Primetime for Generation 2

Byron and Kesha didn't waste any time getting started on the next generation once they were married. Within a day or two she was pregnant with their first child. She spun up the wish to have a girl just after she popped, so I fed her watermelon to help make that happen for her. Sure enough, a few days later she gave birth to a girl they named Carolyn. Unfortunately I didn't get any shots of her or them when she was born, and the photo the memory thing put for it is just an aerial view of the hospital. If I'm remembering correctly, these were her stats at birth:

Picture from just before she transitioned to Toddler. Seems to be the first shot I took of her.

Carolyn Medina
Traits: Virtuoso, Grumpy, Can Apprehend Burglar*
Favorites: Pop, Vegetarian Grilled Salmon, Spice Brown

*I discovered that she has this hidden trait that was passed down from her Grandfather Hank Goddard when I examined her personal status with Twallan's Master Controller. Interestingly, neither of Hank's sons have the trait, though I managed to get a peek at his stats on his ghost and he had the trait himself. For points, I'll count the point for the trait when Carolyn achieves her LTW, since I believe the intent is for the points for hidden traits to count for the offspring, not the original parent. I'll follow a similar policy in future when I get around to trying for the other hidden traits.

Shortly after Carolyn was born, Byron transitioned to Adult. He celebrated alone in the bedroom. Not sure where Kesha was at the time.

Kesha was pregnant again almost right away. I originally had intended to allow only one child per generation, but she rolled the wish for another baby almost right after she'd had Carolyn, and I decided to give in and let her have another one. This time she rolled the wish to have a boy, so I fed her apples to try to give her one. While she was pregnant, Carolyn transitioned into a toddler.

I did better with Carolyn's toddler skills than I had with Byron's. She learned all three toddler skills, played with the peg box and xylophone a lot for future skills, and Kesha even found time to read a book to her one day. Wish I'd gotten in closer for the screenshot, because that interaction is so stinking cute.

As you can kind of see in the above picture if you look closely at the swings, Kesha got her wish and gave birth to a baby boy they named Charles. Again, I failed to take any birth shots of him, but his stats at birth were (hidden trait was discovered/verified much later the same way I found it on Carolyn):

Charles Medina
Traits: Excitable, Good Sense of Humor, Can Apprehend Burglar
Favorites: Classical, Hot Dogs, Black

Carolyn was still learning her toddler skills while Charles was an infant, and shortly after she'd learned how to talk, Charles transitioned to toddler and they got to start the whole toddler training routine over again. He eventually learned all of his skills as well as gaining more or less the same advantages for future skills that Carolyn did from the toys and being read to.

I haven't mentioned the ghosts yet, but with four graves in the backyard, this house is quite infested with them. Since the night of Alesha's death, it's been rare for a night to go by without at least one of them coming out to play. This got to be rather a nuisance for awhile when Carolyn and Charles were growing up, because the ghosts would path through their rooms on their way from their graves to whatever they were going to play with and would wake them up. More than once this resulted in them not getting much sleep some nights if the ghosts were particularly active and wandering around a lot. They can also be amusing to watch at times though, and once in awhile give you a great shot like the one below when one of them (forget which) decided to haunt the teddy bear in Carolyn's crib while she was sleeping in it. Amazingly she didn't wake up.

Not long after that shot was taken, probably the next day or even that evening, Carolyn transitioned to Child. She picked up the trait No Sense of Humor.

During Carolyn's childhood and Charles' toddlerhood, various things of note happened. First, Sandi French, Rigoberto's mother (Byron's half-brother), died. Byron must have known her, at least somewhat, because he was notified of her passing while he was working out in the garden. I don't recall him knowing her, though I had made sure to get him introduced to his half-brother while Hank was still alive, and the two eventually had a reasonably close relationship. Second, Kesha mastered two skills for her LTW: Gardening and Cooking. Gardening was easy for her to get since the family had a moderate sized garden by now and most days she was the one who went out to tend it since she was a stay at home mom, and I think she had some skill in Cooking when she moved in. I also have the MultiTab 6000 tablet computer and make sure that every sim in the household has one. It is wonderful for learning skills since sims can be learning a skill while watching TV, or while working on another skill, and well worth the cost of it in the Store since sims can learn multiple skills so much faster with it by working on two at once via listening to a tabcast for one skill while doing something for a different skill. Finally, it was also during this time period that the family purchased their first venue, the grocery store downtown I believe. Alesha had become a partner in several businesses during her day, but they couldn't really afford to buyout any of them until now. The store was renamed Medina's Supermarket.

After this relative flurry of activity in the space of a few sim days, Kesha transitioned to Elder. I'm not sure if I'd really realized before then how much older than Byron she was.

During her early childhood, Carolyn had spun a wish to learn the Writing skill, and I believe I even let her go take a class in it since she wanted to. She proceeded to write her first novel while still in elementary school.

Not long after that, Byron got to level 10 in Logic and completed his LTW (he'd mastered Athletic sometime previous to this, not sure when). This happy event insured that all of the points he earns for the challenge will count (not that I'd ever had any doubt he'd finish since it was a fairly easy LTW).

Life continued on, and Byron extended the families investments by purchasing a share in the day spa. Not long after that, Charles transitioned to Child and picked up the trait Hates the Outdoors.

Carolyn got on the honor roll for the first time the day that Charles started school. Shortly thereafter, she transitioned to teenager and picked up the trait Vehicle Enthusiast. I don't recall that trait from when I played in the past, so I'm guessing it was added with a patch at some point. The main thing I've noticed is that now and again she'll race out front to look at the family cars (they have one of the nicest cars, the Roadster, because Morganna brought it with her when she moved in), and both cars show up in her relationship panel as friends. I'm hoping the latter is a feature of the trait and not a glitch at any rate. As you can see below, they also still had Hank's police cruiser as one of their family vehicles at this point. I later stowed it in the family inventory and bought them a Ford Focus instead. Carolyn had already decided while she was a child that her LTW was to Become a Creature-Robot Cross-Breeder.

Around this time I made a few attempts to have Byron start doing ranked chess matches, though usually it didn't work out very well, in part because of glitches I'd started having that was causing some of the townies to be invisible. He met one woman at one of the parks for a ranked game, and she was invisible the whole time. Then he invited Jack Mays, the next ranked opponent, over one night, and Jack was invisible out front when he arrived and Byron couldn't interact with him. He also couldn't just start a game from the chessboard like he had with the woman because Jack had to be invited in first. This was when I started hunting around for solutions to the problem, and saw a few of Twallan's mods mentioned as being useful to fix it (it must be a relatively common glitch), so I went ahead and got them despite not really wanting to get into using hacks or much CC if I could help it. I was able to get Jack fixed with them, and this is also when I went in and set the Handy trait that Byron should have had since he became a child but had missed getting somehow. I'm not sure if his only having 4 traits was causing the weird glitches around him, but I haven't noticed any since I fixed his traits. I've left the mods in, but don't use them other than to check the ghosts' stats and the others' hidden traits while working on these entries.

Anyway, getting back to the story, I tried again the next night to invite Jack over, and he came, and was visible and I could interact with him. Yay for all of this. Only I couldn't get the two of them to sit down for a game and stay with it for some reason. In particular, I think Byron would keep getting up and going to do something else. Probably he was too tired or something, but I forget what his problem was exactly. So he had wandered off, but before I could have Kesha or Carolyn as him to leave, Grim came for him, and so Jack Mays ended up dying in their living room.

His urn disappeared on its own, and the Medinas went about their business as though nothing had happened. None of them had really known poor Jack after all, he'd just been there to play a game of chess. Byron continued to expand the family's investments by purchasing the bistro from the other partners, though he didn't change its name like he had with the grocery store. Carolyn also finally put her Virtuoso trait to use and learned how to play the guitar that had been sitting in their rec room since before she was born.

The next happening of note was that Kesha mastered Handiness, and with that, completed her LTW. Charles rolled up the LTW to be a Celebrated Five-Star Chef at some point during his childhood. Yay for lots of easy-to-fulfill LTWs in this household this generation and next, at least so far. I also further expanded the house around this time, adding on a new, larger kitchen on one side and turning the old kitchen into a dining room. The family was quite well off by now so they could easily afford it, and the old kitchen was getting a little cramped. I was also hoping it would help with the problem of the ghosts routing through the kids' bedrooms if they weren't on the corner of the house nearest the graves anymore. It helped some, but not entirely. Here is an overview of how the house looked at that point. I never took pictures of the earlier renovations, though no doubt they've been noticable in the pictures.

Roof up overview. The garden was moved closer to the edge of the lot to make room for the expansion and patio.

The original house remains intact at the core here. Master bath was added first, then the third bedroom and old kitchen (now dining room) as well as the rec room. Finally, the new large kitchen was added and the old one repurposed. Some rooms have since been redecorated.

Various minor achievements were made in the following period, but the next event of real note was that Charles became a teenager and picked up the Slob trait. He even managed to transition into an outfit appropriate to his tastes.

Scrolling around town one day after this, I happened across this lovely fellow outside the bookstore. I guess he was doing his best to show some Christmas spirit (it was Christmas day in real life), but he really could have chosen different attire to go out in public.

Primetime for Generation 2 was drawing to a close by now. Byron and Kesha had both finished their LTWs and were down to seeing what skill achievements they could get. Kesha was beginning to develop an interest in writing and started publishing a few novels. Carolyn had started a second novel when she was a child and later finished it as a teenager, but didn't show much interest in writing after that. Finally, Byron celebrated his transition to Elder to bring the era (mostly) to a close.

One of the first things he wanted to do after becoming an elder was to retire, and since he'd already reached the top of the Sports career awhile ago, I let him. Kesha supported him in his decision and helped him celebrate by waving a rather odd sign while he cheered for himself.

Next up: Byron and Kesha enjoy their golden years while their children continue to grow up