Toledo-Bound!

Hello again! It's us...the Hrens!

This past weekend we had the opportunity to see the premiere of the movie that the lovely Jennifer was a part of last November. It was so exciting to not only be experiencing a movie premiere, but also to personally know the screenwriter and some of the "background talent" (a.k.a. "extras"). Here's how it went down:

The anticipation mounted as we climbed into the back seat of Jen and Andy's new Honda Fit (road trip!) and took off from SB to the grand city of Toledo, OH. How nice of them to drive, by the way. After enjoying the sights of the Indiana Toll Road/Ohio Turnpike (insert sarcasm here), w

e began to see signs that indicated we were closing in on our destination. YAY! Upon arrival in the town of Maumee, which I guess is a suburb of Toledo, we got to see this quaint old-time theatre where the big premiere was to occur.

The excitement ran fever-pitch from there! For those of you

who know Jennifer (and for those of you who THINK you know her), she has a major crush on one John Wesley Shipp...aka "Dawson's Dad" from Dawson's Creek. Of course he was in the movie AND was at this particular premiere. As for me (Josh), I e

njoyed seeing this girly crush my wife was having on a movie star. You'd think someone who'd lived in LA for a couple of years

would've had enough of celebrities. ;) Any whoo...she got to

meet Mr. Shipp and even got a couple of photos with him.

Lucky girl. Notice my "excitement" for this moment as well??

Any way, the movie was great. It even featured an extended on-screen moment for both Jennifer and her brother, Andrew. Very cool! I was very proud of my actress wife. :) Afterwards were lots of fun moments, a Q & A with the director and others, and of course the snapping of more pics. It was awesome and a great memory for all. Here's a few more pics to enjoy:

Date Night

Today was a lovely day. Josh & I enjoyed watching the Notre Dame game together. The Irish played amazingly well, which was a nice change from recent games. We clobbered ranked Utah 28-3.

After the game we went to the Southside for some errands - Target, Meijer and Starbucks. It was a nice, leisurely evening - birthday shopping for my mom, getting boring things like shaving gel and vacuum filters, and just enjoying each other's company.

We reminisced over warm winter beverages in cozy, comfy chairs. Always love Red Cup season! Thanks to Joel & Madison for the Starbucks gift card!

We LOVE Main St.!!

Greetings from "The Nest"! It has been far too long since the last posting, but we hope to remedy that right now.

One joy of living in South Bend has been our newest coffee house, Main Street Coffee! They are AWESOME!!! We love coffee, so it makes sense we would visit a coffee house from time to time. Not only do they have awesome coffee, they also make superb baked goods (made with love by fine Mennonite women - they do it best anyway) and have a barista staff like no other. Big props to Paul and his team (Dave, Ruth, Analiese, Micah, and all others we missed). Even better, they are less than a mile from our house, which makes it WAAAAAYYYY too easy to find time to visit. We love patroning local businesses and find any way we can to support them, even if it means gaining a couple pounds. ;)

Now that we are both working in Goshen, the search is on to find residence that direction. It makes sense after all, but we will shed tears of fond remembrance of our nearby coffee heaven. I guess it just means we'll have to patron their Nappanee location and make plenty of visits back to SB.

Family Reunion

Exactly one week after we returned from our honeymoon we left town for Family Reunion (Josh's dad's side). It was my 2nd family reunion, but the first as an actual Hren. This meant I could actually vote during the family meeting (yes, things are very formal at the Hren family reunion). We/I made banana bread to share with the fam. There was SO much food; it was delicious!

Yes, I was very proud to have the title of "Newest Hren"!

Home Sweet Home

Josh & I are really enjoying turning our house into our home!!

I don't think we've even watched any TV yet (totally fine by me!).

Finding a home for all our wedding gifts

LOVE our dishes!! Josh washed while I dried and put them in the cabinet...

...and discovered that the dinner plates were TOO BIG for our cabinets. The cabinets aren't deep enough!

Are we allowed to have favorite wedding gifts? This personalized embroidered pillow is definitely up there (I'm big on anything personalized!)!!

It goes in the living room AND bedroom!

Welcome Home

Josh & I spent 5 nights away on our honeymoon. We purposely planned our trip so we would have downtime at home before going back to work and re-entering normal life.

It was nice to spend some time at home before going out for our first public appearance at farmer's market Saturday morning.

But when we arrived home Friday night, we were delighted to see this:

decor from our wedding to greet us at the front door

my family's "Welcome Home" sign posted at the top of the stairs

our freshly made bed with our new bedding

bathroom with our new towels just waiting to be used

and ... leftover wedding cake!
(I will admit I made arrangements for this as a surprise for Josh.)

Many thanks to my mom and dad who set this all up while we were gone. They did a TON of wedding related things as well that week, not to mention all their work with clean-up the night of the wedding and ALL the prep-work my mom especially did in the months leading up to the wedding! We are soooooo blessed to have two sets of awesome parents!! Thank you, God!

A New Beginning

Greetings from the Hren's! WOW - it is soooo weird (but so awesome) to hear that now and realize that it's actually true. We are so in love and happy in our newly married state. Yes, we are those giddy, mushy, overly sappy lovebirds who can't stop smiling and talking about how good the other person is, and yes, we know that won't always be the case, but we hope it will be rule rather than the exception. It is so amazing how one day and the pronouncement of one preacher can alter one's reality. For so long it's been just her and me (or him and me, depending on which one of us you are talking to) and that's worked well, but now there's this renewed sense of excitement and anticipation of what God is preparing for us as a married couple. We are so in awe of all that He has done already - it blows our minds! God is SO good to us and we know that He will guide us into His perfect Will.

So....all that to say that this blog is dedicated to sharing thoughts, expressing excitement, and keeping all our dedicated readers informed of what is going on in the "Hren's Nest". We hope that you will enjoy reading it and will maybe join in with our excitement. Looking forward to our next post.

Josh & Jen