Medina - And Then There Were Four, uh, More?

In the last update we saw that the Britt family moved to Twinbrook, so we now have only Dylan Medina and his family in Sunset Valley. I handled the split slightly different in this case though, and technically Damien, Adrianna and Eugenia are still in town here. I started with a different copy of my save file, and kept the Medinas as the active household when I had the Britts move out. This was mainly to make sure that nothing got messed up for the Medinas in terms of the house contents and the family inventory (which should really still be theirs even though the Britts ended up with a copy of it too) as well as to keep their current wishes and opportunities (though I wasn't as concerned about those). So, since I couldn't control the Britts after they made the call to move, I simply moved them into the old Medina house. Since they are still in town, and all the relationships with them are intact, I will probably still have contact with them in game, but for the blog I'll be ignoring their presence in Sunset Valley since for story and challenge purposes they moved to Twinbrook. If any of them happen to show up in any of the Medina's pictures, well, we'll just pretend they were in town to visit or something.

I had to do a bit of editing in the town itself, primarily to add in the new lot types that were added with Ambitions. I initially let the game auto-place them after I installed, but it does a stupid job of it so I ended up bulldozing the lots and placing them myself. The Fire Station got moved to a different lot where it fit better. For the Salon and Consignment stores I chose different locations as well, eliminating a couple of the houses on the block with the old Spa (and relocating the families that were living in them) and then the Salon went on the lot in front of the second public pool and the Consignment store went next door between those lots and the Spa. I also relocated the Stones Throw Greenhouse to a lot that didn't have the terrain issues the previous location did and I added in the Serenity Retreat lot from the Store.

The names in green indicate the businesses/venues that the Medina's owned completely by the end of this entry. Click to view full size.

One of the first things I did was have Carina register as a self-employed Gardener. Since they have a large amount of produce stockpiled from the generations of gardeners in the Medina family, this should be an easy career for her to complete. After filling out the applications online, she went down to City Hall to complete her registration.

After she returned, Dylan followed suit and registered as a self-employed Writer. While he was down at City Hall doing his paperwork, Carina realized she is pregnant again (which came as a surprise to me as well since I don't remember her getting pregnant last time). Looks like this household will be growing as well.

Confirmation of how easy it was going to be to get Carina to the top of the Gardener career came the next day when she shot up to level 6 just from selling that day's harvest from the money trees. It was also Eldred's birthday that day so we got him a cake and he aged up to teen with his parents there to cheer for him (Edita had gone to a friend's house after school and hadn't returned yet). He gained the Unlucky trait.

The next day after she had finished with the garden, Carina took her heavily pregnant self down to the consignment store to sell some of the produce she had amassed in her inventory. Afterwards she treated herself to a massage at the spa next door.

Later that evening, Carina was awakened shortly after going to bed by the beginnings of her labor pains. She and Dylan headed off to the hospital so she could have the baby. She gave birth to twin girls, Eleanore and Eulalia. Yeah, I might have let her listen to her favorite music (kids) while she was gardening. Eleanore got the traits Eccentric and Perceptive and her favorites are Classical music, Falafel, and Lime Green. Eulalia got the traits Disciplined and Brave and her favorites are Roots music, Mac and Cheese, and White.

Everyone took turns tending to the twins the next day, though Carina spent most of her day out in the garden as usual. Late in the day she got notice that many of the things she'd put on consignment had sold, and also that she was being given a service award for her achievements in the gardening field.

Sunday was Edita's birthday. After spending the day doing various separate tasks, the family got together to watch her blow out her candles and age up to Teen. She picked up the Dramatic trait.

On Monday morning when Carina was working in the garden, I noticed an odd glowy thing on the ground next to the life plant. I zoomed in, but no idea what was causing it. It remained there for several sim days, and best I can figure, it's just a graphic from the life fruit that didn't get removed when the fruit was harvested.

Monday was also Eleanore and Eulalia's birthday. Cakes were purchased and set up on the tables on the back porch, but when it came time, they didn't make it to the cakes. Instead, they were put down wherever they were and they aged up there.

Eulalia

Eleanore

The next few days were fairly routine, with Carina and Dylan starting to work with the twins to teach them their toddler skills, and also working to maintain the garden. Eldred and Edita had school and were pretty much left to their own devices while I focused on the toddlers, though Edita did go and get a part-time job at the spa since she got an opportunity at school to increase her performance if she did so. Wednesday was Carina's birthday, and the family and a few girls that had come home with Eldred and Edita gathered around to watch her blow out her candles.

The next day Dylan headed off to Egypt to fulfill an opportunity that was asking him to donate one of the books he'd written for the schools there (or something like that anyway). He only went for 3 days, and as with Damien it wasn't my intention to do much adventuring with him right now. I figured it would be nice to maybe be able to pick up a few of the foreign items and plants for them however.

He did get the introductory mission for Egypt and did it, and between that and the opportunity that brought him there to start with he earned his level 1 visa. Aside from that, he just enjoyed his vacation and got to know a few of the locals. He also took advantage of the time he had free of interruptions to work on his latest novel while sitting at the cafe in the marketplace.

He also spent a day relaxing with a book, and then playing chess with one of the locals after receiving an offer of a prize if he could win 3 games by a certain time that evening. It was close, but he managed to win the prize by winning his final game just before time ran out.

Dylan returned home and life went back to normal. The twins had learned their main toddler skills by now and passed their days playing in their new playpen. Carina reached the top of the Gardener career on Saturday after selling off some money bags in her inventory. There was a bit of excitement late on Saturday night when Edita was caught out after curfew and brought home by the cops. This was totally my fault as I'd sent her down to buy out one of the venues they owned an interest in to satisfy a wish a few of them had and didn't think about the time or the curfew. Unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of that event so we'll fill in here with one of the twins.

Edita seemed to have something of an affinity for her ancestors' ghosts, for she would often spontaneously go and interact with them, and showed the least tendency to be bothered by their presence. Sometimes I had her deliberately introduce herself and chat with them a bit, but usually only after she'd initially tried to interact in some way herself. Also I read something about sims not reacting to the ghosts if they have something of a relationship with them so I was trying to test that theory out a bit since it gets tiresome having them interrupted all the time by seeing one of the ghosts.

Edita chats with her Great-Grandmother Kesha in the new sauna building in the backyard

Monday was a day of birthdays. Dylan, Eleanore, and Eulalia all had their birthday then. Cakes were purchased for the twins in the afternoon, and as soon and Carina had finished with the garden and gotten her shower, Dylan took Eleanore to her cake to blow out her candles. She aged up to Child and gained the Coward trait. I foresee much fainting in her future with as many ghosts as we have on this lot.

Eulalia had her turn next after most had finished with Eleanore's cake. She aged up to Child and gained the Photographer's Eye trait.

Dylan was the last one to age up, and did so on his own in the midst of putting away the extra cake from the twin's birthday mini-party. He became an Elder as the family cheered for him.

A few days later on Wednesday it was Eldred's birthday. Shortly before he went to blow out his candles he rolled the wish to have The Culinary Libarian as his LTW after I'd had him prepare some Autumn Salad for the family. Seems a bit of an odd choice for him, but ok, we'll go with it (I did wait until after he'd aged up to lock it in so I could see what other LTWs would be suggested for him. Mostly it was ones I've already done or that equally didn't fit him, so I went with what he'd rolled on his own.) He picked up the Dislikes Children trait when he aged up to Young Adult.

Oddly enough, he grew up into an outfit that kind of fits for his LTW. I may just let him keep it.

This seems to be a reasonable place to end this installment. At least I have something of a direction to go with Eldred now. Edita still hasn't expressed any interest in a LTW so she's rather lacking in direction at the moment. The twins have only barely become children, so it's anyone's guess what they'll want to do, though Eulalia has the makings of another world adventurer perhaps. It remains to be seen which of them will be the heir here; I want to preserve the Medina name into the next generation, but whether that will be through Eldred or one of the girls I'm not sure yet. I'm doing my best to steer everyone into things that will bring in the points instead of letting them just duplicate what's been done before to hopefully get through the challenge (and to additional EPs!) faster. My score has only changed by a point or so, but here's the update on it just for completeness:

Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll come back again for the next update. I'm not entirely sure yet who it will be with. Until then, Cheers!