"the bachelor" hits home ... sort of

Are you a fan (or hate watcher) of The Bachelor franchise? While I'm not a die-hard, can't-miss-an-episode fanatic any longer (thanks to Juan Pablo, Chris Soules, and Kaitlyn Bristowe for curing me of that), I still enjoy the show. And this season, my interest is just as high or higher than it was for Sean Lowe's season--and that's saying something, friends!

The reason? Well, you could guess that it's because Bachelor Ben Higgins is attractive and seemingly one of the good guys--and you'd be partially right. But the biggest reason for my interest?

Ben's hometown of Warsaw, Indiana.

Some of the best times of my life took place in and around Warsaw, or with people I met there. My college, Grace, is located in Winona Lake, a little town basically surrounded by Warsaw. My sister Val and her husband live in Warsaw now, and I still have friends in the area.

With two of my favorite college people, Jen (left) and Jodi (right) at the Warsaw Hacienda right before Jodi and I graduated. Apparently, I left college without any pictures that would actually identify where I was ... probably because my college career took place in the dark ages before smartphones and social media.

When Ben appeared on Kaitlyn's season of The Bachelorette, I was excited to learn he was originally from Warsaw ... but then I read Reality Steve's spoilers (yes, I do read the spoilers) and learned that Kaitlyn would not be visiting the hometowns of her top four bachelors (as is usually the case), so we viewers wouldn't be getting a taste of Warsaw.

But then Ben was chosen as The Bachelor, and hope returned! Sure enough, they filmed scenes in Warsaw. I encouraged Val to go to the free carnival that production set up so I could live vicariously through her, but apparently it was completely nuts (and a puny carnival), so she didn't go. Anyway, I am super excited to see Warsaw on the small screen in the upcoming weeks!

So far, I've avoided this season's spoilers ... for the most part. I do know that Becca (Chris Soules' runner up) makes it at least to a certain point in the season, but I don't know how far she goes or who else might go far. That said, going solely off the bits and pieces of the premiere that I saw*, I like Becca and JoJo. And one of the Laurens, but I can't remember which one. Seriously, didn't it seem like every other girl was named Lauren?

Anyway, the whole point of this blog post was to point you to my sister Stephanie's blog. She's recapping the episodes, and she's pretty darn hilarious. Her recap of the first episode is here. Enjoy!

*I only saw the second hour of the premiere because Supergirl was on during the first hour. I love me some Supergirl, it's not available on Hulu, and I LIVE IN A WORLD WITHOUT A DVR, so I had some choices to make.