We met the first week of college at the University of Pittsburgh. Shout out to Amanda Nguyen for introducing us! And thank you to Lothrop Hall for fostering our meeting. They were both disappointed when they first found out they wouldn't have roommates, but that perceived misfortunate would turn out to lead to finding their biggest blessing.

Kel and Britt stayed friends throughout college, keeping in touch even though they no longer lived in the same freshman dorm. They still went to Motion City concerts and Kel would occasionally invite Brittany over when he and his friends were doing power hours.

Kel took Brittany to his dad's wedding the year after they graduated from Pitt. He asked her out on a date after the wedding. She said no.

Undeterred, Kel successfully convinced Brittany, somehow, to take a road trip with him and Jordan, a man she'd never met, shortly after his dad's wedding. Jordan and Brittany became fast friends, a bond forged over long hours and many miles in a Mini Cooper Jordan named Norman. Kel recognized this trip as his opening, and again tried to get Brittany to date him. This time, it worked.

Kel and Brittany lived in Chicago for a year while Kel went to grad school. Like Pittsburgh, Chicago became their home away from home, a beloved city where they spent a lot of time exploring the city and as many coffee shops as they could by train.

This time Britt went to grad school. She moved to San Antonio, Texas, land of Bucc-ee's and HEB. Britt moved south first, getting the lay of the land and learning which taco places were best. Kel moved to Brian/College Station shortly thereafter.

Kel got his first job in journalism at The Eagle, three hours from Britt. The couple each became intimately familiar with the ride through San Marcos, but thankfully there was a Bucc-ee's at exactly the halfway point, in Bastrop. This was also the year they got a Sam's Club membership, crossing a critical threshold in adulthood.

Kel moved to Utah in 2018 to work at Salt Lake City Weekly. Britt stayed in Texas, thriving in grad school and in her first full-time speech therapy job, at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio. The couple would need to rely on planes to cross the even greater distance between them. It sucked. Thankfully it was short-lived because Utah was a very weird place.

Kel moved to Connecticut in 2019 to work at the CT Mirror. Moving back to the northeast was a welcome respite from the unforgiving winters of the Midwest and the scorching summers of the South. Britt would move to Baltimore for her Johns Hopkins Fellowship a few months later, a mere five hours from Hartford. Finally, they'd be able to drive to one another on the weekends. (Tragically, no Bucc-ee's to break up the drive, though.)

Our guests may remember the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With the blessing of his newish Connecticut employers, Kel moved to Baltimore for two months, what he assumed would be the entirety of the pandemic (lol). The couple would spend many hours exploring the Canton neighborhood and spending a small fortune at Mobtown Brewery. As the world fell apart around them, they found peace being together, grace amidst the chaos.

Kel and Britt move to West Hartford, Connecticut, ending years of long distance and ushering in their era of suburban tranquility. The peace they had been seeking for years finally settled in.

Their lives changed forever on December 3, 2020 when they adopted Tallulah, a Black mouth cur/lab pandemic rescue pup. Kel had been staunchly opposed to dogs and preferred cats, but Tallulah proved him profoundly wrong. A watershed moment in their lives that split them right down the middle. From then on, their lives would be separated into "before Tallulah" and "after Tallulah."

After months of planning, plotting and ring-shopping with Linda, Kel proposed on the sands of Myrtle Beach, to an unsurprised Brittany who saw it coming because he was wearing nicer clothes than usual. It wasn't perfect - a random man was walking a little too slowly, too close for Kel's taste, Tallulah wasn't really listening - except it was, because Brittany said yes, and Kel felt validated in his choice of ring.