4.35 Some Kind of Honeymoon

Now that the kids were settled in school, Charles and Veronica found that they suddenly had time for their hobbies again. It was hard to remember when Charles had been able to find enough time to go fishing. Now that they lived on a lake, he could just roll out of bed early, grab his fishing rod, and float out in his pajamas.

But as time passed, he got more and more restless. Something was missing. What could it possibly be?

Travel!

 

He called and made reservations for a flight to Egypt as a surprise.

“You know,” he said as he brandished a printout of the tickets, “We had kids so fast, we never had a chance to go traveling together. Mom and Fabian can look after the triplets. I think it’s time for a second honeymoon.”

“I knew there was a reason I married you!” Veronica threw herself into her arms, laughing.

“I hope you don’t mind that Ada’s coming too,” Charles said. “We’ve been traveling together since we were kids. She loves to paint in exotic locations, but she’s not going to horn in on our time together.”

Veronica gave him a mock pout. “I suppose I can share all of Al Simhara with your sister.”

When Charles brought out his traveling knapsack to wait for the taxi to the airport, someone unexpected ran up to meet him.

 

“I’m not late am I?” Alberto asked.

“Um, late for what?” Charles asked, staring at him blankly.

“Ada told me to meet her here,” Alberto said. “She said she was going to take me traveling! I’ve been saving up to take a trip out of Sunset Valley forever!”

“She invited you?” Charles said, raising his eyebrows. “She didn’t tell me.”

“Yeah. I hope we’ll all get along great. Your wife should remember me. I stripped for her at her bachelorette party.”

Charles looked Alberto up and down. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

Then he sneezed. “Aaaahtchoo!”

“Bless you,” Charles said.

“Thanks,” Alberto said, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “Hey, there’s not much dust or mold in Egypt is there? I’m allergic.”

Charles sighed. “You’d better take that up with Ada,” he said.

Alberto couldn’t stop talking all the way to Egypt. Eventually, Charles and Veronica slipped to some empty seats in the back to leave him and Ada alone.

 

“This is amazing!” Alberto exclaimed when they made it to base camp. “This place just cries out for adventure!”

 

“And so much to paint!” Ada agreed.

Charles left them to make eyes at each other and slipped away to move their stuff into the tent. When he emerged, he was dressed to get grubby. “Ada, I was thinking you’d like to show Alberto around the area,” he said. “I have a tip for some an unexplored tomb in the area. Veronica and I could check it out.”

Veronica’s eyes glittered. “I’ve never been tomb raiding,” she said eagerly. “I bet there’s a lot of danger.”

“Can’t I come too?” Alberto pleaded. “You can’t imagine how long I’ve been dreaming of this kind of adventure. And you’re an oldtimer who can show me how it’s done!”

“Oldtimer, right,” Charles said levelly. “Well, Veronica and I are here on our first big getaway since we got married. You and Ada should go make your own romance.”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Ada said brightly. “I brought my easel to paint the pyramid. I’m sure Alberto will have a better time with you two.”

“Please?” Alberto said.

Veronica started laughing. “It’s ok,” she said. “Come along. Charles can make it up to me later.”

 

“This is so incredible,” Alberto gaped as Charles escorted his guests into the ruin. “Everything’s so old!”

“You have to know where to look for hidden switches,” Charles said, beginning to warm up to having an audience. Long ago, Grandad Lancelot had taught him the same things. “See these scrapes on the floor?” He took Veronica’s hand. “I’m going to bet that if we stand here –“

A rattling scraping sound echoed through the room. Charles gestured to the newly opened doorway. “You’ll find the way to the catacombs.”

 

“Me next!” Alberto chortled. Then he glanced to his side, “Wow, I guess that guy didn’t know about the scrapes on the floor, huh?”

 

“Treasure!” he dashed through the chamber door to open the chest within.

 

“Good for you!” Charles said. “We don’t have to look for any more hidden passages here. Job well done! Now, you can get back to Ada, Alberto.” Veronica snorted and put her hand over her mouth, eyes dancing. Charles winked at her as he floated by.

They emerged into the Egyptian sun. The next step was to find an antiquities dealer for the artifacts they’d uncovered. Alberto wasn’t nearly as excited about that prospect, so Charles and Veronica were able to disentangle and wander down to the bazaar together.

The dealer, however, treated Charles in the way to which he had long become accustomed.

 

He kept his meeting with her as short as possible and finished their dealing with a weary smile. The thing about people finding you repulsive was that you got a little extra bargaining power.

Veronica, however, stared silent daggers as they haggled. When Charles turned back to base camp, she took matters into her own hands.

 

“If my husband weren’t one of the most gracious men alive,” she hissed. “He would have ripped you a new one you rude little wench. Let me do it for him.”

 

The result was probably not an advance in ghost-human relations, but it at least made Veronica feel better.

 

Meanwhile, Ada didn’t set her easel up after all when the trio disappeared to treasure hunt. Instead, she had a long argument with her muse.

 

“What do you know about love?” she demanded. “The trouble with you is that you think you’re real.”

 

“I will not be talked to like that by a figment of my own imagination!”

 

“The trick,” she confided to the leprechaun looking over her shoulder, “is that you have let an uppity muse know who’s boss.”

Once Alberto was safely reunited with his girlfriend at base camp, Charles and Veronica slipped off to the tombs to do some more exploration of their own.

 

“Now THIS is more like it,” Charles said.

 

“Come on now,” Veronica said. “It’s time for you to make it up to me.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

And the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut saw a lot more action that night than she had seen in a very, very long time.

 

Ada and Alberto watched the sun go down together.

“I didn’t know they lit up the Pyramid,” Alberto said. “Ingenious.”

 

“You’re lit up like the Pyramid in my eyes,” Ada said. “Wait, my muse told me to say that. She’s really pretty stupid about love.”

Alberto chuckled. “I think I know what you mean. Thank you.”

 

“This part I thought about all on my own!” she said and got down on one knee.

 

“You’re kidding!” Alberto gasped. “You got me a ring! Hee! Hee! So romantic.”

 

Then he sobered. “Wait. You mean this is THE ring, don’t you? Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Please promise be my husband and from this day forward, promise to only take your clothes off for me.”

“Ada my love, this seems so totally backward and yet so wonderful. Nothing would make me happier than to take my clothes off just for you.”

 

Alberto pulled Ada into his arms.

 

And very quickly made good on his promise.

 

———-

Whee! Thought I’d never post again, didn’t you? I was starting to wonder myself.

Charles is back to adventuring. And wow, the animations that go with the “Talk to Self” insane interaction are just gold.

I finally came across a good shot of Veronica in her midlife crisis makeover. However, here it seemed more logical for her to change back to her simpler torn jeans look. So instead I put the shot back on the midlife crisis post: Here. Eventually we’ll see Veronica in her Eccentric scientist look in the plot, but it seems to be taking a silly amount of time with all the other plots going on.

0 thoughts on “4.35 Some Kind of Honeymoon

  1. Promise to take your clothes off just for me….. I almost DIED laughing! This chapter is nothing but awesome! The entire time I was waiting for the possibility to comment, because I wanted to tell you that Ada NEEDS to marry Alberto, he is so great for her. And then I saw that she thought so, too! 🙂
    I'm really glad you are back.I missed your posts and your crazy family!

  2. Woohoo! (And lots of it!) The Samples are back!

    I adore Ada and Alberto, and Charles and Veronica are very sweet together. Ada and her muse are wonderful (I too love the 'Talk to Self' animations) and the proposal was just spot on, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or 'aw'.

    Also, I love Veronica's new outfit. Is that CC? Where did you get it? It's gorgeous.

  3. Yay! A new chapter! I hope this means smooth sailing for you from now one.

    I love Ada and Alberto so much. They're just so cute! I'm glad that Ada proposed, apparently after talking it out with her muse.

    I also love how fiercely protective Veronica is. Charles is way too nice for his own good sometimes, I'm glad that Veronica is there to stand up for him.

    Also, Veronica's new outfit is great! It suits her.

  4. I'm so glad I made you laugh! I remember how shocked I was when Ada rolled Insane, but I have had more fun with her since then than I could have imagined.

    Alberto autonomously does all sorts of goofy things, and his EA-rolled clothes are pretty funny He had got to be the most inept stripper in Simland. Good thing he's changing jobs :).

  5. Thank you! That's just the effect I was going for :).

    Veronica's outfit is from the Boho Women's store collection. Almost everything Charles has worn since aging up comes from the men's one. I'd say that those are the best store items I ever bought. But, sadly, I guess, they're not free CC.

  6. Truth is that I haven't actually tried to play again yet. But I have a good feeling about it. (Knock on wood.)

    Veronica and Charles are the best sims pair I've gotten to write to date.

    As a technical note, Ada rolled a high-point wish to travel with Alberto since their first date outside the art museum. I kept it in her queue because it was so cute and so appropriate, since Alberto is Adventurous. In order to grant it, though, I had to add him to the household, and since there already were 8 in the household, I had to use Twallan's mods to do it. But that at least enabled her to propose to him, since otherwise you can't do that in an 8-person household.

  7. Yay!!! This is such an awesome chapter! Everyone else has already said everything that I thought as I read along. All I can add is el oh els that Charles thought to bring a tent along to…erm, "make it up to Veronica." 😉

  8. HALP SUSAN!

    My Mylipone family lag finally drove me nuts enough to try and move them to a new town…but reading through the advice that you gave to DragonWife, I'm fairly certain I didn't do it right. I'm looking at Twallan's FAQ, but I really need it dumbed down for me, and I know you have lots of Porter experience…sorry to clog up your comments with unrelated material, though. :-

    Here's what I did and what problems I had:

    -I packed, oh, I don't know, about seven files. I made sure to duplicate some members in each file to try and keep the relationships intact. I didn't pack more than seven sims into each file b/c the last time I tried this, it got all mad at me for having too many for a household (I DID pack way a lot that time, though…something like forty or fifty sims. >_<)

    -Then I started a new game in Moonlight Falls. The families I'd packed were all in the Bin, so I just started dropping them into empty houses. In some cases, I added some new houses to put them into.

    -I made my primary family my main household and opened them up…relationships NOT intact. 🙁 I used Master Controller to fix most of them, but there are some strange errors with the family tree (there are blank boxes that I can't get rid of that throw out errors). I never received any prompts to delete duplicate Sims, either.

    What did I do wrong?? 🙁

  9. Hey, part of my job (when I have one, which would not be now) is tech support. I'm happy to provide it when I can :).

    I have found a lot of Twallan's docco to be well-meaning but REALLY confusing. I screwed up using Porter the first time I tried too, and I have just recently spent a bunch of time on Twallan's forums trying to figure out how to get a ton of EA-generated role sims from mobbing my town, especially since EA generates them randomly, so they aren't metallic-skinned elves. The answer is almost always, "Twallan has a mod for that," but it's very hard to figure out which and how to set it up. The upside is that Twallan is way too professional to be doing this in his spare time, and I've gotten more and more comfortable with just asking him when I'm confused.

    At ANY rate.

    I THINK you unpacked your Porter files wrong. But I'm not clear if you created them correctly, so let me just run down how it's done:

    1. Make sure you have Twallan's Porter mod installed.

    2. Click a wall on your active house. Select the NRaas menu, then Porter, then Pack. (I think this is a fairly obscure place to put the menu, myself, since everything else is triggered from either City Hall, a sim, or a computer, but it's Twallan's judgement and not mine.)

    3. Select the households you are packing up from this menu. You can probably get away with ~20 sims in a Porter pack, but it's very dependent on how much memory your computer has. If you put too many sims into a Porter pack, it is not going to die gracefully. Your computer will hang or your game will crash. So it's not a bad idea to be conservative. (This is not Twallan's fault, btw. It's just that he's not equipped to judge what your computer can handle.)

    4. Porter packs appear in your family library with really strange overstuffed family portraits. The family name usually begins with NRaas:Porter:Name-you-assigned-the-pack. Or something like that that EA prevents you from actually assigning to a household name yourself.

    5. Do NOT just drop these families into your new town without going through Porter unpack. He is using the same file type EA uses for a household, but he has created overstuffed households that will not work normally with the game. (It also turns out, because I tried, that you can't "Share" or export these files either because EA pukes all over you.)

    6. Load your new town. Select an active family that is already in the town, or if it is empty, drop in a temporary normal household from your household library and set that family as your active family. This is very important because the game gets very confused if you try to unpack without a valid active family.

    7. Find an UNinhabited residential house. Click on a wall of that house. Selected NRaas->Porter->Unpack. Select one of your Porter pack files. Lather, rinse, repeat. You will be asked if you want it to handle duplicates. The answer is YES (or, I think, ACCEPT). Basically, it will unpack each sim that doesn't already exist in the town. If it sees that sim again, it will not create a new copy, but it WILL add in any relationships it finds between that sim and other sims in the same pack. That's why you want duplication.

    Usually, what I do is just save my active household to the library as a normal non-Porter household. Then I pack up a bunch of Porter packs that all include my active family. When I move to the new town, I drop the normal EA household into the town first, make it active, and then perform the unpacks. This ensures that my household inventory and funds don't get mixed up with anyone else.

    Did all THAT make sense?

  10. …..OHHHH…..I get it! I *definitely* unpacked them all wrong, which explains everything (well, hopefully explains everything…). Very smart idea to import a normal version of your main family; I'll try that as well…and this time, maybe I WON'T lose the rainbow gems I'd been hoarding in my family inventory. >_< Anyway, thanks so much for clearing things up for me! 😀

  11. Somehow, I have a feeling that Charles is not going to be entirely thrilled at the news that his sister is going to be marrying Alberto the stripper!!! I know a few Albertos in real life … the kind that have to fill every little silence. Don't they know that silence is golden?! Lol!!!

  12. I'm so glad I could help! It took me a few tries to figure it all out. I hope you were able to get your family into a new town. Are you planning to post any pics or put these guys up for download? I'm guessing that I could add ears to 'em and get some pretty fun genetics in my town.

    (Though, actually, Avalon is full at the moment. Heh. I thought it was going to be so hard to populate, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Of course, the first few families I created were kind of lame, so I could replace one… 🙂 )

  13. It worked, it worked!! Everyone seems to be doing fine in their new home in Moonlight Falls, all relationships intact, no weird blank spots in the family tree…and no more (well, significantly less) lag!! I even found my rainbow gems!

    I also took some pictures and got everyone ready for downloading; they should be up on Thursday evening sometime.

    Thanks again for your help; you're amazing!! 😀

  14. New chapter up, that's great news! Even though Alberto has an unusual past, I still love having him around and I think him and Ada will go great together! I found it super cute the way it was Ada who proposed to him, it`s so original and it`s nice to see some change. I found your subtle`sex jokes` quiet amusing and entertaining as well hehe!

    Great to have you back, hopefully you`ll update soon enough. As you can see you have lots of readers who enjoy your posts 🙂

  15. Hi there, I've been reading your blog this week, and it's wonderful!!! I was going to wait until I 'caught up' to comment, but I noticed something here I had to mention. That rude dealer that Veronica goes after to fuss at? I'm pretty certain that's a sim named Tahiya. I'm playing an Apocalypse challenge, and my founder meets Tahiya in Eygpt and marries her! It was really bizarre to see her in your shots, I didn't make the connection until Veronica chased after her, then I kinda went 'hey' really loudly (at 6am here, oops) and now I can't stop giggling at myself and at T being mean (one of her traits is Good). I literally have just made my WordPress account yesterday to start blogging, but once I have something there I'll give you a shout. Just wanted to share that with you!

  16. Wow, thanks! If you read the whole thing, you should get a medal or something!

    Ha! I love it when World Adventures sims enter the story. All Tahiya really did in my story was the "React to Ghost" freakout. I'm really curious to see what becomes of her in your story!

Leave a Reply