Cleburne State Park: Fall and Fossils

Making the most of both our Texas State Parks pass and a sunny Saturday, we ventured out to tick Cleburne State Park off our list. It's relatively local - less than an hour away - and we had often driven by on the main highway, but not yet turned off for a visit. The park is not a particularly large one. We walked almost all the way around the edge in just a couple of hours, with disappointingly few views of the central reservoir, but plenty of rugged ups and downs and a few pretty streams to cross. And - excitingly - a scattering of shell and ammonite fossils. It's pretty awesome to think that the rock your trainer soles are now scuffing was once mud way down on the sea bed - and to kneel down and stroke the ridges that immortalise one of the creatures that lived and died there, millions of years ago.

Quite a big beastie.

Rock by the lake outflow.

The lake.

A bit of Texas countryside.

Autumn leaves.

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Advent 2022

It's the first Sunday of Advent coming up, and for once I feel fairly well prepared! Of course, the proof is in the (Christmas) pudding - whether I actually do all this remains to be seen. If you haven't even thought about Advent yet, do grab an idea to join in with. None of them require any advance preparation except for downloading, printing or book ordering - and one of them doesn't even start until 20 December. Something to do I recently went to a Mindful Advent workshop, run by the lovely Stacey and Ella from Create and Connect . We spent a happy couple of hours folding origami envelopes to make our own Advent calendars, with a few mince pies to nibble as the November rain poured down outside. I'm filling my envelopes with a short activity for each day, a Bible verse from the Christmas story, and a tiny treat for each of us. Thinking of 24 different activities was harder than folding 24 origami envelopes! Mine range from "listen to your favourite Christmas car

Catching up

I know some of you appreciate the family news I post on here, so here's a quick summary of what each of us has been up to over the last couple of months. Toby - went to his first Cubs meeting on a night when they were eating hot dogs and marshmallows, loved it, and was very proudly invested as a member just before Christmas. - spends his spare time writing stories, designing vehicles, and playing Super Mario Bros. - has a large collection of beer bottle caps (any donations welcome, as his primary provider was an ex-work-colleague of Graham's). - plucked up courage to go on a zipwire at the playground, and discovered it was great fun. - enjoyed Lego, lots of books, penguin pajamas and a remote control car for Christmas. Theo - likes playing on the bikes and in the home corner at school. - is now right at home with phonics: "I can spell cat! Cuh, Ah, Tuh." He's also been telling us about digraphs, at which point Graha

Matcha Green Tea Cake Mix

Some blogs are full of posts which start: Recently, *big company* sent me three pairs of expensive shoes / five bars of delicious chocolate / a free holiday ... This is not one of those blogs. But, recently, a company so small I'm not sure it really exists yet sent me a free cake mix, on the condition that I filled in a survey about it and took a few photos. Blogging about it was not a condition, but just in case the owner makes it to the big time, you heard it here first! So the Hope Makes It Easy Matcha Cake Mix popped through my letterbox on my birthday (good timing to start) and the rather pretty package sat on my counter for a few days until I'd assembled the ingredients. Most cake mixes require a few extra ingredients, but this one needed milk, eggs and butter, plus cream and possibly white chocolate for the icing. Not exactly all-inclusive. On the plus side, it helpfully provided a cute origami cup for measuring the milk, a line to show you how much butter

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

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