CURRENT MISSION

To meet travelers from anywhere and everywhere! We enjoy entertaining and would love to show hospitality to people from other parts of the world.

ABOUT ME

Medieval European history has eaten our lives entirely. Hilarie is a shamless Tudor-phile; James is more of an Age-of-Chivalry guy. We live in a building that used to be a rest home for elderly folks; it's a huge, crazy, rambling building with 15 exterior doors! We run a medieval illuminated manuscript studio (we sell our stuff all over the US) out of our house, and James teaches medieval martial arts (yes, swords and shields and armor and all that stuff!) in the backyard. Other residents of the house include: one daughter, Alice (15), plus our sister-in-law and co-foster parent, Delia (40-mumble).

PHILOSOPHY

We believe that doing your highest sense of right will always lead you in the right direction. At the risk of sounding trite, we try to apply the Golden Rule to our lives as much as possible. When you can't be competent, at least be amusing; the world needs more laughs.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Since 2007 we have surfed and hosted, and have always had a great time!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Never dull. Our favorite experience has to be hosting an entire Ultimate Frisbee team from So Cal( 14-24 people) for the weekend three years running

Interests

Medieval history and culture. Hilarie's into cooking in a big way; she likes to feed lots and lots of people. She also gardens, and she's been making vain attempts to attract birds to the garden, which only the cats have appreciated so far. James enjoys puttering in his workshop, hammering on the anvils and stumps and helping his students improve their armor as well as their sword-work technique. We both also like play games, such as Scrabble, various card games, and dominoes. Alice (daughter) is a budding puppeteer and actress; it's all about the drama for her! All three of us have at least two books going at any given time.

• cats
• birds
• arts
• culture
• books
• dancing
• cooking
• running
• gardening
• traveling
• drawing
• fencing
• martial arts
• calligraphy
• divinity
• history
• law

Music, Movies, and Books

If it's nerdy, there's a good chance we like it: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, Blackadder, Firefly, superheroes, Monty Python. All of us have read Terry Pratchett, ad nauseam. H & J are into Christopher Moore books as well. As far as music goes, you're liable to hear anything in this house except for punk, rap, and American country/western (blech).

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Staying happily married for twenty-plus years, despite traveling hundreds of thousands of miles together AND seeing each other on a daily basis. Raising one daughter, two nieces, and something like ten foster kids.

Teach, Learn, Share

If you ask to learn something from us, be prepared for a lengthy and involved answer, usually involving visual aids, hand gestures, dramatic readings, and interpretive dance. Subjects include: history, theology, art, calligraphy, swordsmanship, cooking, knot-tying, inkle-weaving (ask), leather- and cold-metal-work, drawing, dancing, and northern California sight-seeing.

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