24 October 2010--An Announcement!

Hello Loved Ones!

So, we've got a bit of an announcement.  No, we're not pregnant, so let's just get that one out of the way.  No babies coming our way for a long time!

In fact, our announcement is that we're heading home to Portland earlier than planned.  As most of you know, we were planning to be in Sheffield until Summer of 2011.  But, having been here for two months, we're realizing that it's time for us to go home.  We're finding Sheffield to be more difficult to be in without Grandma around, which is how we originally planned this adventure.  Also, we are really missing our friends and family in the States, and that's not something that is easily replaceable. 

As most of you know, we planned this adventure as having a year to do fun things that we wouldn't normally have the chance to do.  Instead of being based from Sheffield, we will continue to pursue our year of adventures, just based out of Portland.  I (Jillian) will be pursuing volunteer opportunities with the hospice program with Providence Health & Services--the company I used to work for.  Kyle has a school program he wants to pursue for autobody work, so we'll both indeed keep busy.  In addition to those activities, we will absolutely continue traveling.  We will do a whole California tour (Sacramento, Truckee, SF, San Jose, LA, and San Diego), as well as traveling all around the US.  Also, as planned, we will return to Europe to do the traveling we had pictured, most likely in June or July of 2011.  We will eventually be settled back into real life in August 2011, working and going to school as we had always planned.

While our plans are changing, we are really excited.  We've learned that while Sheffield is totally lovely to visit, it's not the place for us long-term.  We are grateful to be flexible enough to change our plans to still suit our long-term goals of having fun adventures together.  We are appreciative of everyone's support, especially our family, and we are excited to be back in Portland soon!

We send lots of love from Sheffield, and will be busily working to get my grandparent's house clear by late November.  We will do some traveling around Ireland and Scotland (whiskey tour here we come!), and then we'll be in Portland by mid-December.  Hugs from us both to all of you! 

Jillian & Kyle