New Book...The Hunger Games

Well now that I have read Twilight (and so has Alyssa...finally), I got a new book to read. This was referred to me by Kristina H. So if you don't trust my opinion you can trust her's. I think this book will become a series. My sister in-law disagrees with me a bit on this book. She thought it was a bit disturbing, but I personally thought it was good. Here is the write up on it:

THE HUNGER GAMES
Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When her sister is chosen by lottery, Katniss steps up to go in her place.

Nick's Commentary on Alyssa's 25 Random Things

Ok, I thought I would take a new spin on this 25 random things and make a little commentary of my own about Alyssa’s 25 random things. (If you did not read the post before this you need to go back and read that one first.)

1) Colander: To this day, Alyssa doesn’t know if it is a colander or a
ca – LANDer. She actually avoids using them so she won’t have to ask me to hand it to her, if I am in the kitchen with her.

2) Alternative Sports: I am a very competitive person. I have toned it down a lot in 10 years of marriage. However, no joke, she beats me in almost everything that isn’t the traditional stick and ball sports. I refuse to play paper, rock, scissors with her any more, because I have a better chance of winning if I just forfeit. Ping Pong is also one of the more frustrating experiences in my life. I would love to have a Ping Pong table when our family gets older, however, I am afraid that it would turn into us staying up all hours of the night with me saying “no, not until I win” or “no, I’m getting better”…

3) Donuts: I think once a year was an understatement. I think this has increased to about a quarterly endeavor for her. The last time it happened, Alyssa and Jace went to the store the day after Alyssa had bought a box and Jace asked Alyssa to buy him those donuts. Alyssa said, “No Jace, those aren’t very healthy for us (what a hypocrite)”. To which Jace replied, “but Mom, you ate ALL of them.”

4) Night time clothing: Who does this? Really? Who finds any comfort in layers upon layers of clothing in bed? However, I do have to say that it is safer than what my wonderful mother in-law does. She brings a hair dryer to bed and puts it under the covers until her bed is just the right temperature. Can you say fire hazard? Speaking of my mother in-law, hairdryers and fire hazards (as some of you know) the O’Bryant Clan is a big fan of “white-noise” to help put babies to sleep. Target now makes a great white noise maker for just such a purpose. Well before this invention, my mother in-law would just plug in the hairdryer, hang it on the door handle and this would be her noise maker. Really, did this not seem unsafe to anybody else? Love you Janna ;)

5) House in Holland: This one is a bit sensitive, so sorry if I offend anyone out there, but Alyssa is one of the biggest Rubber-Neckers you will ever find. She has actually made me turn around and go back to look at an accident (people and police were already on the scene helping). She has also been known to get so wrapped up in some crime stories from Utah that she would spend hours reading about them on the internet. So I can just picture her researching this guy and keeping notes from gravestones in her notebook.

…..Ok….here we go people….

6) Sleep walking: So one time, when we were living in Oklahoma. I woke up to someone rattling my golf clubs around in the closet. There had been a streak of golf club robberies in the area that summer, so I awoke a little nervous. Then I hear “Jace, come on, get out of there, come on Jace…” I go over to the closet to find Alyssa bent over trying to get Jace out of my golf bag. You guessed it…Jace was asleep in the other room.

7) Sleep talking: So at the end of one semester at BYU, Alyssa had to make an ant farm for one of her crazy elementary ed classes. She left it until the last week and then spent every waking second there that week. Well that Friday night we were asleep and suddenly I awake to hear her telling me “you have a greasy tool on you” to which I reply “Alyssa, what?” A: “You have a greasy tool on you” Me: “Alyssa, no I don’t. You are asleep” A: “(Yelling at this point) Yes you do, I put it there last night” Then she stands up on the bed and rips the covers off, and says “see, there it is!”

8) Sleep dressing: You have to understand that in our first house her swimsuit cover up was at the very bottom of her closet and was so hard to get to even if she was awake, let alone when she was asleep. But twice she managed to get this out and put it on in the middle of the night. I would wake up in the morning and think “did I miss something?”

9) Sleep teaching: I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know if I was supposed to raise my hand or wait until she was done teaching or what. I did learn a lot about investigation math that year.

10) Migraines: Too sensitive…I do have a filter.

11) Riot in Paris: She totally buried the lead on this one, her dad ended up driving on the sidewalk going the wrong way (of the street traffic) to escape this riot. People were smashing windows and people were running everywhere and cops were using tear gas. Quite possibly one of the coolest stories I have ever heard. There are way more details to this story than what she said.

12) Moving: I do have to say that Alyssa has been a champ through this entire process. It hasn’t always been easy and she has always been great during all of the moves.

13) Anesthesia: Lindsey, not sure if your dad will remember this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he does. She will never get a bunionectomy again. (That is what it is called) It got so bad after a week that I had to carry her into the IHC emergency room.

14) Braces: I don’t think this has been as bad as Jenny. She has spikes. No really, these spikes in her mouth that prevent her from thrusting her tongue forward. Love you too Jen!

15) Sister Act II: Ok people, don’t get too excited here. You can barely even see her hair. She was in the third row of the audience at the end of the movie where it is the final competition. Now if you really want to see a star actor, rent Singles 2nd Ward and look for the High Councilman that is texting on the stand during Bishop Angel’s announcements at the beginning of the movie.

16) First Kiss: Let’s just put it this way, my mother in-law had to go and talk to the play’s director because creepy old man, child-hood star (is he still a child at age 18?) was getting a bit aggressive with the kissing during rehearsal. Slime bag.

17) Hand shake girl: I have been known to exaggerate a time or two in my life, none of which are in this post, but there is no exaggeration to this one. EIGHT Dates! Who shakes hands for eight dates? What is more amazing about this is that for once in my life I found patience. I have never had it before or since then.

18) Ugly Feet: If I could change anything about Alyssa’s body, it would be her feet! They are just not cute! (Hey, I am just agreeing with her here. Is it wrong to agree with your wife?)

19) Broken thumb: What is funny about this is that she also had to quit the track team, because she broke her thumb. How does breaking your thumb affect your running ability?

20) Week after honeymoon: Too sensitive…for me.

21) Scrapbooking: I am so happy about this one. Sorry to a lot of people who I know read this and scrapbook.

22) Summer school: Little did the kids in the neighborhood know that she had rehearsed her entire lesson plan in her sleep the night before.

23) Breast surgery: I have been officially asked to not comment on this one. Text me at 801-636-5410 if you would like to know what I was going to say.

24) Photography: If you will notice, Alyssa has done a lot of the blogging lately. It is because she won’t let me touch the camera, so therefore I don’t get to load any pictures. So I haven’t blogged for a while.

25) College Paper in a day: I did no distracting during this time. How can you distract anyone with a handshake?

25 Random Things about Me!

Sure, I can be random! Here's my 25 things!


1. When I was first married, a recipie I was making called for the use of a colander. I asked Nick what spice that was!



2. While I am possibly the farthest thing from an athlete, I am good at alternative sports like ping pong, bowling, and snow skiing. This frustrates Nick, the all-star athlete, because he usually can't beat me at these. I should throw in that this also includes the non-sport game of rock paper scissors. I've gotten out of changing many a diaper because he simply cannot beat my superior strategies!



3. About once a year I get an intense craving for those Hostess powdered sugar donuts. I buy a box, hide it, and manage to finish it myself in about 12 hours.



4. In the winter sometimes, I sleep with fleece pants, a sweatshirt and socks. Nick hates this. :)



5. When I was 12, we moved into a cool house in Holland that had some interesting architecture and history. But at the time, I didn't think it was cool at all! In fact, I hated it! One reason was because the dining room had been brought into the house from another European home built in the 1400s, which had painted naked angels on the walls and ceilings. I had serious issues staring at this! I also had issues with the naked female statues outside my room's balcony! Aside from the nudity, I thought it was a little cool but also creepy that beneath the house, there were crawl spaces where Jews had been hidden during World War II. Despite the things that I hated about the house, my sister Rachelle and I managed to have a lot of fun in there too. There was a cemetary close by to the house where the man who used to own the house was buried. We used to imagine all kinds of haunted mysteries about the man and the house. We'd research him at the library, and keep an exciting notebook with all the information we found, copying words from headstones, books, etc. What an adventure I remember having in that house!

6. Sleep walking (outside one time only)

7. Sleep talking (daily- sometimes this turns into arguments)

8. Sleep dressing (swimsuit coverups only)

9. Sleep teaching (I always awoke more prepared for my day teaching school)
***If you'd like details on any of these, please email Nick. He has plenty of good stories. They're all a little foggy in my mind.

10. Migraines, still.

11. During a family vacation, around the age of 12, my family found ourselves in the middle of a violent riot, in Paris.

12. I have moved 20 times in my life. I just counted. 11 growing up, 9 since I've been married. Included places are: CA, UT, OH, OK, TX, Belgium, Holland. I'm feeling quite ready to settle down!

13. My body doesn't take anesthesia well. If I get a cavity, for example, dentists usually have to give me the shot twice. Once, after a foot surgery, I was in so much pain that I had to go to the emergency room. I was released only after receiving a shot of morphine and -- that's not all-- demerol too!

14. Because I moved so many times, my orthodontic treatment took an eternity to finish. I think I had braces or the like for at least 6 years, probably longer.

15. I am in Sister Act II as a second.- Remember that, Jill?



16. My first kiss was in a high school play when I was 13 and he was 18. Sometimes I try not to remember that.

17. I shook Nick's hand for the first 8 dates in a row before I even gave him a hug. (He still reminds me of this... I'm not sure if this is completely accurate. I'd love to go back in time and see the truth for sure.) But I do know that in his ward I became known as the hand shake girl!

18. If I could change anything about my body, it would be my feet! They are just not cute! I'm jealous of slender boned, cute toe-nailed, feet!

19. I had to quit my first job at Baskin Robbins scooping ice cream because of a broken "ski" thumb. What can I say, how could I scoop?



20. The day I returned from my honeymoon I had to go back and live in my old single roommates' apartment for 4 days while Nick had to head for Nevada without me. There was no other time that I could take these PRAXIS tests that I had to take in order to graduate with my degree. And each test was on a different day. It was soooooo not cool!

21. I loath scrapbooking. I do like looking at scrapbooks, but I just personally hate to do it. But I do keep nice photoalbums with dates and journaling. I am planning on starting digital photoalbums, currently.

22. What a goof I was! I remember as a kid asking my elementary school teacher for extra papers to take home so that I could run a summer school in my neighborhood. I do remember even asking around in my neighborhood for some kids to teach. I was probably only about nine at the time!

23. I had breast surgery... true, but only to remove a benign tumor. Gotcha, didn't I? Ha ha

24. I have an intense desire to become an awesome photographer. The only problem is that everywhere I look another person is already a professional photographer. The law of supply and demand might suggest that I find another skill.

25. One time at BYU, I researched, gathered notes, wrote, and turned in a 25 page research paper all in the time frame of about 12 hours. I still managed to get a B+ on the paper. Normally I wasn't this bad of a procrastinator, but it was a quick summer term and I was terribly in love and distracted by my soon to be hubby!

Phew! 25 is a lot of random things to think of!