Full House, Toddlers, and LTWs

This entry starts my blog-as-I-play experiment. As I write this after playing through all that's below, I have to say that so far this way of doing it is going a lot easier than the way I did it before. Mostly I'm writing things down as they happen, sometimes making comments about the action or about thoughts on things that occur to me as I play, and sometimes throwing in a few storytelling-type bits. The narrative may be a bit choppy at times, but there's not always a whole lot to say about a particular event, so I hope you can bear with me. Comments on how this plays out with the presentation are welcomed below if you care to leave any. Now, on with the narrative.

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With Dylan's birth, I now have a full house here, and it's getting just a wee bit crazy to keep up with all of them. I've only myself to blame though, really, but keeping up with so many sims makes me a bit crazy. And I've no idea what I'm going to do when it comes time for generation 4 (Damien and Dylan) to want to procreate. The two branches of this family will only fit in the one house for so long. Hopefully one of them won't show much interest in getting married/having babies.

Currently, everyone in the household except Byron and the babies needs to get their LTW still, and it's a lot to keep track of. When there's nothing that a particular sim really needs to be doing or working on, I let them do as they please, and just keep an eye out that they don't try to shove the toddler who just woke up back into the crib just because it's 11PM. Or give the toddler in the high chair a bottle while someone else is already working on grinding food up for them (didn't catch that one in time). It's like TS2 baby-swarming all over again the way they all want to put the kid to bed or feed him all at the same time.

Anyway, the next evening after Dylan was born, Charles celebrated his birthday and became an Adult.  It had little effect on him.

After he finished celebrating and everyone ate the mac and cheese that Carolyn had just made, I eventually managed to get everyone directed into other actions besides trying to put Damien in his crib. Most got sent to bed, but Benito stayed up to work on teaching Damien to walk since he wasn't all that tired yet.

Byron was up early the next day, and Kesha's ghost was out, so I decided to see if they were still so smitten with each other. Apparently they are, for even though she shows as being simply his fiancée now, they had most all of the higher level romantic interactions available to them right away. I had them hug and kiss a few times and then watched to see if they would continue on their own, and they did. They flirted a bit, then Kesha offered to give him a massage. Such a sweet couple.

Since Benito doesn't have a career-related LTW, I haven't had him get a job, at least not yet, so that he has time to concentrate on his chess games. Since there's usually plenty of people around to watch the little ones, I send him down to Central Park to call over the next ranked players. So far he's been doing pretty well and continues to make progress. I've no idea how far he has to go yet.

While Benito was at the park that day, everyone else had the day off, so Jeanna and Rigoberto headed into the rec room to work on their athletic skills. They each paced themselves so they could work out as long as possible, and while they were doing so, Rigoberto mastered the Athletic skill. That went very quickly since he didn't have any skill in Athletic when he moved in.

Working out is a stinky business

Later that evening, it was time for Benito and Jeanna to celebrate their birthdays. Both were transitioning to Adult. Benito had his first, celebrated alone upstairs in Charles and Jeanna's room while he was headed to the shower there, and Jeanna had hers later on while watching TV with Charles in the living room. It's rather annoying the way it resets their hairstyle when they make this transition.

One side note here on something I've noticed. I was going through cleaning out all of the garbage memories in their various scrapbooks, and I realized that despite the fact there are currently 5 ghosts on the lot that come out regularly, and they see all of them, the only one they ever get a memory about seeing is Beau Andrews' ghost. I'm fairly sure that they react to the others when they see them, but they don't get a memory each time they do like they do with him. I'm not sure why this is, just thought it was something interesting. I'm likely going to have to create my own cemetery for them on another lot before too much longer, since the ghost population will be at 7 once Byron and Rigoberto go, and that many ghosts might start interfering with things too much. I'm thinking that Beau will be one of the first candidates to get moved so he quits cluttering everyone's scrapbooks with repetitive junk memories.

Once everyone had gone to bed, Benito worked some more with Damien on teaching him to walk, and late into the night he finally succeeded.

The next day started out fairly routinely with nothing out of the ordinary happening. That evening, however, Charles earned a promotion at work and had finally realized his dream of becoming a Celebrated Five-Star Chef. Now to figure out what to keep him busy with the rest of his life...

He doesn't look all that thrilled about achieving his dream, does he?

Later that night, Benito managed to get Damien Potty Trained finally. For some reason, people were wanting to congregate in the bathroom at the same time.

The next day passed relatively uneventfully, though Byron did manage to finally get in enough hours tutoring others in skills to get the Skill Professor Logic achievement. He'd found Benito in his bedroom and explained some Logic theorums to him figuring it might help him with his chess strategies.

A little while later, it was time for Dylan's birthday. Benito picked him up out of the child swing where he'd spent most of his infancy and laid him on the floor. A few minutes later, Dylan transitioned to Toddler.

The next day, Byron worked with Damien on learning how to talk, and finally got him talking understandably.

Meanwhile, they were all working on getting Dylan potty trained when they had the chance to, and later that evening Charles finally had success with it. He was happy to have have been the one to teach his son such an important life skill.

That puddle keeps showing up in this bathroom and I can't find what's causing it

They were in full toddler training mode now, trying to get the boys taught their skills before they grew up (and before I forgot to do it). By now, Damien was pretty much set, this just left Dylan, who'd already learned the potty chair. Next up was having his grandfather teach him how to talk.

It was a good thing that Damien had gotten all of his skills in, because the next night he had his birthday and became a Child. He picked up the Insane trait. This should be fun.

He looks a lot like his daddy

Charles worked with Dylan on teaching him how to walk late into the night until he just couldn't stay awake any longer to do so. Jeanna continued working with him when she got up, and before too long he had gotten the hang of it.

Benito continued working his way along the chess circuit, beating one opponent after another. He did his best to get in at least one game a day, sometimes even 2 or 3 games depending. Before he knew it, he'd become a Chess Grand Master and was halfway to fulfilling his LTW. The toughest part of it was done now at least.

Not the actual match that got him the Grand Master title, but I forgot to take a picture of that one

The ghosts continued to be active, but usually didn't make too much of a nuisance of themselves. The main thing that was annoying was the way the sims would stop what they were doing  to make a face at the ghost if one wandered into the room with them, or if they walked into a room where a ghost was doing something. Some nights only one of them would come out, but it wasn't uncommon for several to be out at once, as in the picture below. There would usually be at least one of them hanging around until well into the morning before they'd poof back to their grave.

Kesha, Hank and Morganna were out this night

Usually they all did their own thing while they were out, but one morning I happened to notice Kesha and Hank talking in the rec room. They never met when they were alive, because he'd died before Byron became engaged to her. Whether or not she ever met his ghost while she was alive, I don't remember.

Later that day, Carolyn got promoted to Creature-Robot Cross-Breeder and completed her LTW. Now to decide what to have her do to keep her busy and earning points...

She looks as underwhelmed about achieving her dream as Charles did

That night, tragedy struck when the Grim Reaper came for Byron just after he'd finished helping Damien with his homework. His children and at least one grandchild were all there to watch him join his beloved Kesha on the other side. Byron contributed 19 points to the challenge during his lifetime, bringing the total to 56.

Byron Medina's Achievements

Traits Artistic Genius Handy Loner Vegetarian Careers Grocery Clerk (part-time) Sports LTW Perfect Mind/Perfect Body Miscellaneous Own a Venue Hold an Autograph Session Have a Wedding Party

Skills Athletics Body Builder Fitness Nut Marathon Runner Charisma Everybody's Best Friend Logic Skill Professor Painting Brushmaster Proficient Painters Master Painter

Damien decided that night that he wanted to be a Star News Anchor when he grows up. I'm not entirely sure what triggered that LTW for him, but it sounds good to me. Meanwhile, Grim wandered into the living room to play a bit of the football video game they had before he headed back to the Netherworld.

Jeanna seemed particularly upset by Byron's passing, and she stood out by his grave that night screaming and cursing the fates that had taken him from them.

Next up: Rigoberto, Benito, and Jeanna continue to pursue their LTWs and Damien and Dylan continue to grow.

Golden Years and Young Adults

Byron and Kesha were now both in their golden years, and began to fade into the background a bit as Carolyn and Charles came more to the fore. Charles had gotten a part-time job at the bookstore when he became a teenager because he'd wished for one, but Carolyn remained unemployed and focused on her schoolwork and skillbuilding throughout her teenage years. One day some time after his retirement he decided to schedule an autograph session at the bistro for a time when he had to go there anyway to collect his owner's draw. It turned out to be quite a successful event and he found that he still had a lot more fans than he'd realized.

Carolyn wasn't all work and no play, and one day she decided to go home with her friend Benito Britt after school. Benito quickly wandered off to do his own thing once they got there, but she got acquainted with his siblings a bit and sat down to work on her homework with them while she was there.

In due time, she left her teenage years behind and transitioned to become a Young Adult. She picked up the trait Hopeless Romantic. She received a makeover shortly thereafter.

She finally joined the working world by getting a job in the Science career to begin working on fulfilling her LTW to Become a Creature-Robot Cross-Breeder. Shortly after she'd started working, the Grim Reaper came for Kesha one night shortly after she and Byron had gone to bed. Carolyn and Charles had come running when they heard their father's cries, and had just begun to mourn as well when Kesha presented Grim with a Deathflower she'd been saving. Grim changed his mind about taking her and she received a new lease on life as it were.

Kesha's brush with Death seemed to revitalize her marriage with Byron, for after this they became more and more affectionate with one another, frequently rolling up wishes to kiss, amorously hug, or woohoo with the other. They even received a long term moodlet for being Eternally Faithful to one another.

Kesha worked on her Cooking, and started turning out perfect dishes due to the fact that the plants in their garden had improved vastly in quality over the years from their diligent care of them. Byron worked on his painting, finally putting his Artistic trait to use, and started turning out masterpieces and brilliant paintings, as well as starting to work on portraits of the various family members, two of which can be seen above. Sadly, no one was ever proficient enough in painting to do portraits of the earlier generation. Kesha also got more involved with writing and found a niche in writing trashy novels, which she seemed to be pretty good at. She had at least one bestseller, and several others that did quite well also.

Eventually Charles also transitioned to Young Adult and picked up the Heavy Sleeper trait. He celebrated his birthday while talking out front of the house with Jeanna Whitmore whom he was starting to like a great deal.

He had already gone as far as he could at the bookstore, so he went to his family's bistro to get a job in the Culinary career to start pursuing his dream of becoming a 5-star chef.

Meanwhile, Carolyn the Hopeless Romantic had started searching for a partner. She started dating Benito Britt, one of her friends from high school, and ended up having her first kiss with him.

 Shortly after this I further remodeled the house, adding a second story with a second master suite, two smaller bedrooms, a bathroom, and a large common room with a small balcony out front overlooking the street, and a larger deck to the side over the kitchen. This also required more remodeling of the downstairs, with the original bathroom being removed to make room for a staircase, and Charles' bedroom being turned into the downstairs bath instead. I also redecorated some downstairs as I'd gotten tired of the red and lime combos that were a bit garish. They didn't necessarily need all the extra room right away, but I was in the mood to build that night and decided to go ahead and get the house ready for when Carolyn and Charles would be getting married and having children. Below is a shot of how the house looks now from the outside. I forgot to take a shot of the new room layouts.

Soon after the second floor had been added and a few of the easels relocated to the common room upstairs, Byron had his own brush with Death. Luckily for him and the family, he also was prepared with a Deathflower to buy himself more time among the living.

Charles started dating Jeanna Whitmore whom he'd been friends with for a long time, and ended up having his first kiss with her out front of their house during one of their dates.

He was certain that she was the one for him, so a short time later he proposed to her, and she accepted. She went ahead and moved in with them after they were engaged.

Jeanna Whitmore
Traits: Party Animal, Mooch, Athletic, Grumpy, Lucky
LTW:  Become a Superstar Athlete
Favorites: Kids music, Fruit Parfait, Lilac

Somewhat unfortunate for my scoring (and my progress toward being able to install the first expansion) that she wants to be in the same career that Byron had already completed, but oh well. At least she has a different LTW, so I should be able to get the points for that at least. She had been working a part-time job at the spa, but I had her go and get job in the Sports career shortly after she moved in so she could start on her LTW.

This is where I really went nuts with this household I think, for besides moving Jeanna in as Charles' fiancée, and besides the fact that I knew Carolyn would soon be asking someone to move in with them as her fiancé (more on that in a moment), I decided to bite the bullet and do something that I'd been contemplating for awhile, namely, I had Byron ask his half-brother Rigoberto to move in with them. It had always bothered me to have a family member who was out there "in the wild" where I couldn't control him and nurture him, but it hadn't ever been all that feasible to move him in either.  I'd kept tabs on him, had Carolyn go over to his place a time or two to get to know him, and had invited him over to their house a few times as well so the others could meet him. He'd never married or had any children (none that I've seen any evidence of at least), if he had I probably would have let him be, but since he hadn't, well, I decided that now was probably the time to bring him into the fold if I was going to while I might still have a chance to do his LTW for him. He was still an Adult, though close to becoming an Elder when Byron invited him over and asked him to move in with them. Rigoberto somewhat bashfully accepted.

Rigoberto French
Traits:  Loves the Outdoors, Evil, Genius, Charismatic, Lucky
LTW: Become an Astronaut
Favorites: Kids music, Vegetarian Lobster Thermidor, Green

Hmm. A career-related LTW. Normally fairly easy, but he's on the verge of becoming an Elder. Still, it's not undoable, he's just going to have to bust his butt to get it done in time probably, and he can always use a Deathflower to buy more time if he needs it. Side note to that: I haven't been cultivating tons of Deathflowers here, and actually they normally don't keep one going in the garden. I'll likely only be growing just enough to supply each person in the household with one each. After Kesha and Bryon both used one, really after Kesha had, I decided that any given sim would be allowed to use a Deathflower and/or Ambrosia only once each, and I'll likely only allow a single sim to use both under certain circumstances since I'm not really that interested in having nearly-immortal sims. Frankly, they get boring after awhile and I get tired of them and become ready to move on from them. So far Ambrosia hasn't been a possibility in this household since no one's had high enough fishing to get the Deathfish for it yet, but I know it will be eventually so I might as well have my policy regarding it in place beforehand.

Getting back to the narrative, Rigoberto immediately went and got a job in the Military career to work on his LTW. As soon as he walked out of the doors of the base after passing all of the entrance exams and physicals, he had his transition to Elder. Boy will his superiors be surprised when he shows up for work tomorrow.

Byron and Kesha continued to be quite the adorable couple in their golden years, both apparently grateful for the extra time they'd been granted and determined to make the most of it and enjoy one another the way they'd rarely had the time to when the kids were little. They may have started out as a somewhat indifferent pairing (at least on my part), but they were so clearly totally smitten with each other by this point that it was truly heartwarming. Below is one example of a totally autonomous embrace that they shared. Such autonomous interactions between them became quite common after awhile. Most annoyingly, however, despite their devotion to one another and the fact that he's never cheated on her, Byron CONSTANTLY gets phone calls from women asking him out on a date. It's apparently a highly annoying "feature" of the new attraction system, and one I hope they fix eventually, though I'm not going to hold my breath. Kesha would get calls for dates occasionally too, but not to the extent that Byron does. That likely has to do with his high charisma and the fact that he has a larger circle of friends and acquaintances.

Carolyn had continued to date Benito Britt, though she'd also gone out a time or two with Archie Curley, and the new attraction system seemed to indicate she was more attracted to him than to Benito (I thought I'd gotten pictures of her with Archie, but apparently I didn't). So, based on that, I'd decided to have her pair up with Archie despite her continued wishes regarding Benito, but when I had her ask him on a date with the intention of solidifying things with him, something went wrong between them and before I knew it he was telling her off about something and didn't seem to want to have anything more to do with her. Huh. Well, ok then, if Archie's going to be that way, then Benito it is. The next day, she called Benito and asked him out for a date at the bistro, where she asked him to go steady, and he accepted. They had a lovely dinner and she asked him back to her place afterwards. Once they got there, she proposed to him, more or less in front of her family, though all of them were pretty much ignoring her and Benito. After he'd accepted her proposal she asked him to move in.

Benito Britt
Traits: Brave, Couch Potato, Vegetarian, Genius, Artistic
LTW: Chess Legend
Favorites: Latin music, Mac and Cheese, Lilac

By this time, Kesha has locked in wishes to see both Carolyn and Charles married, also one to have a party, and a check of her life meter shows that she probably doesn't have very long left before Grim comes calling again. So I check all of their work schedules and the first day that most of them have off, I have Kesha call some of their friends over for a wedding party where they'll make a double wedding of it. The party is arranged, the buffet table pulled out of storage and everything looks to be a go for it. Once all of the guests have arrived I have Carolyn and Benito both go to the same spot in the backyard then tell them to Get Married. The guests gather round, oohing and aahing at them for awhile, but...nothing happens really. So, I try again, and then it takes, and couple number one is married in a more or less scenic fashion.

Now it was Charles and Jeanna's turn, and, well, I didn't have quite as much luck with them. For starters, Jeanna was supposed to be at work at 3, and even though the party had started around 11:30, by the time I finally got Carolyn and Benito married it was after 2 and I'd already been having to fight Jeanna, who was trying to leave to go to work. Too bad honey, you'll just have to miss today. You are getting married after all, and I'd think that would be just a little bit more important to you. As you can see above she'd already changed out of her formalwear into her work outfit, so I first had to get her to change back. After that, the best I could manage for getting them positioned was to have them exchange rings by the back door on the patio. At least for them the "Get Married" interaction worked the first time.

Jeanna settled down some for awhile at least after this, and was there for most of the party, but once the party was winding down she snuck off to work despite the fact that she was hours late by then. The following day, or it might have been another day after that, I had both Carolyn and Jeanna go to City Hall to change their names.  I'd debated about Carolyn, but decided that I'll stick to having wives take their husband's names when they get married. Preserving the family name isn't necessarily that important with this challenge, and having a variety of last names might make it more interesting. So, Carolyn is now Carolyn Britt (though the post tags will continue to call her Carolyn Medina) and Jeanna is now Jeanna Medina. One amusing side note to all of this is that despite the fact that Archie Curley was so antagonistic toward her on that one date, he's since called her numerous times asking her out on a date. This despite the fact that he's since started a relationship with Benito's sister Latoya Britt.

The double wedding happened pretty much just in time, for only a couple days later Grim came again for Kesha, and this time it was for real. She passed away while working on her first Drama novel, a commission she'd received. She contributed 9 points to the challenge, bringing the total to 37.

Kesha (Vargas) Medina's Achievements:
Traits: Light Sleeper, Neurotic, Perfectionist, Workaholic
Careers: (none)
LTW: Renaissance Sim
Skills: Cooking - Star Chef, Cooking - Menu Maven, Handiness - Electrician, Writing - Specialist Writer
Miscellaneous: (none)

Shortly after her mother died, Carolyn realized she was pregnant (though she'd actually gotten pregnant the night before Kesha passed). She wanted to have a boy, so I fed her some apples to help make it so for her. Since the game seemed somewhat insistent that she take maternity leave during her pregnancy, she spent a good bit of it working on her guitar skill, something that was becoming a serious hobby of hers. She felt confident enough in her skill now that she set up outside the theatre one morning to see what sort of tips she could get (she'd gotten an opportunity that wanted her to get $500 in tips). She ended up doing quite well, with people pairing up to dance together to the tunes she played, and she pulled in something like $750 I believe, though they hardly needed the money since the family's bank account exceeded $500,000 by now.

 In due course she gave birth to a son that she named Damien Britt. This fulfilled Byron's wish to have a grandchild. Kesha had had a similar wish locked in, but she didn't live long enough to see it fulfilled.

Damien Britt
Traits: Brave, Friendly, Can Apprehend Burglar
Favorites: Latin music, Hamburger, Aqua

Not long after Damien was born, Carolyn's birthday arrived and she transitioned to Adult. As usual, it messed up her hair, but otherwise had little effect on her.

Seeing little Damien made Jeanna yearn for a baby of her own, and soon enough she found herself pregnant as well. She also wished for a boy, so she too got to eat apples. She continued to work out as much as she was able during her pregnancy, though mostly I had Byron tutoring her in gardening to try to get her up to speed in that as well (and to work on a skill achievement for Byron). In the meantime, Damien had his transition to toddler.

Not long after, Jeanna went into labor and gave birth to a son that she named Dylan Medina.

Dylan Medina
Traits: Neurotic, Genius, Can Apprehend Burglar
Favorites: Indie, Autumn Salad, Lilac

This pretty much brings me up to where I'm currently at with playing this family. Another day or so has passed since Dylan's birth I think, but nothing else of note has happened so far. I'm going to do my best to blog as I go, but we'll see how that works out in practice. Although technically all of the points that Byron has accumulated already count, for blog purposes I'll probably stick to only officially adding a sim's points into the total when they die. Also, as with these initial catch up posts, I won't be bothering to comment on everything that happens, but will stick to just making note of the major events and of anything of particular interest that happens. If anyone is interested in following along with a more detailed accounting of the Medinas' and Britts' lives, feel free to send me a friend request on the Sims 3 community site. My username there is Ndayeni, and I tend to post most notable memories that my sims receive there (I do not, however, bother to post about minor things like every single skill up or the like that one of them gets, nor about silly things like going to the park or the grocery store). As for when I'll add World Adventures? I'm not sure, but I think I'm probably getting close. I will be using my current running total of points earned to make that decision, and not waiting for sims to die and "officially" add their points, and I'm currently at 31.6% completion for the base game material with all that Byron's achieved so far. I imagine that once Carolyn, Charles, and possibly Rigoberto have completed their LTWs that I'll be near enough to the 50% mark to go ahead and install. We'll see how it works out in play though.

Next up: Not entirely sure, though I imagine we'll be saying goodbye to Byron finally before too much longer. Also the two little ones will be growing, and their parents and great-uncle should be getting closer to their LTWs.

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