Aunt Betty's Wedding

Glenda Lytal Gustafson, Virgil Lee Lytal, Melinda Lytal Wright, Robert Bruce Lytal



So now I know exactly what I was doing June 30, 1962.  I was a flower girl for my Aunt Betty's wedding.  I still remember the day.  I remember that it was at the Baptist Church and the other flower girl was much taller than me and was supposed to stand in back of me, but I refused, I wanted to stand in back.  I'm not sure whether or not I finally cooperated.  I am also not sure how many pictures there are of me with my grandfather so this is an important picture to me.  Big Kyle covered up my hair in this picture and said, Mom you look just like little Kyle, Kerri had also made the same comment when she saw the picture.

Just Experimenting

Just playing with my new toy, Craig got me an iPod touch to take pictures, videos, etc. It has always been frustrating having to edit the video format and try to get it to load on blogger. This will be very cool for the boys races, and cute Kyle and Kael videos.

Next Adventure

A month backpacking in the Pasayten Wilderness. We should get one more phone call tomorrow and then not until he's on his way back to BC for sailing. I guess this is preparing me for twice yearly phone calls on his mission. Have fun Brent, we miss you.

A few pictures from Brent

We'll have to wait until he's home for a little more elaboration, but he loved British Columbia. He is now back in Washington to do his wilderness first aid class and then leaves for a month of backpacking. Following that he goes back to British Columbia for sailing.

Brent and the Chief

This is our last day in Squamish and its raining so we can't climb which is a super bummer, but I should be able to call you tomorrrow as we are traveling back to base camp. Climbing camp has been super fun the climbing has been amazing and I got really lucky and got to go multipitch on the Chief. 15 Pitches! We climbed from 8 in the morning until 6:30 that night and actually summited the Chief. Me and one other person were the only ones to get to summit so it was really cool and really scary. Anyways talk to you tomorrow. love you mom

(note I got on Facebook from Brent)

Me Lifesaving?! Help!

I had my last longish run before the St. George Marathon yesterday, but longish was only 12, nice after 17, 18, 19 and 20. Craig and I both felt good after the run so we decided to head out to Lake Perris to try out my new wetsuit. (Blue Seventy Axis, cute blue daisy on it!) I really like my new wetsuit, there is definitely a difference between my old suit suits and this one. This one is not the pro model, it is one step down, it makes your butt float more than the pro model and we all know I need a floaty butt! Actually the whole suit is just a giant floaty thing, but can it get me through the swim----we'll see, all I can say is I'm doing the work. I'm tired, swim, bike, run, swim, bike run mornings start at 4:00 am and if I'm lucky (and I have all of my geometry and Spanish homework done) I'm in bed at 8:30. I now truly appreciate Sunday as a day of rest.

Oh back to the title of this post, when Craig and I were out at Perris we were swimming in the swim area but there was no one else there and no lifeguards on duty. I wasn't worried about safety there were two of us and we were basically swimming the perimeter of buoy line, if there was a problem the buoys aren't that far apart. We were heading back to the shore and all of a sudden there's a voice saying, "hey, can you help me, I'm having trouble can you help me?!" There were three teenage boys who had appeared out of nowhere, two were pretty far out and this one seemed to be treading water. We started talking to him, just keeping him calm and got him to flip over on his back, once he did that he was ok, luckily we weren't too far from the shore. The scary part is questioning your own abilities had the situation been as bad as he thought it was. I am just grateful that all turned out well.

We Won!

Craig and I went to the Redlands Tri Club Meeting tonight, I really enjoyed hearing the Ironman Canada and Ironman Kentucky race reports. Craig won an entry to the In The Dirt trail run, it's Nov. 6 at Vail Lake in Temecula. I won an entry to the Big Rock Tri on October 16. Hmmm....were we really lucky?

Brent called.............

He has been circumnavigating Nootka Island, he has loved this section, he has had awesome instructors, one is old ("you know maybe dad's age"). This instructor is a world famous kayaker and is teaching NOLS as his retirement job. Brent has really liked him and the other instructor. He said they got to surf their kayaks at the end which was pretty fun.
They are now travelling to their rock climbing base. Their climbing instructors said of all of the NOLS climbing locations they are the luckiest to get Squamish.

Squamish

So they will be climbing there for their next unit he can hardly wait. He is having an amazing time. He is going to call us back tonight when he can talk longer.

And now to answer the long, long awaited question, Brent is going to the Phnom Penh, Cambodia mission, Cambodian speaking (his mission also includes all of Viet Nam). He is really excited about his call, Cambodia was completely off the radar. He goes into the MTC on January 5, which is perfect for us to get all the premission "stuff" done when he gets home and squeeze in a cabin trip before he leaves. His farewell is December 26, we understand it's not a convenient date but welcome all who can come.

UPDATE: Another phone call, I have one happy boy. Between his incredible NOLS experiences so far and his mission call he is very excited about all that he is learning now, especially his leadership experiences, and all that he has to look forward to on his mission. One of his instructors has travelled extensively and told him how fabulous and kind the people of Cambodia are.
We will probably get one more phone call tomorrow morning and then he will be incommunicado again for a few weeks.