Family 1

We are so excited about the thought of you joining our family. Our oldest daughter cannot wait to have ‘big sister’ type friend to hang out with. All together we have 3 children, aged 9, 7 and 2 years old. We also have three dogs.

We live in Virginia but my husband works as an attorney in Maryland. He drives approximately 90 minutes to work each way. Washington D.C. is in the center of the two towns. I’ve been extremely lucky and my company has allowed me to work from home so I have an office in our house where I work. Our town is right near Washington Dulles International Airport and roughly 45 minutes from Washington D.C. and the White House. We also have a vacation home on the western side of the state of New York. We find it fun to go up there on school holidays and summer vacations to relax and have open space around us. You will of course be welcome to either join us or stay in Virginia, whichever you feel more comfortable doing at the time.

Our home in Virginia has an in ground swimming pool so of course our biggest hobby is swimming. Because of this we hope that you are a good swimmer, as we need to ensure the safety of the children when they are in the pool with you. We also enjoy going to sporting events (hockey and football) and doing as many things with our children as we can find time to do. There are many wonderful things to do and see here. It can take days to see it all. We will of course show you around and enjoy doing a lot of this with you as well. Our town is a very diverse area of the country. You’ll find many other cultures here as well as many local au pairs. Hopefully this will help you to feel more at home and be able to reach out to others in similar situations. Our house has three floors, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The basement has a large entertainment room with a pool table and dartboard. We plan to make a large bedroom for you down here. Although the room does not have a window, we are putting in many recessed lights and the room will be large enough so that you will have your own closet as well as a bed, dresser, nightstand, desk, couch, coffee table, television and a countertop area for any other items you may want to add. We’re hoping that once the room is completed you will love it due to it’s size and privacy.

The daily routine is very flexible. We get the kids up, fed and the eldest off to school. Then it is just a matter of entertaining and feeding the younger two. There may be a little of running our eldest daughter around as this is what I have the hardest time doing. She really wants to take Gymnastics but because of my work schedule I have not been able to take her so she is hoping that you will drive her to and from these activities once or twice a week. We basically just want you to come and spend time with our children. As we both work full time, we want you to just be there for them and bond with them so that they love you like a family member. We will open our hearts to you and hope that you will do the same. I am so sure that will be just a wonderful experience as we are just so excited to have you come and we hope you feel the same!

Family 2

Hi there! I am writing to tell you about our family. We are a fun, happy and untraditional family. My husband is an actor and I am an actress who has chosen to put her career on hold for a while, and we have two beautiful girls who are full of personality and a 12-year old boy. Things are always interesting and changing.

We live in sunny California, Los Angeles. It actually is not always sunny, that’s kind of a myth, but the weather is beautiful and never gets too cold. We like the outdoors, we have a pool and the kids love to be in it - summers are spent in the backyard quite a bit. Our son is an incredible swimmer, and our eldest daughter has been swimming since she was a year and a half and is like a fish. Our youngest starts lessons this summer. Our wish is that she loves the water as much as her siblings. My husband is also a great swimmer. I’m not so good, although I do like to be in the water.

We are a travelling family. Because I’m originally from Wisconsin and my husband is from New York we travel a lot to see our families. We also travel a lot because of my husband’s work. Last time we spent time in Thailand, New York, Washington DC, Virginia, Delaware, Illinois and Wisconsin. Traveling is fun and can also been exhausting. It’s important to us to keep our family together as much as we can. The kids get to explore different parts of the world and country. They eat the foods of wherever we are; we go to the zoos, museums and parks. Wherever there is a place to go to learn and experience something new. My children have been to London, Brazil, Italy and several parts of Canada. There is a sense of adventure that lives in our house that we like to encourage.

Our son is a quiet boy; well-mannered, very bright and very loving to his sisters. Our eldest daughter is sassy and full of pizzazz. She is challenging, very bright and extremely loving. Our youngest is approaching the terrible twos and we all know what that is like. She is however very happy, very vocal and learning her manners – she says thank you and excuse me and apologizes when she is wrong. She loves to play and experiment with new things. She loves the outdoors. We have a very large home, always under a bit of renovation – mostly changing bathrooms and re-doing closets. Everyone has their own bathroom including you! We live in a small gated community. It’s a very old historical neighbourhood. It’s centrally located and close to big highways. I love it over here; it has a small community feel in a big city. We welcome you if you are a person who can accept daily and weekly changes. We welcome hope you have patience and tolerance. We will respect you and not judge, we hope that you will do the same.

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Family 3

We have three wonderful children: our son will be 5 years old in March, our daughter is 2 years old and our new baby is 4 months old. We are a busy family filled with love and laughter. We live in Dallas, Texas in a beautiful old neighborhood filled with lovely homes, green yards and large trees. We have a big back yard that is fenced in for the safety of the children and provides a wonderful place for play and relaxation. Our home is well designed for our family and hopefully an au pair.

Our son is almost 5 and a very sweet boy. He’s taller than most boys his age and has a wonderful imagination. He is a big help with his two younger sisters and loves to play with the baby. He enjoys soccer and is due to start Kindergarten soon and will be learning to read during our au pair’s stay with us. It will be important for our au pair to be able to help him practice his reading. Our eldest daughter turned 2 in September. She is deeply attached to her Mom yet fiercely independent. She’s determined to do most things by herself. During our au pair’s stay she will show a great deal of growth and change. Our baby is delightful and always happy. She smiles and giggles with her parents and siblings. While our au pair comes to stay she will go through the biggest changes of all our children. She will need a lot of supervisions and careful attention once she is a toddler.

We’d like an au pair to join our family to help me with my childcare duties. We’re looking for an au pair who will work with me to care for the children together. We hope that she is friendly, smiles often, loves to play and enjoys going outside to kick a soccer ball or play on the swing set. Our children have wonderful imaginations and we hope that our au pair enjoys making up games with them to play together. We’d love to hear our children and the au pair laughing together when they play. We would like our au pair to feel confident taking the children to the park. Two important attributes our family believes in are education and safety. We hope that our au pair will support these qualities in our family and encourage them in our children.

My husband travels extensively for business and is usually away from home Monday through Thursday every week. This means I need help with the children on a regular basis every morning and evening. A typical week might include waking the children at 7am and helping them dress, eat breakfast and prepare for their day. I’ll take the two older children to school at 7:45 while the au pair will remain at home with the baby until about 9am. Our au pair can expect to be free to attend classes or pursue her outside interests from about 9:30am until 3pm. Our family travels quite frequently. During her stay with us our au pair can expect to travel to New York, Vermont, Colorado and Maine. During these time the daily routine may differ but we will respect the general work hours of the au pair and offer the opportunity for her to experience each area we travel to – she doesn’t have to come with us if she would like to do other things. We’d also be happy to help the au pair arrange her own personal vacation plans to coincide with one our trips.

Finally, we are excited to welcome an au pair into our home so that we may share the joy of our three children with her and introduce our children to the culture and customs of her home country. We have a wonderful circle of friends and community to which we are eager to introduce our au pair. We look forward to the opportunity to have a wonderful new person join our household!

Family 4

There are currently four and soon to be five members of our household. My wife and I are both 37 years old and the parents of our son, aged 7 and daughter, aged 3. We’re expecting a third child in April. Our household is caring, fun and active. We try to be neat but we tolerate untidiness and will sacrifice neatness for homework, playtime and togetherness. We involve the children in the upkeep of our home and we encourage them to make good decisions. Our town is a lovely, diverse place that embraces alternative lifestyles. We’ve developed strong ties to the children and we look forward to finding an au pair who will not only nurture and actively participate in their daily lives, but who they will consider a role model and friend.

My wife and I lead very active professional and personal lives and are both leaders with a great deal of responsibility in our professions. I work roughly 1 hour from home in Illinois and travel two or three times a month for an overnight stay. On the days when I’m not travelling I generally leave for the office at 6:30am and am home between 5 and 6pm. My wife is the director of small company in downtown Chicago, approximately 20 minutes from our home. She regularly works until 6:30pm and then joins us for dinner and homework activities. Our eldest is a very social and creative boy with interests in many areas. He loves creating and assembling art projects and has a very active imagination. Our youngest is also very social and has a terrific sense of humor. She is very excited about becoming a big sister. She is very verbal, quite dramatic and has been working on remembering her manners. Although we do not yet know about the fifth and newest member of our household, we are certain that he or she will require a tremendous amount of care and attention. We expect that the majority of the au pair’s time will be spent actively caring, holding, playing and nurturing our baby.

Our home is old and spacious with four floors. We have close extended families that visit several times a year. We live very close to downtown Chicago and there are three short walking blocks to a subway line. Our community is thriving, renowned for its historic homes. We’re very close to the children’s schools and activities. The au pair will have a spacious bedroom, desk, dresser and closet on the second floor of our house. Chicago is a culturally diverse and rich city with major cultural attractions right on our doorstep. It has a wonderful lakefront, which we enjoy in the summer. We look forward to incorporating our au pair into our daily lives and family, as well as learning from all that they will bring into our household!

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Family 5

My husband and I were married in 2003 and dated for several years prior to that. We both grew up in the same town and currently live in a small rural neighbourhood. My brother lives next door and is married with two children both similar in age to our daughter. Close by lives another of my brothers with his wife and four children and my father is also very nearby. My husband’s father lives a few towns away. As you can probably guess, our family is quite large!

I work for my family’s road construction business that my parents set up 45 years ago. My brother currently owns the business and I perform all the financials for the company. I’ve worked there for over 14 years and now run my own department. I like to work hard to achieve ambitions, and for the past three years I have owned and operated a small gift store in our home town and recently opened a Children’s Clothes and Toy store. Besides my love for organization and cooking, I also enjoy being outdoors, reading and spending time with my family. My husband is self employed. We currently own an historic home built in 1780 that is going through renovations. As a family we spend almost every weekend in the summer using the family boat and spending time in Maryland.

We have set goals for ourselves and for our daughter. We hope she grows up to be independent and caring. We try to teach her manners and how to be kind to others. We love to read to her and play outside with her when possible. In September she’ll start pre-school twice a week for 2 and a half hours a day. We hope to enrol her in a music and gymnastics class once a week this January. Often throughout the week she plays for an hour or two with her cousins, either in our home or at her Aunt’s home next door. In the summer she enjoys playing in the family’s pool and taking walks.

We believe an au pair is a perfect fit for our nurturing family. We believe a youthful and energetic person will be a great benefit in the raising of our daughter. As a family we want to offer a loving environment for everyone who lives in our home. We know from our past childcare situation that we are capable of involving our au pair in our family activities and making her feel welcome in our home. Being that both parents are out of the home most of the day we are aware of how important communication is with our caregiver. We love our home, town and state as well as our country and we would like to share this with our au pair. We hope to have an au pair that is eager to integrate with our family and learn about our customs, as we are eager to learn hers. We wish her to be polite and kind and above all filled with energy to take care of our daughter.