We live right down the road from the quaint little town of Powell. When we switch to a different ward in June, we will be going to church in this town. We spent part of the sunny (albeit chilly) day walking around and enjoying what it has to offer.

This was a cute little boutique called Nichole’s. Very pricey, but super cute clothes and toys for kids. Lots of their toys were actually imports from Germany and i recognized them from my mission. Magei got to get a wooden “paper doll style” bear set. Sam picked out a wooden block puzzle.

Main Street in “Historic!” Downtown Powell

The manners school…Nate took a brochure.

Pink Moon Cupcake Bakery has incredible cupcake flavors and fabulous frosting…pure crisco, I’m sure. Today we tried Red Velvet and Pretty, Pretty Princess.

The Espresso Yourself Cafe. It’s an old church and it now has this HUGE guitar hung on its front tower.

Mean Bean Coffee House. That sure is one mean looking bean.

Beehive Bread Co. was started by a member of the church. Their baked goods are great! Today we tried the pizza popovers and the cheddar bread and bought fresh rolls for tomorrow’s Sunday dinner.

I’ve been buying a lot of pink lately…for Nate.  I can’t seem to drag myself away from boring old black.  Personally, I think Nate can pull it off.  And his son is not far behind.  I’ll post round two with Sam in his signature color soon.

The company I work for has always had a major focus on employee health. Here is what my company does to try to encourage a healthy lifestyle (okay, so they are probably doing it to try and cut health insurance costs, but whatever - I still appreciate it): (1) private company gym free for all employees; (2) a personal trainer who meets with us (if we choose) and will track our weight, measurements, body fat % etc.; (3) monthly health newsletter sent to our homes full of tips and recipes; (4) weight watchers meeting in our building; (5) $25 gift cards for doing things such as physicals or preventive health care like mammograms, prostate exams, or quitting smoking - this also applies to spouses; (6) requirements on catered meetings, lunches or other events - for example, we are not allowed to serve donuts or pastries.

Today we all got a list of some of the worst foods in America. I thought it was interesting. I probably won’t be ordering any of these foods:

1. Outback Cheese Fries with Ranch: 2,900 cal. 182 g fat

2. Chili’s Awesome Blossom: 2,710 cal. 194 g fat

3. On the Border Stacked Border Nachos: 2,740 cal. 166 g fat

4. Macaroni Grill Spaghetti and Meatballs: 2,430 cal. 128 g fat

5. Uno Chicago Grill Deep Dish Pizza: 2,310 cal. 162 g fat

6. On the Border Dos XX Fish Tacos with Rice and Beans: 2,100 cal. 130 g fat

7. Chili’s Honey Chipotle Crispers with Sauce: 2,040 cal. 99 g fat

8. P.F. Chang’s Pork Lo Mein: 1,820 cal. 127 g fat

9. Chili’s Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie with Ice Cream: 1,600 cal. 78 g fat

10. Bob Evans Caramel Banana Cream Stacked and Stuffed Hotcakes: 1,540 cal. 77 g fat

11. Lonestar 20 oz T-bone: 1,540 cal. 124 g fat

12. Carl’s Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger: 1,520 cal. 111 g fat

13. On the Border Grande Taco Salad with Beef: 1,450 cal. 102 g fat

14. Quizno’s Classic Italian Sandwich: 1,370 cal. 86 g fat

15. Macaroni Grill Double Macaroni n Cheese: 1,210 cal 62 g fat (this is a kid’s meal)

16. Chipotle Mexican Grilled Chicken Burrito: 1,179 cal. 7 g fat

17. Ruby Tuesday Bella Turkey Burger: 1,145 cal 71 g fat

18. Pepperidge Farm Roasted Chicken Pot Pie: 1,020 cal. 64 g fat

19. Jamba Juice Chocolate Moo’d Smoothie: 900 cal. 10 g fat

20. McDonald’s Chicken Selects Breast Strips with ranch: 830 cal. 55 g fat

I guess I should have asked this question BEFORE I got my hair cut.

This is what Magei asked Nate and me this morning.  We acted like we didn’t hear her.

Are Sundays the most stressful day of the week for anyone else besides me? Sam gets no nap, no lunch and is crammed in between two pews or a row of chairs for three hours. Plus, the kids are not allowed to eat snacks in the chapel (a rule I kind of break with Sam, but I’m trying to be better at). Plus, our Relief Society meets in the High Council Room with that big table in the middle…I told Nate that if he wanted me to remain an active member of the church he was going to have to be in charge of Sam during that block. How am I supposed to chase Sam around the room like a game of Duck, Duck, Goose and retain any decorum of reverence? Top that off with the fact that when we get home at 2:30, Sam is both exhausted and famished, so I have to decide whether to send my kid to bed hungry or let him eat lunch (thereby forfeiting his nap) and suffer the consequences. What made me feel especially good today was the story told in sacrament meeting about the family with 17 children who would all sit on the front row in church and fold their arms, listen intently, and not move a muscle the entire time.  Seriously…did someone make that up?  Because it’s basically me and Nate against Sam, and let me tell you - we’re not winning.  But at least the kids get to look cute once a week, right? That is, until we get to church and the wrestling match begins. I really need to take an “after” photo when we get back home.

On the bright side - Magei and Nate have a Daddy-Daughter date every Sunday morning and make pancakes. As you can see, Magei gets herself all dressed up for the occasion: Minnie Mouse ears…check. Jasmine nightgown…double check. Hello Kitty clip…got it. Top that off with Nate’s Security ID badge and two princess band aids and she’s good to go.

This morning Magei and Sam kept themselves occupied for quite a while playing in their boat.

Magei gave a shout out to her country roots today by wearing her cowgirl boots to church. She REALLY wanted to wear her cowgirl hat, too. I thought that might be pushing it just a tiny bit.

Now I have the whole rest of the week to look forward to next Sunday and doing it all again!

Last night Nate and I took Magei downtown to see Annie at the Palace Theatre. We have been preparing her for weeks, which wasn’t too hard to do since Broadway Kids is one of here favorite CDs. We have been listening to all the music from the show for about a month now, and Magei has most of the songs memorized word for word. The movie even came on tv a few weeks ago, so we let her watch it. She got to dress up like Annie (minus the red hair) and had a great time!

Once the show started, Magei was singing along the whole time…and quite loudly at that. There’s a fine line between being an adorable 4 year old and a pesky audience member who wont be quiet. But, I decided to just let her go for it. We got a few glances in our direction from our neighbors, but nothing too serious.

When we were leaving the theater after the show, Magei proudly declared that she wants to grow up to be Annie. Me too, if I get all of Daddy Warbucks’ money.

Thank you, Nate for sending me these awesome flowers at work today…for no reason at all!

I hate filling up these days.  Remember when gas was $1 a gallon?  I was excited today when I found a station selling for under $3.60.

I love the age Sam is right now. You know, the age where they are old enough to start picking up on the things you do - like folding arms. I’m sure no one thinks it’s cute when I do it, but it sure is cute when Sam does it. We were sitting down for dinner about a month ago, and we all folded our arms for the prayer, and Sam just busted it out like he’d been doing if forever…super cute.

He’s very proud of himself.

Nate and I have both been so exhausted with work and school lately, that we have become seriously pathetic. We were too tired to have a “real” date night, so we decided to stay home and play wii. Then we decided we were too tired to stand up and play wii. So we did this instead:

Have you ever tried to play tennis while laying in bed? It can be done. Thank you, wii.

In other goings on, Columbus just had the storm of the century. Usually, the major weather concerns out here are ice and tornadoes. However, this weekend brought us “the blizzard of ‘08″ as it is being called. We got 20.4 inches in one storm. Now, being from Idaho, I’ve seen worse, however 20.4 inches all at once wherever you’re from is still going to be a bit much. Things get interesting around here when you dump that much snow on a city in a 24 hour time period. We didn’t go anywhere for 2 and a half days. It took quite a while to shovel ourselves out. The pictures below are about half way through the storm…we still got more snow after this.

This is our front yard. It looks like Nate is kneeling, but really the snow is just up to his knees.

This is what we were shoveling to try to clear our driveway…only we got more after this.

Sam took it all in stride and had a great time playing in the house…sigh. We all have a serious case of cabin fever. Seriously - could this winter last any longer? It started getting cold right after Halloween. March is our 5th month of cold weather…c’mon spring - just get here already!

One good thing about being snowed in all weekend…Nate got another door put in. We only have one more to go! That will officially mean that every door in our house has been replaced.

Magei is mysteriously absent in all of these photos…I suppose she just didn’t feel like getting her picture taken this week…either that, or she just didn’t do anything news-worthy. We’ll do a profile on her next time.