this dog. I never thought I could love a dog as much as I would one of my own children, but I do. He's been right there for me for many years.

And don't anyone mess with me either! He lets you know immediately that your bad body language and poor tone of voice won't be tolerated by him when it's being directed at me. Why, in his eyes I am always right in this home of ours. Should Katie raise her voice to me he gets between us and gets right in her face. He's even bit her on the back of her thigh (his spot of choice) several times to keep her in check. And as far as Harold and I go? Should we be raising our voices at each other Harold gets it on the back of the thigh too. Whether I'm raising my voice to Harold or Harold is raising his voice to me. That's my boy! I'm always right in his eyes!

And I'll never forget the pizza guy. Poor fella. All he was doing was handing me the pizza and Nugget thought he was coming at me. Yep. He got it in the back of the thigh also.

We call him the general. He keeps things in check around here.

I love that dog!

And by the way, he's never broke the skin, but he sure does leave a purple knot that looks pretty painful.

Meet Charlie

Harold and I were off to go shopping today with the first stop being at Petco for dog food. Well, we always look at the rescue group's brood and cluck about how cute they are and then go about our business -- until today. We walked in and saw some cute puppies and were about to leave when we saw this gal holding on that resembled a baby Nugget, but we both assumed she was about to adopt him -- until speaking to her we found out that she was bringing them all in and was the foster mom. Then we both knew we were done.

Charlie resembled our Nugget too much not to take him home, so $400 later we left with our new baby on our lap. And he had every tinker toy he needed too. From a harness that fit him today and one that will fit him when he outgrows this one. A crate for training, chewies, toys, bowl, etc. And his neutering is already paid for when he gets old enough along with his baby needs i.e. worming, first shots, fleas, etc.

Harold and I were amazed that Lady Jane and Nugget let Charlie in as easily as they did. A bunch of sniffs later and that was that.

Now for all the puppy training!

Beans and rice

and more beans and rice. These are some of what we bagged up. And those pineapples? Those are the pineapples we received from that sweet young boy in the single mom's canopy.

Blow this up

And try to read this. It's the coolest story of how Scott and Susan ended up in the big white house on the beach doing missionary work in Honduras.

Single mom's canopy

Here's another area set up . Their wash area is here too. Like I said in my previous post, they were poor, but everything was spic and span!

A single mom area

There are two single moms that live here under this canopy with numerous children. Everything was clean and neat and although they were very poor their spirits were high. They had a son, (sorry, I wish I remembered all their names) who was beside himself with gratitude for our bringing them the bags of beans and rice. He went into a small hut and brought all of us out a pineapple. And he made sure each of us had one too.

God bless all Hondurans!

Handing out beans and rice

Here we are. The beans and rice gang. If you look you'll see a bag of rice by my derriere. The beans and rice gang are (from back left, going clockwise) Jeannie, Amalia, Becky, myself, and Renea, standing outside the pickup truck. This day was my favorite day of all. This is when the school children rushed us with joy and glee and thankfulness for their new gym. We went into many of the neighborhoods with love and compassion, and sometimes tears.

Yes, Friday was the best day of all.

This precious child

Amalia bathed her with that jug of water. These children had been to our clinic the day before and were full of lice. We'd given them lice shampoo that was supposed to be washed out in 10 minutes. It was dried and matted in her hair. Amalia did the best she could with what we had.

And now to tell the rest of the story. These kids grandparents lived right down the embankment, perhaps half a city block away. They were happy to tell us that the parents played cards and drank all their wages. All they did was blame the parents, tell us they didn't get along with them, and that the kids weren't allowed down to their house. Unbelievable.

The conditions are bad enough in Honduras, but when you have parents that work and drink the money away and grandparents pointing fingers and not taking any responsibility, well, it is very upsetting.

They still haunt me

I had to pull up more pictures of these children. They haunt me so. I noted that the oldest girl is so thin and the others not quite so. I believe she has the syndrome most mothers have, sacrificing to give to the babies.

In Memory of Tio Jaime

I just found out that Tio Jaime passed away on April 4, 06. I met him last year on my missionary trip to Colombia. He was a joy to have in our company. He was supposed to go on this trip to Honduras with us, but because of leaving his passport in his luggage with a forgotten jar of honey that had broken, and not discovering it until two days before we were leaving for our trip, he was unable to go. I was extremely disappointed.

Tio Jaime, you will be missed, but never forgotten.

Love and peace,
Alicia