Will you stay in South Bend?

The view from our three season room

With Jim's upcoming retirement, people are asking if we will stay in South Bend.  The answer is Yes, at least for now.  I wish we could participate more in the lives of our children and grandchildren--all of whom are on the east coast and within two hours of each other.  I think about renting a place there for a month over the holidays or the end of the school year so I could enjoy all the programs and festivities of those times.  At least we make the trip out there more often.  And we do think about a month in a sunny clime come next January.

However we have no plans to move.     Jim looks forward to continuing to have an office at Notre Dame and going into work there regularly.  He has graduate students finishing up and a project he wants to complete soon.  He could work from home more, but he envisions going in each day but without classes to teach and meetings to attend.  Last night he was at a colloquim from 4:30 to almost 7:00.  He might still attend those, but he is not be obligated to do so.

We like our church, the Church of the Savior Christian Reformed Church.    It is hard to imagine wanting to worship anywhere else.  We have always liked our churches but this one is really our family, a community of young and old--mostly young.  We participate in many ways although no longer as elders which is a relief to have others taking that responsibility (even if we are among the "elderly" in our congregation.)

And, this will sound like the old folks that we are getting to be, we like our doctors (Drs. Blechl, Blalog, Hauck, Imes, Rhodes) and our dentist, Daniel White.  A couple of them are getting to be retirement age too--or are at least cutting back on their hours.  But it is so good to have them know us well and to feel we can trust them with our care.  Although we hope we don't have to see the emergency room or patient rooms of St. Joseph Regional Medical Center again, we have had absolutely positive experiences there.

So for the time being, there will be no For Sale sign in front of our house.  In fact, we are working on  some small remodeling projects--an investment in the next few years we hope.