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.