Fire can't destory everything!!!!

HI Divas and Dukes,

Well, it's been a little crazy in our fine city of San Diego. Sun. afternoon I received a phone call from my sister saying her city of Ramona was on fire and she has to pack up the car and leave.

She lives in a beautiful rural area which is a great place to raise kids but very conducive to fires. She's surrounded by Mountains with huge boulders, oak trees that are 100s of years old, and lots of dry brush.

She packed up the kids, cat, bunny, pictures, and of course, her scrapbooks. Her husband stayed behind to wait til the last minute to evacuate and pack up paintings and all the things Dawn couldn't fit in the car. I met her at her Mom-in-laws , where she's staying and Frank didn't walk in the door until 4am. For a while it was touch and go if he was going to make it out!!!!!

The Big Blessing is that their house survived but with some of the winds getting up to 80 miles per hour and the temp. in the 90's many other homes in the area did not. It's a miracle that so far, only 6 people have perished. At one point it seemed when you turned on the news that most of our city and county was ablaze!!!!

I'm sooo proud of my city of San Diego. We've really come together as a Family. We have over 500,000 people that have been evacuated, over 1,200 homes are completely destroyed. 10,000 people are living at Qualcom stadium(where the Chargers play). Within 2 hours of the stadium opening up for families, the call went out that they needed all kinds of supplies and food. And then the next thing we knew we were being told that we can't bring anymore items because they were overloaded with all the generosity from the residents of San Diego. The lines to donate items and to volunteer have been up to 2 hours long. That's Generosity at it's best!!!!!!

We have a long road to recovery. Some families have just finished rebuilding from the fire from 4 years ago!!!! If you'd like to help you can Google The Salvation Army and make a donation to the San Diego Wild Fires. They also have a phone # that you can make a donation by phone. The # is 858-570-1001. I know any amount would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you sooo much for all your e-mails and phone calls inquiring how we are. We're fine and extremely grateful to be alive and living in this wonderful city. I'll keep you posted. We may have lost over 400,000 acres but we haven't lost out spirit of generosity.