Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday was my last day of classes before our Thanksgiving Break started. It was really nice having some time off of school to just relax (and catch up on homework) and enjoy Thanksgiving time, and starting our Christmas preparations!

I spent the week getting the house straightened up and starting some cooking for Thanksgiving. Jake and I decided in early October that we wanted to host Thanksgiving dinner at our house for any of our friends that weren't going to be able to go home to their families for the holiday. We started planning out what food we wanted to provide and what we wanted to ask others to bring, and asked around about who wanted to come. Hosting the dinner at our house was a great excuse to do a deep clean!

When the day finally came, Jake and I were up early to get started on the turkey. Neither of us had ever really helped very much when our parents had done it in the past, so we both had a lot of questions for them! It was interesting hearing how differently both our families make turkeys, and getting to choose how we wanted to combine their methods to create our own. Jake had a lot of fun sticking his hand in the raw turkey...ew. Haha! We got the turkey in the oven, did some more cleaning, and then got to relax for a few hours. 

Everyone came over around 3, and there were nine of us total: my friend Braden and his roommate Shane, our friends Tiffanie and Quinn Hugentobler, and the Munoz family. We all played Apples to Apples for a little while as the food was cooling, which was really fun. Then Jake explained a family tradition that he had growing up and we had decided to carry on: there was a bowl on the table filled with candy corn, and everyone took a piece out and said what they were thankful for. Everyone shared things like family, the gospel, the Atonement, etc except for Braden's roommate, Shane. Braden had contacted me the morning of Thanksgiving and told me that he just found out his roommate had nowhere to go for Thanksgiving, and was wondering if we had room, which of course we did. So Shane shared that he was really thankful for the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with us, because if Braden hadn't invited him he would have been alone in his room eating soup that night. It was a small thing, but really humbling for me to think about: there were a lot of people on Thanksgiving who didn't have anywhere to go, or who had very little to eat. It made me pause and realize how truly blessed we are. 

Here we are with the Munoz family and Quinn & Tiffanie

After we all shared two things we were thankful for, we had a blessing on the food and everyone dug in! We asked everyone else to bring side dishes or desserts, and we had a TON of food. It was really fun getting everyone to help with the food, since most people brought homemade things, so there were a lot of different family traditions represented. It all tasted great and we had a lot of fun sharing stories and laughing with each other. After dinner we sat around talking for a while, and then had desserts and divided up some leftovers for everyone to take home. Jake and I were exhausted from all the work, but it was so worth it! It was probably the best Thanksgiving I've ever had, and it will be such a fun memory for us to look back on.

The rest of the week Jake and I spent putting the house back together, and starting to decorate for Christmas! We even decorated our little tree, and put lights up in our front window. I'm so excited to share this Christmas with Jake--last year I spent a few days at Jake's Uncle David's house in Utah before going home for my offtrack and the holidays, and it was bittersweet since it was the last time Jake and I would see each other for three months. This year there are no goodbyes looming over our heads, just an eternity together :)