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?