The following anecdotes will perhaps give you a slightly better understanding of the story of Jessica Weber and Matthew Roy. We're really just two people, fallen and redeemed, happy and sad, intentional and clueless, that cannot get enough of each other. Therefore, we plan to get hitched and spend the rest of our lives in each others company, loving, comforting, honoring, keeping, through sickness (I [Matthew] feel like the world has turned against me when I get a cold) and health (Jess loves Trader Joes so we'll be ok there), for richer (?) or for poorer (probably), better (hooray), worse (try again tomorrow), saddness (we're Kleenex users), joy (still Kleenex users), cherishing and continually bestowing our hearts devotion... Amen.

Jessica eventually came over to my parent's house in Fowler, California, right beneath Fresno. One Christmas break we donned our heroic trashbag armour and released our fury upon the puddles of Fowler. My sister Bethany accompanied us and helped us to be a little silly. I am sure that Jess and I will always find some simple laughter and joy. What could be better than making up the rule that you have to do a "water angel" in a particularly murky puddle before going inside? Oh and then the fact that there's only two showers and three dripping people. Ha ha ha!

You must understand that Jessica and I had developed this hope of marrying each other for some time. It was during our trip to visit Erik in Idaho that we got down to saying that marriage would be something we'd like to do. It was a wonderful and frightening moment to realize what we were saying, yet there were friends and the great volumous lake and its marching rain clouds to bear witness and congratulate us. A whole year after that however, we are both waiting for school to get out so we can make good our intentions. It was the Fourth of July weekend, and Jessica drove down from Roseville to our house in Fowler. From there our family "took the horn" down to Mojave and then up to the town I grew up in, Independence. We arrived on Friday, and proceeded to have a good time with friends and family, among them several newly weds. "I'll start thinking about getting a ring soon," I told her as she sighed, looking longingly at these friends of ours. At last it was Sunday and I asked Jessica to go on a funny little date with me: Subway sandwiches on a mountain! I ordered a chicken something and Jess got her prefunctory and oh so delicious tuna. We drove up the winding road to a place called Seven Pines which had a little bench placed on the side of a hill, used for Easter Sunday and displaying a glorious panorama of the whole valley. The wind was also amazing as was the amount of vinegar put on my sandwich. But it was a good date, or so Jessica thought. She finishes her "sanny" and takes a drink of water. I put an arm around her, saying, "I never knew how I was going to do this," and I take her water to set it aside. (She is thinking that I'm about to take a swig and then spit it at her, something she had done to me earlier in the day.) I continue, now shuffling around in my left pocket, "but I always knew I would." I pull out this little box and present it to her, the both of us sitting on this rickety, old bench with a glorious view of the Inyo Mountains on a setting summer day. "Jessica, will you be my wife?" I ask as I open the small box. The rest is history and happened really fast. I remember her being outrageously and hyperventilating-ly joyous and saying "yes", me confessing that I'd been lying for a few weeks because I'd had the ring for a while now, our napkins being caught up by the wind like eager doves and being carried off for us to chase them down, and then we drove back to the house we were staying in to enjoy fellowship, applause, Martinellis, and the phrase "hello everyone, this is Jessica, my fiancee."