a day in the life...

i know you really don't care, but i want to share with you a day in the life of sarah:

9-9:30-wake up.
10:00-have breakfast.
10:15-get ready, so i can look half decent for my man.
10:35-tidy up the house.
11:30-wait patiently for zachary to come home.
11:35-eat lunch, watch t.v., and get as much cuddling in with zachary as possible.
12:30-send zachary back to work.
12:35-facebook.
1:00-watch some t.v.
1:30-facebook.
2:00-stalk people's blogs.
2:40-find the cheapest way to travel to disneyland/europe/utah/any kind of vacation.
3:20-facebook.
4:00-wait patiently for zachary to come home.
and then the rest of the day/night is spent doing worthwhile things because i have a
cool husband that makes life fun again.

i mainly want to focus on the hours of 12:35-4:00, though.

can you see a trend here?

i waste so much time in a day, it should be a crime.

i'm not trying to complain because i'm pretty sure there have been multiple times in my life when i have wished for nothing more than to sit at home everyday and do nothing.

i am just getting a little burned out is all.

so, to all you wives out there, how do you do it?

how do you fill your time in a day without wanting to cry from a boredom overdose?

i would think that the obvious solution would be to get a job, but we are
moving soon, so it wouldn't really be worth it.

do you have any cool crafts that you have loved and are willing to share?

any fun hobbies that while taking up your time, don't drain the bank account?

please help a sista out!

-the wife

happy pioneer day, y'all!

to most people, today is just july 24th.

but to us mormon-folk, today is pioneer day!

this is the day that the saints entered in to the salt lake valley after the 1300 mile long journey from nauvoo, il, using nothing but covered wagon and oxen.

i imagine, they didn't have much to eat on the road.

it's not like they could stop by mcdonald's and order ten double cheeseburgers and three happy meals to feed their starving families.

in celebration of this holiday, zachary and i decided to eat how we thought they might
 have eaten back then:

porridge, hard biscuits, and dirty water.

{ok, maybe the biscuits weren't hard, but rather hot and fresh out of the oven. and that porridge you see right there, is actually cream-of-wheat, which happens to be a favorite meal here in the averett household. and the water was really red and green food coloring.}

it was kind of fun, pretending that we were living in the 'olden days' and had to fight to survive.

it got me thinking though, what if it wasn't pretend?

what if we really lived during that cold winter of 1846 and had to leave everything we had?

would we do it?

i am in awe at the great faith of those pioneers that did everything that was necessary

to keep their religion alive.

to keep my religion alive.

i can't begin to count the ways that the gospel has impacted my life or even think about

where i would be without it.

it has given me faith in trying times and hope in moments of despair.

it brings me more joy than possibly imaginable.

i couldn't be more grateful for the two mormon missionaries that knocked on

my dad's door nearly 45 years ago.

without that single event, i may not have the greatest blessing i have 

now; the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

"How can we pay our debt of gratitude for the heritage of faith demonstrated by pioneers in many lands across the earth who struggled and sacrificed so that the gospel might take root? How is thankfulness expressed for the intrepid handcart pioneers who, by their own brute strength, pulled their meager belongings in handcarts across the scorching plains and through the snows of the high mountain passes to escape persecution and find peaceful worship in these valleys? How can the debt of gratitude possibly be paid by the descendants of the Martin and the Willie and the other handcart companies for the faith of their forebears? The descendants of these pioneers can partially settle the account by being true to the cause for which their ancestors suffered so much to be part of."

-James E. Faust

i love The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and i am proud to be a member of it!

i am grateful for the pioneers that paved the way for my eternal happiness.

i am grateful to know that through the gospel of Jesus Christ, i can be with my family forever.

-the wife

Zach's Horror Show

Disclaimer: This post is not for those who have somewhere to be. I got a little carried away. You better be ready to dedicate a good portion of the next 10 minutes reading/enjoying it. Without further ado, I present Zach’s Horror Show!



Let me give a prologue… Imagine this day: Teenager. Home alone. Don’t remember why. Concerned about hygiene – I know, big surprise. So, having the freedom of being home alone in a family of 7, I proceed to walk around the house in the nude before going in the shower. I don’t even bother preparing any clothes or a towel for when I get out. Why? Because I don’t want to, and I’m free!


I hop in the shower, not so much concerned about hygiene as I am about enjoying a hot, relaxing spray.

*Intermission* Have any of you seen the movie Arachnophobia? Remember the shower scene? If you do, just keep that in mind. If you have never seen the movie, it’s a classic. Oh, and by the way, you’re uncultured.


You know that stage in the shower routine when you wash your face and your hair? Often, in my shower routine, during this stage my eyes can be closed for a good while. Well, when I opened my eyes on this particular dreadful day, during that particularly dreadful shower, what did I see dangling right in front of my face? A spider. Now, I wish I could tell you it was a big, hairy, ugly black-widow or something. That may have justified my subsequent actions. No. It was just one of those super small and super ugly, nearly see-through spiders.


Now, if any of you were in the house at that moment, you may have thought a 9 year old girl had just accidentally cut her arm off. Nope. That was me trying to scare the spider into submission with my shameful squeal. I proceeded to swipe at the dangling arachnid, all the while trying to climb/slip my way out of the shower. Out of the tub and onto the bathroom floor I continue to swat and slap every square inch of my skin as a safety precaution. After all, if there was one dangler, the chances are pretty high that there would be a thousand other spider friends all over my skin right?


Afraid that my squeal was heard by a newcomer to the house, I shamelessly run through my home making sure that nobody was present during my… episode. Only later did I remember that I was still naked.


There’s your prologue. The point is this: I’m not a bug person. There are plenty of things in my life that could prove my masculinity and MANness, but this is not one of them.


Last night’s story was similar to last decade’s story in a few aspects. Fear of bugs, check. Added shame of not being entirely clothed, check. Girly squeal, check. Anyway... back to last night... I strolled to the living room to grab my phone prior to retiring for the evening. Upon picking up my phone I decided that I was thirsty, naturally. I flip on the lights and took a few swigs of H2O from a glass. I go to slam down my cup on the counter and see the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life. He had found his watering hole in the form of a tiny puddle of water next to the sink. He stopped -- I swear on my life he looked at me, and then he continued slurping.


A few emotions went through my head in a matter of 5.3 milliseconds. First, utter horror and fear at the sight of the abomination. Second, even more horror and fear that the thing looked at me with its nasty, glossy black eyes and looked away – like some zombie enjoying his meal and deciding to hunt me down later. Third, an unquenchable fury took over as I made the determination to put the roach in its rightful place – hell. Of course, that fury didn’t take me so far as to raise my courage all that much… I frantically look around the kitchen for a weapon. The butcher knife? Though appropriate for a zombie Apocalypse, maybe a little overkill for the roach. The cleaning spray? No, too much risk of the little sucker running away and escaping his doom. The fly-swatter? It will have to do.


As I dashed to grab the swatter my view of the devil-roach was obscured by the wall of the pantry. When I look back, the little bugger had nearly run across the entire length of the counter. In a matter of 2 seconds the thing had travelled 5 feet. Do the math. If it were the size of a human, that’s the equivalent of running 64 miles per hour! If that doesn’t strike terror in your heart… *Zach shivers at the thought* Not to mention the “rat-i-tat-tap” of each of its six, nasty little legs striking the counter at 64 miles per hour. A chainsaw running across my counter would have brought me comfort compared to that tap-dancing cockroach. Luckily, the thing stopped just as I looked at him – like some sick version of red-light-green-light (remember that game?). The red light was definitely on him as I crept toward the beastling. Down flew the fly swatter. Not so scary anymore. I won’t tell you about the stuff that came out of him. That’s just too gross to share. We’re going to try and keep this a PG post.

 You think the story is over? Do zombies die by smacking the cream cheese out of ‘em? I didn’t realize that this really was a zombie roach. I grab a paper towel to transport it to its deep, dark grave. I go to grab the thing just as the hairs on the back of my neck finally relax. I just want you to imagine for a moment the absolute, supremely genuine terror that enveloped me as I felt the little hell-bug wiggle out from between my paper-towel protected fingers. Remember the 9 year old girl who accidentally cut her arm off? This time, the squeal was short-lived. I somehow manage to have enough sense not to make too much noise – for Sarah’s sake. The rage returned as I repeatedly slammed down the fly swatter over and over and over again. My ears were ringing with the noise of cheap plastic smacking against counter-top when I finished. Last I checked, zombies don’t reanimate if their head is separated from their bodies. Safe at last.


I’d like to say I won this battle. Don’t get me wrong, the hell-bug is resting in his eternal, bottomless, infernal, garbage-can grave. However, the emotional damage it inflicted may haunt me for the rest of my life. PTSD. If you don’t know what that is, look it up. Any encouragement in the form of flowers, a friendly phone call, or money to help me cope with my condition would be appreciated. Till next time folks… lock your doors and shake out your sheets.

one very rotten apple.

remember the days when almost nobody carried a cell phone and just seeing one was a novelty?
yeah, me neither.
which is why i was pretty upset when this happened:

i drop my phone all the time.

it's been knocked off my dresser, fallen from the bathroom counter,

shoved off the kitchen table, etc.

but the moment it falls out of my hand, {less than two feet from the floor might i add}, it shatters.

at least the bloody thing still works, or you might find me sitting in a corner in the fetal position, rocking back and forth.

it's more than a pain, trying to pick out the glass slivers in my hands every time i use it.

i love apple, but this is absolutely unacceptable.

not only because phones shouldn't be made of glass in the first place, but there are so many cases exactly like this and yet the warranty doesn't cover one bit of it.

i call for a strike!

who's with me?

-the wife

our cool family.

i opened up facebook yesterday and was welcomed by this video:



these are our brothers, jeff and derek.
yes, the same derek that i referred to as "special" in my last post, to which i was reprimanded for.
he is only special in the sense that he is freaking hilarious!
i'm pretty sure he could make lord voldemort laugh.
i just wanted to let the world know how awesome our family is.
that's all.

-the wife

p.s. for 'dude that's nothin-basketball style', click here.

the beehive state.

we just got back from a week long vacation in good ol' utah. we dropped off the plane and it was a whopping 80 degrees. that's a 25 degree difference from what we've been living in! it felt heavenly. we made it there just in time for the eaglewood fireworks on saturday:

 {sitting on the lawn, waiting for the fireworks to start with our special brother derek.}

    

{they were huge! 2nd time i've been able to go to these. definitely a tradition i want to keep up.}

on monday the fourth, we went boating with our pal vince and his familia:

then went to the the manti parade:

 {this picture made me laugh...only in sanpete.}

and we were lucky enough to be able to see double fireworks for the weekend:

 {it made for a really pretty view with the temple in the background!}

The rest of our week was spent fourwheeling,

playing in the snow up skyline drive,

eating snow cones and ice cream,

going on picnics,

having mallow roasts with the cousins,

going on walks,

playing bocce ball,

and croquet

and making tin foil dinners.

one of the biggest highlights of the week, was being able to go to my best friend's wedding!

she looked absolutely gorgeous! the entire day was beautiful. needless to say, i think we packed everything good about a vacation all in to one. it was so good to see our friends and family! besides getting sunburned multiple times, we couldn't have asked for a better trip. it will definitely go down as one of our top five favs.

-the wife