I was thrilled with the house plans dad drew up for our new home. Our house would be in front, facing the street. We had five bedrooms, two baths, a front room and a living room, and our kitchen was large and opened onto the shared family room. Mom and Dad's house was behind the shared living room, at a right angle to my house. They had a large master bedroom, a guest room, an office upstairs and a living room downstairs, plus the biggest kitchen I'd ever seen adjoining the shared family room. Dad also built a four car garage and large workshop at a right angle to my side of the house, so when all was said and done our house was really shaped like a huge U, with a sunken patio, a covered back porch, grass and flower beds and a large upper patio all in the middle. It really was cool.
Dad built most of the house by himself, only contracting out the things he wasn't qualified to do. He started working on the house in January, 1990. It was exciting to drive out and see the progress as it came along. Since Dad did it all himself it took a long time, but he saved a lot of money. Still, it was expensive to build a house, so he and mom put their house on the market, hoping to sell it before the new house was finished. Much to their surprise, they sold it right away, long before the house was done, so they moved in with the kids and me.
The first six years of my married life we had rented a tiny home from dad on the street behind his house. I loved living close to my family. All I had to do was walk out my back door, through the yard, across the alley, and I was home. The four years we lived in our new house south of town were nice, but I missed being close to mom and dad. A year after my divorce we moved into town, only a few blocks from mom and dad, but it was much more fun when they moved in with us and we were all together again.
Dad worked hard, but building a house all by himself, especially such a large house, took a long time. School started in the fall of 1990, but the house wasn't done. Rather than change schools in the middle of the year, I enrolled the kids in the schools they would be going to when we moved. If the new house had been closer to the school where I taught the kids could have ridden with me, but dad never thought it was a good idea for kids to go the same school were their parents taught, anyway. This meant that mother had to drive eight miles to take the kids to school every morning, then go back to pick them up in the afternoon, spending most of her day in the car, but she never complained.
We decided to start going to our new ward at the same time the kids started their new schools, thinking it would be good for them to be with their friends. I remember the first day I went to that new church. I shook hands and introduced myself to the Bishop, then explained that mom and dad would be coming to our ward, too.
“Ralph Russell is your father?” the Bishop queried, a little twinkly lighting up his eyes.
“Yes,” I answered, wondering what he was thinking.
“That's great,” the Bishop smiled happily. “After all these years, the shoe's going to be on the other foot.”
I must have looked at him quizzically, because he grinned and explained, “I went to Mesa High School while your dad was assistant principal. I can't tell you how many times I was called into his office for being late, and other things. Now I get to sit behind the desk when we have our interviews!”
We hoped the house would be done by Thanksgiving, but it wasn't. Then we hoped we could get in by Christmas, then by Spring Break. Little by little the house got built, but it turned out to be summer before dad finally finished it and we moved in the first of July, 1991. The kids could have gone to another full year of school in Mesa and mom could have saved a ton of money on gas, but it turned out to be a wonderful year for all of us, and we belonged by the time we moved in to our new home.
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