November saw the usual list of suspects show up for our monthly Lost Friends Luncheon. Here are Cal Mower and Jim Sumlin. Jim is sporting his new Texas Rangers World Series cap.

More pictures are here:

Why don't you join us next month? We meet monthly for lunch at Abuelo's on US75 in Plano at 11:30 a.m. on the 13^th of each month, or the following Monday if the 13^th falls on a weekend or holiday.

Our next luncheon will be Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 11:30 a.m. 

Our neighbor, Margarita Flores, gifted Angie with this arrangement of Roses, 73 in total, one for every year she's lived plus one to grow on!

And no, it's not her birthday; We've just got great neighbors!

63 years and a while ago, after I'd completed my junior year of high school, I boarded a Greyhound bus and traveled to Texarkana, Texas to spend a week with my father and his new young family.

I met and played with my new siblings, a brand-new baby sister, and a brother and sister aged 5 and 4 years old. It was hard saying goodbye, and as I told my sister, she cried when I had to leave.

Over the years we lost contact and went our separate ways. Along came Ancestry.com and DNA tests which suddenly put that once 4-year-old sister and me back in contact.

This past weekend the stars aligned, the gods on Mount Olympus smiled, and we got to meet again face to face. My sister, Babs Suzanne Harrison, and her husband were in Dallas for a wedding and invited us to join them for dinner. We did and had a wonderful time with a lot of catching up. After 63+ years without siblings, I've once again got a sister plus a new brother-in-law! I'm ecstatic!

We got together with Arlinda Bailey and Bill and Nancy Myers over at the Jalapeno Tree in Marshall to catch up and relive old times. Arlinda had driven in from Johnson City, TN to visit family, and Bill and Nancy are living in Longview now. We had a grand old time reminiscing. We were all amazed that we'd managed to live through all of the dumb things we'd done over the 50+ years.

Angie and I in the Princess Observation car on the Alaska Railroad.

All the picture albums from our Alaskan Land/Sea cruise are posted here on Flickr.

Angie and I down on the river at Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge at Cooper Landing. That's the Kenai river behind us, and we saw numerous folks kayaking and fishing on the river.

At Whittier Alaska we bid farewell to the Grand Princess and took a Catamaran over to Valdez. There we boarded a Princess bus and began the trip to the Princess Copper River Wilderness Lodge.

Angie and I in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. We'd been to Alaska on cruises twice before, but considering the weather, the price, and the chance to do the land tour for the first time, we decided to go.

Sadly, while we were in California our good friend Marion Dilley passed away in Harker Heights Texas. Upon our return to Texas we attended visitation, memorial, and burial services for him at the Texas Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas.

While visiting in California we dropped by the California Nursery Historic Park, one of our favorites. Here's Angie at the Park with a "natural picture frame".

The next part of the surprise Birthday was spending two nights at the Carmel Valley Ranch. Here are Angie and I there at dinner.

We joined Angie's family at the Monterey Plaza Hotel to celebrate Hsu Whey's 70^th birthday.

L-R: Mr. Chu, Hsu Whey Chu, Angie Harrison, Jim Harrison, Ping Sun Chu, Lucas Chu, and Kevin Chu.

Shortly after returning from Tennessee, we were invited to visit Angie's family in Caifornia and help celebrate her sister's 70^th birthday. We met the family for lunch at the Monterey Plaza Hotel on Cannery Row. As you can see, her sister was suitably surprised!

While in Tennessee we stopped in to visit the folks who bought the old homeplace on Broad Street after my mother's passing. Here I'm on the back porch talking with Susan and Jim Hesse. Jim is working on an outdoor kitchen just beside the new brick garage he recently completed. Inside they've added even more new innovations.