It’s been nearly a month since our last post, but it’s been an important one for us as we evaluated our first year of retirement and made some decisions about what the future holds for us. As you may remember from our early posts, we had planned to spend this first year of retirement in France, exploring and learning, and then we would determine what’s next.

We’ve enjoyed many long discussions rich in happy memories from our year in France; things we wish we had known before starting this adventure, things we’ve learned along the way, and our individual and collective dreams for the future.

While we love Europe, particularly, France, Italy, and Spain, situations change and we’re unexpectedly needed in California to help family for longer than a week or two at a time. And while France is truly amazing, it won’t be our long-term home, for a few personal country-specific reasons.

Because of all of this, we are returning to the U.S. around the end of June, at least for the summer, and are not planning to return to France to live thereafter. In addition to providing needed family support, there are some things we need to do to plan out our next adventure, and we need to be in the U.S. to do them.

Overall, we have loved our year in France and agree that we wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. We’ve challenged ourselves and have grown here in new ways, and we’re proud of ourselves for having done this hard thing. We’ll come back to visit, see dear friends, and explore more places. This country is stunningly beautiful, historic, delicious, and yes, sometimes frustrating. The people are warm and kind, and the cycling is fabulous. We’ll look back fondly at these days as we go forward. The retirement adventure will continue, just not based in France. This was a hard decision to make, but the right one for us.

Vive la France!