From Diamond Dr. to Knight Ln.

I remember in November of 2005 walking into the house on Diamond Dr. and knowing it was meant to be our house.  In March of 2006, we moved in having bought the house for $326,000.  After living there for almost 16 years, Chuck started talking about wanting to move.  We had paid off the house and I thought it was crazy to move when we had no mortgage.  But then I started wanting a little more space.  We had very specific wants/needs and would not move unless those were met.  The number one want was a three car garage (preferably not in the front of the house) followed by 4 bedrooms, a bigger laundry room, single story and it had to be in the same area.  Chuck had been keeping his eye on a neighborhood he really liked but homes were rarely sold.  One day in January, I texted a friend, Melanie, who is a real estate agent.  I asked her to keep an eye out for us.  Within hours, if not minutes, she sent me a link to a house going on the market that Saturday.  It was in the perfect location and met all our requirements (except for the garage not being in the front).  It was listed for $895,000, which I thought was a little much.  And based on the pictures, I did not love it.  But I thought we should at least check it out.  We, along with many other potential buyers, went to the open house that next Saturday.  After seeing the house in person, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would and Chuck loved it.  Probably because of the 4 car detached garage/workshop in the back.  As we were walking around, we saw the owners' diplomas on the wall and noticed they were both engineers.  We decided to put an offer in, thinking there was no way we would get it.  There was an offer on the house before it was even officially on the market.  I told Chuck we needed to find out if we had any connection to the owners seeing that they were engineers.  Chuck dismissed me and said it wouldn't matter, they only cared about getting as much money as they could.  After a little back and forth, we made our final offer of $930,000.  After a couple of days, Melanie called to say that they had accepted a much higher offer.  In the meantime, Chuck realized that he knew the owners who were now retired but had worked at Honeywell for many years.  He got their email and sent them a note, but at this point they had accepted the higher offer.  A week later, Melanie called me and said the deal had fallen thru and asked if we were still interested.  Yes, we were!  Because we owned our home and had quite a bit of money saved plus inheritance from Judy, we did not need to sell the Diamond house before purchasing this one, which should have made things easier.  But the financial/loan process turned out to be a miserable experience.  When we thought we weren't going to get the house, we started moving some money around and we think that made the lenders nervous.  In addition, I do not think those at the brokerage firm had their acts together.  But it all worked out in the end.

The house sits on 7/8 of an acre as do most of the houses in the neighborhood, many of which have horses or a variety of other animals.  It has a country feel but is in the middle of the city.  The backyard has grass with trees, a pool and the detached garage which serves as an office for Chuck, a workout room for me, bike parking, a workshop, and storage.  Several of the trees are very close to the pool and they like to drop things into the pool regularly.  The boys are each responsible mowing half the yard.  It takes them about 45 minutes each with a push mower.  They hate it and are lobbying for a riding lawn mower.  The front yard is desert landscape and is Chuck's responsibility along with the trimming of trees and pool maintenance. Hannah is responsible for sweeping the back porch and pool deck.  Inside it is 4 bedrooms (one is really an office), is very open, has beautiful custom made wood doors and Saltillo tile throughout with the exception of  the bedrooms minus the master.  It is a lot of tile!  Saltillo is beautiful and perfect in its imperfections but I do miss carpet.  The door to the house from the garage enters into the kitchen which is nice for when bringing in groceries.  The bathroom has a door that exits to the pool which prevents wet kids from walking thru the house.  The blinds in are inside the window and therefore don't require dusting.  There is a water softener which I didn't think would make that much of a difference, but I love it.  No scrubbing hard water stains off of the shower wall or spots on the glassware from the dishwasher. It is also relatively quiet inside.  I can rarely hear the birds chirping or the leaf blowers blowing when I am inside.  In addition to the extra space in the detached garage, there is a lot of storage in the main garage.  

The house was move in ready.  All we had to do was paint the interior.  (I couldn't stand the grey that the previous owners had chosen.)  We moved in mid-March and are pretty much settled as of July.  After we moved in, we got the Diamond house ready to sell.  We knew it would sell quickly without doing much, so we just cleaned it up and started showings.  We had offers the first weekend.  We had a couple young couples interested but we ultimately sold to an investor (who tried to make us believe she wasn't an investor) because she offered us $605,000 when our asking price was $560,000.  She wanted us to do some stupid stuff (replace the AC, cut down a cactus, etc) and she did some shady stuff, so we said we would do the reasonable stuff (fix a plumbing issue, treat termites, etc.) and she countered and asked if we would just take $8,000 off the agreed upon price.  So we sold it to her for $597,000.  She immediately ripped out the carpet and updated the bathrooms then put it up for rent.  After that, I thought it looked terrible and wish we would have sold it to one of the young couples.  But we did get a good price for it and we were thankful it sold so quickly.

It was hard to leave the Lakeshore Ward.  We had been there since Cameron was 9 months old.  We felt like we belonged, we had lots of friends and we had good leadership.  I thought that if it didn't work out in our new ward, which we had heard was very small and very old, which it is, we could just get a boundary exception and stay in Lakeshore.  But our first Sunday in the new ward, Corona 2nd, people told us they have been praying that families with kids would move into the ward.  The kids have settled in pretty well.  They have good leaders and do not feel like the YM/YW is that much different.  (Both are full of weird kids.)  There are fewer kids, but not by that much.  Cameron and Hannah didn't have close friends in Lakeshore.  Christian had a great group of kids and now there are only 2 Deacons but he is still included in Lakeshore activities.  We are in the same stake and with all the wards being somewhat small, the stake does a lot together.

Diamond house- (professional pics)

Knight house- (iPhone pics)

A farewell to Judy Royalty

Chuck's mom, Judith Lee Johnson Royalty, died on November 15, 2021.  The kids and I last saw her Thanksgiving of 2020, not long after Rich had died.  After he died, she never really seemed to recover.  We thought she would be living her best life since Rich could be quite demanding and controlling.  But instead she basically withered away and died.  Dementia caught up with her very quickly.  When Chuck and Tim thought she should no longer be living by herself, they moved her into assisted living.  She was not there days before she fell and was hospitalized.  She was not in the hospital long before she died. 

Because of schedules and such, we had a memorial service for her in Cincinnati in January.  I wanted to make a trip out of it (although January is not the best time to visit Ohio), so we packed a lot in in a few days.  We flew into Cleveland and stayed two nights at a cute little Air BnB.  We had a dinner at a cute local restaurant where you could stay as long as you wanted and play board games.  The next day we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was probably a little more interesting for Chuck and me than the kids.  After that we drove to Kirtland, OH where were toured the town.  Along with one other guy, we were the only ones there.  Unfortunately the temple was closed during that time.  The next morning we drove to Cincinnati.  Our first stop was Skyline Chili and then we attended the Memorial Service at the Methodist church.  Hannah played beautiful prelude music and several sweet talks/sermons were given.  Side note: Rich and Judy's funerals were very different from what I am used to.  There was no life story (which is usually my favorite part), no special musical numbers and no family pictures.  I did not even get one of our kids.  We caught up with some family and friends and spent the rest of the day with Tim and Grace's family.  The next morning we headed back to Cleveland and caught a flight home.  Overall it was a great trip.  I am glad were we able to see the things we saw and I think the kids left feeling like they weren't missing all that much by living where is warm and sunny year round.

Obituary

Judith Lee Johnson Royalty

Lebanon - Judy Royalty was born March 7, 1941 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia and passed away November 15, 2021 in Lebanon, OH at Otterbein Senior life community. A graduate of Marietta High School in 1959, and the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing in 1963. Judith was a dedicated RN who spent her life serving the elderly population, first as a geriatric nurse and finally as a Hospice Nurse in Kentucky. She served on the Board of Otterbein Homes for many years and also spent years working in Aids ministry with the United Methodist Church. Judy was married to Richard M. Royalty for 57 years moving 17 times in their service to the United Methodist Church. She had a beautiful voice and sang in every church choir of the many churches they served. Survived by sons Charles(Rebekah) Royalty and Tim(Grace) Royalty. She had 8 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild. Lily, Emma, Cameron, Preston, Hanna, Emmett, Christian, Nash and Sylvan.

The years of moving gave her the ability to make friends quickly and she did that everywhere she went. She was dedicated to serving those around her in any way she could, and the result was too many loyal friends to count. She loved animals especially cats and always had a cat or was feeding a neighborhood cat. In her later years she loved giving treats to all of the dogs on the Otterbein Lebanon Campus. She worked hard her entire life instilling that work ethic in her sons who both have carried on her tradition of hard work and pinching a penny. She always had a smile and an encouraging word for anyone she met and is fondly remembered by everyone who knew her. Truly a great woman who lived a great life.

Marcos de Niza Soccer

Both Cameron and Hannah played soccer this year.  It was Cameron's second year and Hannah's first.  Cameron played on the JV and Varsity team.  He was a starter for the JV team and even scored a goal off of a header.  He played center back and some goalie.  The Varsity team made it to play offs and he did get to go in for a few minutes as goalie. He actually started as goalie for the first Varsity game and afterwards the coach emailed me and told me what an amazing job he had done.  But that was the last time he started as goalie or even played much in that position.  (I'll never understand high school coaches.) Hannah played on both the JV and Varsity teams.  Neither team did well.  In fact, they lost every game and were usually mercy ruled, which means if the opponent was up by 10 goals with 20 minutes left in the game, they called the game. It was not a fun season at all.  But I was impressed with how the girls continued to play and not only play, but play hard.  

I did not take any pictures during the season.  It is just too hard to get a good picture from so far away so I didn't even try.  Hannah's team had a end of the year banquet where she received her letter.  Cameron also lettered but he was just handed his letter by the coach.  There was no end of the season banquet or award ceremony.

Happy 12th Birthday Christian!

 Christian's birthday fell on a Thursday this year.  He requested breakfast burritos for his birthday dinner.  After dinner, we went out for ice cream.  On Saturday, he had a party with many of his best friends.  He wanted to stay home and play outside and at the park.

front row: Zeke Scholes, Abe Wagstaff, Luke Williams

back row: Davis Farnsworth, Dominic A., Hayden, and Aiden Cornella

Christian is our sweet baby boy.  At 12, he is 4 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 91 pounds.  He remains sweet but continues to mix in a little salty.  He is such a sweet, talented, smart, studious and handsome boy.  He continues to read but not as much as last year.  He and his dad have read more from Rick Riordan.   He still loves to play with Legos and loves math.  He also loves video games, but playing with Cameron almost always ends in frustration.  He is still taking piano lessons, but still has to be constantly reminded to practice.  He doesn't love playing the piano but he does believe he will regret it if he quits.  He got rollerblades for his birthday and on several occasions he has gone out to rollerblade on his own.   He doesn't like to go out alone and it doesn't usually end well when he goes out with Cameron.  But if he has someone to play with, he loves to play outside (as long as it's not football).  Christian can be quite the talker.  He will talk and tell stories to anyone.  He can often be heard recapping what he read, what happened in a movie or what happened on the video game he was playing.  He has become quite found of sleeping in.  Some mornings he does not want to get out of bed.  One thing that hasn't changed and hopefully never will, is that Christian will always apologize to me when he acts like a jerk.  What a great trait!  He believes he loves me more than I love him.  But I guarantee that's not possible!

Christmas 2021

We do like our traditions!  We got together again this year with the Hatches and Hamblins to decorate houses.  The older kids did not want to do it but we told them they have to until they graduate from high school.

Samantha and Elizabeth

Ryan and Natalie

Lizzy and Cameron

Carson (I didn't get a picture of Madelyn)

Christian's house

Hannah's house

Cameron's house

We went to Chris Stanley's house (our neighbor) for the neighborhood potluck on Christmas Eve, but it had rained all day (which made for some great running), so attendance was a little light.  But we still enjoyed the evening.

Santa tried not to buy too much for the kids this year, but again, they were spoiled and got everything they wanted.  Cameron did not ask for much but he did ask for a dart board.  Chuck bought a cabinet for it and hung it on the back porch (it is February 10th as I am typing this and he has been out to throw darts one time so far).  Hannah got a pair of Nike pro shoes and Christian got a computer.  Santa also brought a pickle ball net, rackets and balls.  We set it up at the end of the driveway and play half in the driveway and half in the street,  It works out pretty well.  And I have to say, we aren't half bad.  

After opening our gifts and having breakfast, Chuck and I went for our annual Christmas Day run.  Charity come to visit for a few days and we picked her up in the afternoon and had dinner with her, Camera and Emily that evening.

Lily, Billy and Sylvan came over after Christmas and spent most of the day with us.  We opened gifts, played pickle ball and went to the park.  

Hannah gave the hat to Chuck for Christmas.  It is February 10th as I type this and other than to shower, pray and ride his bike, he has not taken that hat off.  

Merry Christmas!

Fall Events

 Sports aside, it was a busy Fall!

Cameron was inducted into the National Honor Society.

Pyper Hatch and Cameron

Hannah went to Homecoming (or HoCo as the kids like to say).  She went with a few friends because the dates did not end up working out.  She borrowed a dress because we could not find one that was acceptable to both of us.  Her word to describe homecoming was "lame".  Cameron invited his girlfriend, Lizzy, to Homecoming but they could not go because Lizzy does not go to Marcos.  (I do not think this is normal but Covid related).  So, they got dressed up as if they were going, went to dinner with Moss and Pyper (who did go) and then they changed and just hung out.

Anna, Grace,  Hannah, Marley

We toured the Mesa Temple just before it was rededicated after undergoing major renovations and being closed for several years.

For Halloween, Christian and Hannah went trick-or-treating with a friends in their neighborhoods.  I did not get a picture of Hannah but I do not think I would have approved of her costume.  She was a cave woman.

We ran the Turkey Trot for the 21st consecutive year.  Despite having pre-registered, when we got there, all the timing chips were gone, so we did not get timed.  The Palmers were in town for Thanksgiving so Sarah and Ellie joined us for the run.  All the kids ran the 5K while Chuck and I ran the 10K.  It was actually not perfect weather like usual.  It was a little windy making the gradual climb a bit more challenging.  

In addition to the Palmers, Camera and Emily and their families joined us for dinner.