We have a beautiful, comfortable home in Central Texas about an hour north of the State capital, Austin, Texas.

Our home was built in the 1960s. It's a large house (4,000 square feet or 375 m2), sited on a large lot (1.1 acres or .4475 hectares) in the middle of town. The lot is large enough to have several different defined garden or recreational areas. We have a large pool out back for hot summer days (and yes, it's quite hot in the summer) and a hot tub for cooler winter weather. We have 5 bedrooms, but are currently set up with four of them having beds. We've just remodeled the kitchen gourmet stove, granite counter tops, standalone "built in) refrigerator and freezer, etc. We have a media room with a widescreen television and a large collection of CDs and DVDs. Several networked computers are available in the house with high speed cable modem connection.

We live in an older neighborhood. A couple of miles from I-35 the major north/south Interstate that runs from Dallas to Austin to San Antonio. Dallas and San Antonio are both two hours away (opposite directions) and Austin is 1 hour south. Houston and the coast are three hours away. If you have access to Google Earth, we're at 31 degrees 06' 14.64" North, 97 degrees 22' 41.59" W.

To the west of I-35 the Texas hill country begins with comparisons to the south of France (okay, so we're a little optimistic). Temple has two large lakes nearby with lots of boating and water sports options. Shopping and dining options are improving each year. For a smaller city (60,000 or so) there's quite a bit to do locally with theater, symphony and a performing arts center.

If you're into music, Austin is about an hour away, and truly deserves its reputation as one of the premiere live music venues anywhere.

It's really about meeting other people!

Flexible in this regard. Prefer to travel in Spring, Fall or Winter and avoid summer (peak travel) months in the northern hemisphere. We're open to a non-simultaneous exchange--since my father's house is just down the street and our own home is so large.

Open to any dates

We're seasoned travelers both of us--and while Europe is a favorite destination, we're certainly open to new adventures on other continents. In Europe, we hope in particular to do an exchange in Scandinavia or central Europe. In the summer of 2008 we took an extended holiday to Europe that included a non-simultaneous exchange in Austria--and that experience couldn't have been more positive. (We look forward to hosting our hosts in the coming year if their schedules allow.) We hope to do other simultaneous or nonsimultaneous exchanges in the future. If you haven't considered the possibility of a non-simultaneous exchange, but have the room and opportunity to do so, we certainly recommend that you consider that option. It is wonderful to have hosts that know the area and care share their love and knowledge of their home city and country.

Locations that offer music performance options, kayaking or water sports generally are valued. We're both skilled photographers and scuba enthusiasts so we're especially interested in exchanges that allow us to indulge in those activities.

Jennifer is an educator, who now serves as the executive director of the Temple College Foundation. Jonathan is an attorney in government. We're both interested in history, art, music and travel (isn't everyone?). Lately, we've both been interested in sea kayaking and cycling. Jonathan is an amateur musician (guitar and bass) and does a little recording at home--we've got one large bedroom set up as a recording studio with amplifiers, sound system, drums, piano, etc. We have a Labrador Retriever, "Sanibel" and two cats ("Guillermo" and "Quietschen"). Sanibel speaks German, French and Spanish fluently--we're not sure about the cats. They can be part of the exchange, or left with friends nearby. We don't have children, and we'll generally be traveling alone, but there's the possibility that one of our exchange student/children (we've had 7 or 8 students over the years) will join us for a portion of an exchange depending on the time and location.

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