Happy Pioneer Day!

Because it's July 24th, I'm going to start this entry with a photograph of my great-great Grandpa Keller. Joseph X. Keller was born in Switzerland and came to the United States with his widowed mother and two of his sisters. They didn't have to walk across the plains because the railroad had already been built. He served two missions in Switzerland, married a Swiss born girl (Mary Frankhauser) with whom he had six children and then he tragically died in 1905 at Stake Conference. Mary was a widow for 51 years! Did I mention she was PREGNANT with her last child when her husband died suddenly? It's amazing.His second youngest son was my great-grandpa Mitt. Joseph's only daughter was named Hazel and her daughter was named Dorothy who was my friend. She died this week, unfortunately. I'm grateful for the time that James and I were able to know her and her sweet husband.

I spend part of this week at home, working on my thesis/Plan B report. It's been slow going but I only have one more section to finish before I can submit a draft to my committee. I guess it's kind of nice that it has drawings and photographs instead of just looking like this:

Depressing.

I took some breaks and tried some tutorials I had watched a while ago. You can see them here and here. They worked. Sort of.

We saw a deer near our house as we were driving home. I think it's kind of funny that we've seen deer at both places we've lived.
Even though our anniversary is two weeks away, James surprised me with this beauty:

It's a food dehydrator. Words cannot express the excitement I feel about this machine. I've wanted one for a really long time. James knew about this and he realized that we had a ridiculous amount of bananas from two consecutive weeks of Bountiful Baskets. I have such a wonderful husband. Case in point: I was at the theatre all day and when he texted me about the dehydrator I texted back to suggest drying bananas into banana chips. His response? Already in.

He's the best!

What else happened recently? We finished our good bye quilt for our boss Amanda:

We used the same fabric in the quilt that Amanda used in a lot of her shows and then we wrote messages on plain white fabric:
My friend Courtney took pictures at the park when we presented it to Amanda. You can see them on her blog.