In September 2024, Connor started going to the young adult service at church where Kelly was the intern. Kelly casually "be-bopped" up to him during his first night attending and started chatting like they were already friends. And that was the start of everything.

They ended up in the same friend group—“Basically Batterton”—and started hanging out together almost every night. Between lipsync battles, pickleball at the Brady, “family dinners” at Connor’s house, and weekly church services, they were always around each other.

But things didn’t shift from friendship to something more until one night when they were "playing" pickleball (Connor was playing, Kelly was mostly missing the ball). After that, the group chat started heating up with some harmless flirting, and then Kelly got a surprise bouquet of light pink flowers at work. A few days later, they had their first date at Choudrant’s Basketball Breakout Game, grabbed Canes after, and ended the night playing “We’re Not Really Strangers.” That’s when Connor told Kelly he was falling for her. She felt the same.

A couple of days later, after a "family dinner" at Connor’s, church on Sunday, a fire pit hangout, and Connor meeting Kelly’s parents in the Tractor Supply parking lot---Connor asked Kelly to be his girlfriend, joking, “You better enjoy it because this is the first and last time you’ll be a girlfriend.”

Fast forward to December—on a freezing Sunday morning in the Rocky Mountains, Connor dropped down on one knee in the snow and asked Kelly to marry him. It was the easiest "Yes!" she has ever given.