Thanksgiving and Christmas Breaks (and my birthday)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Being that the past few months have been very busy and filled with lots of family and fun and there's just so much to say about it all, I figured I'd just sum most of it up with the pictures I took along the way. Here are just a few...

We went to my Grandma and Grandpa Sorensen's place in Idaho for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to see all my family! One of the highlights was when we celebrated Grandma's 80th birthday by giving her a book filled with memories about her from all of the grandchildren. She cried a lot and it made us all happy.

We had a Christmas party with our Sunday School class where we made gingerbread (graham cracker) houses and had a white elephant gift exchange!

Perry spent the weekend before Christmas break with us. We we to Buffalo Wild Wings, a BYU basketball game, and to see the new Hobbit movie!

After a fun weekend with Perry, we traveled down to Apple Valley to spend Christmas with Jon's family. Christmas was so much fun! I got to skype with Emily (who is doing awesome!) and got lots of stuff for our 72 hour kits.

Jon also did a FANTASTIC job getting me gifts! He got me wool socks (I wear them literally every day during the winter), a subscription to the Ensign Magazine, a book called The Cannon that I've wanted to read for some time, tickets to BYU's production of Monte Cristo, and 3 huge family sized bags of peppermint Hershey's kisses (this last one made me laugh out loud...I had mentioned a week before that they were my favorite and that I wanted a lifetime supply. He said that that was ridiculous). ALL of these things are things that I've mentioned wanting over the past few months...I guess he really does listen when I'm talking!

And I also super loved the gift Jessica got me! She knew that Jon was taking me to Monte Cristo, and so she got me an Olive Garden gift card (my favorite place to eat), a scarf to wear, and yummy icy breath things to make the night a complete date!

This is the scarf Jessica got me! 

For the second week of Christmas break, we had to come back to Provo so that Jon could work. We managed to have tons of fun, though--from New Year's Eve with our friends Rylin and Shayla to playing games with the new game set Abby got Jon for Christmas to building the lego dirt bike I got Jon for Christmas to going skiing and snowboarding for the first time! (Jon LOVES snowboarding, but I've never gone. So while he learned to ski, I learned to snowboard).

Sometimes Jon like to wear my clothes. Not really, but this day he did!

Just three days after school started up, I turned 23! Jon did a wonderful job pampering me, and we spent the evening eating homemade alfredo, opening gifts, playing chess (he beat me really bad), and watching/listening to a taped performance of a David Foster and friends concert.

Since then, we've gone snowboarding/skiing twice, cross country skiing, gotten together with new and old friends, lost and found Jon's phone, tried out yoga, and lots of other really fun things. I think I'm finally starting to get this whole marriage thing figured out, and I quite like it. Jon's in for the next few eternities with me, and we're both totally on board with the idea.