Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest...

Certain people have often wondered where we live. While it is possible to look on a map, even to the point of getting satellite pictures that nearly allow you to count the number of tiles on our roof, it still lacks the personal touch, and hides great deal of what our "home" looks like, rather than simply our "house". With that in mind, I have assembled a few photographs, depicting all of the rooms in our house, and making up our home; with appropriate commentary, of course. So, sit back relax, and enjoy a free tour of the Hector family abode....


First off, this is our living room. Honestly, the room we spend the most time in as a family. Devotions, reading, talking and quite a bit of playing are done here, especially during the winter, when the woodstove adds a special glowing allure to the room!


Just behind the living room is the "studio". All of our houses have had one room christened by this name, since the days when my mom ran her own graphic design business out of the very first Hector home. It has just stuck.


Also off the living room is our dining room. Meals here are always a loud and enjoyable affair. It took a great deal of time to find a table big enough to fit all of us, and at the same time fit with all of the design requirements (width was an important one).


Through the door in the dining room is the kitchen. Perhaps the most important room in the house! We recently painted all of the cabinets white, and it looks a whole lot brighter and cheerier since then!


Care to take a guess how much laundry passes through here in a week?


No one should have to see our garage!


We added on to the house about six years ago, this is one of the rooms that was added, called the "Great Room". Plenty of space to clear for dances!


"Stairway to Heaven". Actually, it just goes upstairs, nice pictures, though...


At the top of the stairs in the master bath, with plants in it! Who has plants in their bathroom? It is just weird!



A room with a view, the master bedroom. Any guesses as to who sleeps here? Hint: It is not Sara.


View with a room! See there is green.....


Our much beloved oasis. All it needs are some palm trees....


Our back yard is where we eat many summer dinners, lots of bbq! (More green!)


Here is the hallway, down to the West Wing. Our front door is just off the camera, to the right, but no one ever uses that door. We come in the back way, like family.


What a funny place to keep coats...


Girl's room, with GIRLS!


The girl's bathroom is decorated with "original" Winnie the Pooh motif. Even the shower curtain.


This shot was taken to show the old master bedroom, aka. boys room, at it's best angle, and the one that didn't show the large pile of stuff in the lower right....


Nic's room is the old master bedroom closet, which was HUGE. As you can see, he likes his little hideaway.


Boy's bathroom, big, isn't it? Now, picture this filled with six guys, all trying to get ready for church at 6:45am. Small, isn't it?


Back deck, a peaceful place to repose under the spreading of the mighty oaks.


Here is the bunkhouse, where Thomas and Ben sleep.


Ok, there isn't a big stone fireplace, rolling ladders, or a spiral staircase, but it is still a pretty cool library, because it is FULL of books. The rest can come later.


Lastly, Thomas and Ben's bedroom. This was painted by our whole family a few years ago, since the plain white walls did not fit the refined "flair" that was being looked for. Yes, the flag clashes with the wall color, but it still adds to the room's flavor.


So, that is our home. If y'all are ever in the area, give us a shout, and we'd be more than happy to put you up for the night!

Now, I'm off to go take a dip in the Oasis! Later.....

Photos of a prodigal....

As we emerge from the back woods of Tennessee, where the closest thing they seem to have to internet involves smoke signals, I am back to preparing the blog posts. As I get the next one ready, I wanted to show you a bit of what dear brother Thomas is up to. He emailed these photos to me:





Yep, he looks bored. We can’t wait until he flies out to meet us! Only one more day, Thomas!!!!!

Lazy day...

Today was a very relaxing day. No deadlines for us to meet, no towns that we had to get to, and no state lines we had to cross. Because of that, we didn’t even get up until 8:30am! It was so nice….

On the map we found a town by the name of “Hector”. That was just too good to miss, so we marked that as our first destination:


They had a hardware store named after us:


A pharmacy:

A football team:


Our own café:


And even a Presbyterian church:


We had to get a (family-1) photo in front of city hall:

After that we drove though the Ozark Mountains, and admired the scenery. For lunch we stopped at a cemetery. Weird, I know, but the neighborhood was quiet:


Someone forgot the can opener, so that meant we had to figure out another way to get to our tuna. My first idea was a shotgun, but dad had better ideas:


Then we decided that we would slowly make our way through the backwoods of Arkansas, on our way to Memphis. One of the downsides of backroads are that you never know who is going to be one them. In this case, we got stuck behind a school bus, which stopped at nearly every driveway. That took awhile:


Coming down out of the Ozarks there were lots of signs warning of steep grades, and other such hazards foretelling the end of the world. Dad gritted his teeth and mentioned something about there might as well have been a skull and crossbones on the sign:


We kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for the steep part, but this is all there was:



Yep, they think to much of their downhill grades in their state, our driveway is steeper.

After that, we crossed into Tennessee:


Driving through Memphis we saw very odd things. A pyramid:


A large stone egg:


And the house of Elvis:


Supposedly, Elvis was downtown, playing cards with Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster, but we were in a bit of a hurry to get to dinner….

Monday night means one thing, Dancing With the Stars is on. Trip or no trip, that is something that can’t be missed, especially the semi-finals! So, we had to made dinner quick, and this is what we chose:


So, pulling into the RV park, we settled back with a few burgers, and relaxed. It was a good day….

Later.

On this day....

...absolutely nothing happened. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Hopefully we will slow our breakneck pace down a bit, and then I will have more interesting things to report, but until then there are just not very many interesting occurrences.

We left Gallup this morning. Oh, there is one interesting item, Nic is now terrified of Gallup, NM. He is convinced that it is inhabited by aliens, or something, because on the main road in town, which is only a mile long, he saw eight coin laundries. Yep, that is what he said. I told him that they must be a front for the mafia, and do a lot of money laundering, but he looked at me like I was crazy. Anton said the people liked to be clean. We didn't take the time to look into it, so your guess is as good as ours....

Let's see what pictures we can dredge up. Ah, here is one. The kids are required to write about each day that happens, as a type of mini-blog, (minus my witty remarks, and Matthew's cool pictures). Here is a good example of their writing:


In an attempt to find a church for tomorrow, we needed to find an internet connection. If y'all remember from trips past, that can take some doing, and this was no exception. For some very odd reason, this exact spot was the only one where I could connect, one foot in either direction, and it was gone!


For lunch, Mom and the girls cooked quesadillas, while driving down the road. Fast food just takes on a whole new meaning.

Towards mid-day, we crossed into Texas:


With that, we saw lots of wide open spaces:


And a gigantic cross, which they claim is the largest in the Western Hemisphere. All I can say is, how big is the one in the Eastern Hemisphere?!?!?:


For the end of the day, we decided on Shamrock, TX, partly because they advertised a pool. Well, they had a pool....


The kids were quite disappointed.

While driving through town, we saw an old gas station that looked like it stepped right out of the the Pixar movie Cars. Take a look, what do you think:


When we talked to the very nice lady who ran the RV park, she told us that this town was one of the places that the Pixar people used for modeling Radiator Springs. Since it was bypassed by I-40, this town really as dried up to nearly nothing.

After dinner at a "neon" roadhouse:


The boys decided we would get a little exercise, and walk back through town, and let the rest of the family catch up with us. Matthew decided to get some artistic shots, and this one had to be posted, simply because of Anton's Shakespearean pose:


In order to get to the church we decided on, we have to leave at 7am, so I am going to grab a shower (one thing that Wal-Mart parking lots do not actually have), and call it a night. We'll leave you with another of Matt's great sunset photos:

Later.