Matt and Ryan -- My Best Friends and Brothers in Righteousness.

This is Matt. Well, this is Matt's back as he walks away on this incredible bridge in Northern California after Ryan's wedding. (More on Ryan later.)

Anyway, Matt is one of the coolest and most annoying men I have ever had the priviledge of knowing. We met in college during my sophormore year -- his freshman. He was loud, obnoxious and wildly hilarious. At first, we would fight, argue, disagree and just plain not like each other. In all honestly, I would start wrestling wars with the intent to do him a mischief. Oh, and I always won. :) Back to the point, we began talking and I realized that Matt was not just loud, but had a heart for holiness that astounded me. When Matt speaks of God I naturally want to listen. His heart, not just for Jesus, but for the nations, causes men to stand and take notice. He loves the Angels -- I mean seriously loves the team.

The thing is, Matt is really not good with women. He opens his mouth and enters his foot on a regular basis. However, he now has this great girlfriend, Niki. (She's the one on the left-most portion of this photo.) We were both pretty astounded when he and Niki hit it off (also at Ryan's wedding) and he eventually managed to get her to be his girlfriend. Now though, he's back to having the mouth-in-foot disease. He tries hard though.

So, after Matt graduated from CalBaptist we drove his S10 out to Alabama, where he began his seminary career. We got out to Houston (to Ryan's house and the Houston Astros) in 20 hours, got some sleep then caught a movie and a ballgame. Seriously, that was one of the best times in my life and I'm glad I got to share the time with him.

Now, on to Ryan. This is him with his stellar wife, Beth. I also met Ryan my sophormore year when I was in the dorms. He had transferred from Texas and was a few years older. He lived across the hall from me and I couldn't stand my roommate at the time. (Sorry if you're reading this.) I'm pretty sure he thought I was weird at first, but that quickly dissolved into a great friendship. We would go surfing on occasion, but more than that we talked about music and baseball. If there are 2 things Matt and Ryan are passionate outside of Jesus, its baseball and music. Ryan cant play any instruments, but he definitely knows where the volume control is. Also, he invited the entire Houston Astros to his wedding. Seriously. :)

Anyway, we ended up working out our theology together, by and large, and living together our junior and senior years. It quickly became evident that he would be a life-long friend. For a long time Ryan lacked direction -- then he met Bethy-poo while working at camp and his life changed. Everyone's life changed. They fell in love, got married and now they will be moving back down to SoCal (woo-hoo!!!) At any rate, it has been a blessing to see this brother grow and stretch in the Lord, not shirking the growing pains that come along with righteousness, but embracing them.

All of these photos come, as I said, from Ryan and Beth's wedding, just a few short months ago. For the bachelor weekend, Ryan, Matt and I went to Lake Tahoe and did some riding. During that time we fell into being our old selves, loving on one another and encouraging Ryan to help him be a strong husband. This is us at the top of Squaw Hill.