It's an overcast, rainy at times and extremely humid August day. Accalia and Cole have been craving hot cocoa and brownies, so that's what they snacked on early in the afternoon. We did a little grocery shopping this morning and now have a big bowl of apples on the table, and Accalia's eating an apple with a spoon right now.

Speaking of food, last week Ella discovered she could open the refrigerator door by herself. That's her biggest delight right now - walking to the refrigerator, opening the door, surveying the contents and picking out something to eat. She usually picks out a carrot, so I have a bag of sliced up carrots right in front for her. Her other frequent picks are slices of cheese or lunch meat. She also realized she could get water out of the water pitcher on the top shelf. That's a bit messier if I'm not there to help her out a bit. This morning I discovered the veggie bin was completely full of ice cold water.

We had a good weekend in Mankato even though it was rainy most of Saturday and the kids didn't get a lot of time outside. Cory and I had our lunch date at Olive Garden and had a fabulous time. We were only out for an hour, but it was pretty nice sitting at a small table for two rather than one for five and being able to dive right into our food without cutting up or cooling off three other plates first.

Other than that, we spent time visiting with my brothers, their wives and all of the kids and, of course, with my parents. It was a pretty low key weekend. We even got to see Heather and Aidan for a few minutes on Sunday when they stopped by to drop off birthday presents for Cole and myself (birthdays in September) as part of getting prepared for the new baby's arrival in two weeks. We'll be back in Mankato to see the new baby. It'll be so nice to hold a newborn again!

Accalia has dance in about an hour. I'll get her registered for the fall semester of dance tonight, too, and am hoping that neither of her two classes falls at the 5 o'clock hour like it has since last fall. That's rather inconvenient for us with trying to eat supper between Cory's schedule and ours. Ah well. Cory may have a completely different schedule in the fall.

Better get back to clearing off the counter in the kitchen.