Tag Archive | ada

4.55 Enchanted Evening

Ada and Alberto Sample-Royale welcomed their son Tomas into the world with an after-the-fact baby shower.

“Don’t bring gifts, but wear your swimsuits!” Ada exclaimed on the phone. “It will be fun!”

“I didn’t think you had a pool,” Charles said.

“We don’t have a pool. Why would you think we had a pool?”

“Never mind.”

The party was in the evening, which seemed like an odd schedule for a baby.

“Isn’t it past Tomas’s bedtime?” Veronica asked in passing.

“Oh, he sleeps all day and is awake during the night.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Veronica said, remembering the difficult days when the triplets had been babies.

Ada looked puzzled. “Why are you sorry? Do you need to sleep too?”

Veronica smiled. Insanity aside, Ada and Alberto were both self-employed, so maybe the kid’s sleep schedule really didn’t bother them.

Tomas wiggled and gurgled and did adorable baby things on his play mat while everyone cooed at him.

The only one who wasn’t cooing was Jeremiah, who wasn’t pleased about loosing his place as Ada and Alberto’s baby.

It had been such a long time since Charles had held a baby. He dandled his nephew and reminisced about how delightful little ones were without a shred of irony. Parents are so forgetful about the baby stage.

Maybe all the sleep deprivation helps keep the long-term memories from forming. Probably better for everyone.

Once Tomas had gone to bed, Charles and Veronica found a good use for their swimwear.

Prom had rolled around, and Hunter still wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He had no date and no prospects of one, and the idea of standing around feeling self-conscious in a loud, dark room filled with other teenagers gave him shivers. But everyone talked about prom. Perhaps it would be better to go, even if he had a bad time, just so he wouldn’t regret it later.

But wow, it was a lot of people all in one place.

Then, while visiting the dog park with Enigma the morning before the dance, he found an unexpected answer.

Eliana Baerwyn, who was the class a year behind Hunter in school. She met his eyes from across the park, then dropped her gaze with a flush. It was like an electric shock ran through Hunter. He stumbled over a rock, a clump of grass, and a dog bowl trying to get closer to her.

“Hi,” he said. “You’re, um, here early.”

“I had to bring PJ back in time for me to get ready for prom.”

Hunter cringed inside. “So you’re going too?”

She nodded. “Weston Mentary asked me.” She sighed. Then she perked up. “Are you going? Maybe I’ll see you there!”

Hunter gulped. “Sure I’m going! I don’t have a date, but all kinds of people go stag.”

She beamed “I’m so glad.”

An hour passed while they talked about their dogs. Eliana glanced at her watch and gasped. “I have to go get ready!”

“Oh!” Hunter exclaimed. “Goodbye!”

“I’ll see you in a few hours!” Eliana cried as she dashed away.

Well that settled that. Now he had to come up with something to wear.

When he returned to the house, Sky and Forest’s dates were already there. Apparently everyone was going to change in the basement.

Leah was gushing with anticipation, but Ali was mostly quiet and distant. There was some kind of tension between her and Sky that he didn’t understand.

Then everyone scurried away to do their hair and makeup.

Veronica and Charles were thrilled to help Hunter dig up something that wouldn’t embarrass him at prom. It turned out that an old coat of Charles’s worked pretty well, and though Hunter carried more weigh than his father, you wouldn’t notice if he left it unfastened.

“You look dashing,” Veronica said. “My baby is growing up to be such a ladykiller!”

“Mom!”

Charles gave his son an elbow nudge. “She’s just teasing you. Have a good time.”

All right then. Showtime.

Well, Forest and Sky had a perfect evening.

For Hunter, it was pretty much the way he expected. It was dark, the music was loud, and he couldn’t work up the nerve to ask anyone to dance. Lots of them were there stag, but they weren’t the kind of people who usually talked to him.

Well, at least he’d never wonder if he’d missed the pinnacle of teenagerhood because he didn’t go.

As the dance let out, he was the first one out the door, and he hung around the schoolyard waiting for his lovestruck brother and sister to finish lingering over the last dance.

“Hey,” came a quiet voice.

“Eliana! I thought you’d be in there dancing with Weston.”

Eliana blushed. “Well, you know, it’s really loud in there. It really wasn’t my thing.”

Hunter was so wrapped up in talking to Eliana that he didn’t even notice when Forest and Sky emerged with their dates, waved to him, gave up, and headed home without him.

In fact, he didn’t notice till the curfew police showed up to round up the stragglers and drag them home.

Veronica was a tornado. “We helped you go to prom, and you get dropped off by the cops! This is the kind of thanks we get!”

“I’m so sorry,” Hunter begged. “I just got to talking to this girl, and I lost track of time…”

Veronica’s face lit up. “You were talking to a girl? Well, that’s different!”

“You’re a nut, Mom, but I love you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

Forest, Hunter, and Sky all dragged themselves to bed at dawn, then slept late the next morning with excited romantic dreams dancing through their heads.

———

And this, believe it or not, is the LAST POST for Generation 4.

I was starting to wonder if I was going to get to play prom. It ran on the last day before the triplets aged up, and some glitch canceled it, so I had to restore from a previous save and do a Reset Homeworld. Turns out that’s a very useful option buried in the NRaas menus on City Hall. I think it was under MasterController.

As it was, the crowd in front of the school was such that I could barely get all three through the door before prom was over. Speaking of the bad routing behavior in this game. I really hope they work on that in Sims 4. I pretty much had to choose who would get actual time at the dance, and Hunter lost out. He was only there for about 10 sim-minutes, but he got his picture.

I’d kind of hoped that the prom would pair Hunter up with someone, but as it turned out he had this lightning flash from the attraction system on the day of the dance anyway. Eliana is a 10 out of 10, and he finds her “Devastatingly attractive.”

The next post will be birthdays. Woo.

4.40 Will the Real Ada Please Say “I Do?”

When the news about Fabian reached Ada, Alberto never left her side.

 

Well, he never left her HOUSE anyway.

 

Whether this was a comfort to Ada was between her and Alberto, I guess.

(That’s Ada’s bed Alberto is sleeping in.)

Alberto, Charles, and Zahra all suggested to Ada that she postpone the wedding while her grief for her father was still fresh. But she shook her head. “Dead people are parents too,” she explained.

The ceremony was, of course, to be held at the Sunset Institute of Modern Art. “They’re opening a gallery for me,” Ada said in passing.

“They’re what?” Charles asked in astonishment.

“Oh, a gallery dedicated to my work. They’re letting me use the room for the ceremony before it opens.”

She said it as if it were no big deal. Perhaps her muse always knew she would be that successful. Charles rolled through a dozen different responses and just settled with, “Convenient, that.”

He and Sky were among the first to arrive, which wasn’t terribly surprising.

 

Followed by Jeannette Crumplebottom.

 

Garry Crumplebottom.

 

Charmaine Ursine-Langerak and Starr Ursine-Sample Andrews were both on their honeymoons. Charmaine sent affectionate regards. Starr hadn’t said anything. The younger Ursine-Sample kids were there, though.

Darrin.

 

Brenna.

 

Toya’s half-sister and foster-daughter (of all the weird combinations) Valerie Ursine.

 

And Latrice Hodgins, who claimed to be somebody’s date, though she never specified whose.

 

Shanni and Adjo stood back and watched three generations of Sample clan running about.

 

“It’s been a wild ride,” Shanni murmured to her twin. “And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.”

“Tell me about it!” Adjo agreed.

As if to make Adjo’s point, Toya waddled into the art museum.

 

“This baby’s going to pop out at any minute,” she said at the top of her lungs to be sure everyone could hear. “Can you believe it? At my age!”

Hunter cast about the rapidly-filling gallery. Something was definitely amiss. “Forest, where’s Grandma?”

 

“Huh?” Forest said. “I saw her before we left home.”

 

“Uh, oh….”

Indeed, Zahra had a flash of inventing inspiration as the family was loading up in the Motive Mobile, and she found herself unexpectedly delayed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time she got herself together, she found that in all the confusion, the rest of the family had left without her.

Back at the art gallery…

All eyes turned to the couple as they walked into the room.

Alberto hadn’t dressed up as much as you might expect, but at least most of his body was covered.

 

And then there was Ada. The room went silent as her family gaped.

 

Shanni had spent hours on the look. She called it her masterpiece.

 

“You have to look just right for that all eyes on you moment!” Ada’s aunt advised, and who would know better than she?

 

Ada glided into the room as if she were walking on air. She looked down the aisle at her husband-to-be, and something in her face fell.

 

“I’m so sorry!” she cried to nobody in particular. “I just can’t do it!”

“Ada!” Charles exclaimed. He tried to get across the room and to be close to his sister.

Ada had just lost her father, and she had not yet let herself express her grief. She’d always marched to the beat of a different drummer, to put it mildly. There was no telling what she might do now.

With a wordless snarl, Ada threw up her skirts and disappeared for a moment in a cloud of white satin and lace. The sound of tearing fabric filled the air.

Then the wedding gown hit the far wall with a fluffy thud. The jeweled tiara followed right after.

 

“Oh!” Ada sighed. “I feel so free.”

She turned to Shanni with a chagrined smile. “I tried. I really did. But it just isn’t me. I can’t start a wedding with a lie.”

 

She turned to her assembled friends and family. “This is who I am. We — my muse and I — need to do this our way, or not at all.”

 

She dashed up the aisle to a bewildered-looking Alberto. “Will you still marry me, weird and weirder, till death do we part?”

 

Alberto laughed. “Are you kidding? If I wanted a normal girl, I wouldn’t be here.” He walked to the wedding arch and waved for her to follow.

 

“She’s always been like this,” Toya whispered to Jeannette. “I hope it’s not genetic.”

 

Meanwhile….

Zahra didn’t feel safe in Veronica’s souped-up sports car, so she found herself driving Fabian’s creaky old patrol jalopy as fast as it would go into Sunset Valley downtown.

 

Some folks dashed away from the road as she dashed by. She wondered what they had to hide. (That’s good old Arvid Voss there.)

 

Just as Ada opened her mouth to begin the ceremony, Zahra came crashing into the gallery, yelling, “I made it!”

 

“Mom!” Ada cried, dashing away from Alberto to give her mother a hug. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Zahra panted. “The point is you’re going to get married with your parent here. Don’t let me slow you down.”

Ada giggled. “Here we go!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And they became Ada Lovelace and Alberto Sample-Royale.

“The house isn’t going to be the same without her in it,” Zahra said wistfully.

“Yeah,” Charles said.

 

“By the way,” Zahra said to Adjo as they waited in line for cake. “After all these years, you have to know what goes where by now. You’re having another kid to keep Toya out of trouble, aren’t you?”

 

Shanni chuckled as she walked by, humming, Ask me no questions. I’ll tell you no lies….

 

Adjo smiled back blandly. “Toya and I love being parents,” he said. “It’s not my fault that my wife loves motherhood more than she loves taking over the world.”

The reception ran late, but reluctantly guests drifted away to go home and sleep it off. A party couldn’t last forever, not even this one.

 

Soon the art museum was empty and the lights out.

Except for a few people who couldn’t quite let go of the moment.

 

We’ll miss you, Ada.

 

———-

So. Many. Pictures! I cannot believe I took so many pictures. I know I go progressively more nuts with each big extended family event, but I just can’t help it.

Up until I decked her out as a bride, I hadn’t realized just how beautiful Ada grew up to be.

Latrice Hodgins got glitched throwing confetti and was still tossing it when the whole household left and the lights went out….

I have to say that sim genetics were not kind to Latrice. I think the new lesson is, “Never make a baby with Xander Clavell.”

To my annoyance, it turns out that sims won’t sit on those sofas during the wedding routine.

I wish the portrait of Alberto had come out better. It would have made the last shot more poignant. Ah, well. Ada couldn’t get married immediately after returning from vacation because she’d wasted so much time getting a good portrait of Veronica (dude — the portrait generator does NOT handle dark skintones well) that she hadn’t quite finished up her writing skill. After Fabian died, Alberto became a “legitimate” member of the household, so I had Ada paint his portrait for the Pinstar point. It’ll only come into play if Ada and Alberto actually have kids, which — to my surprise — they haven’t done as of this writing.

Ada Lovelace Sample left the household with 130,000 lifetime happiness points. She completed the Illustrious Author Lifetime Wish.

4.38 All’s Fair in Love and News

Though the Samples never saw him, someone was spending more and more time around the school while the triplets were studying.

 

There were more stories to write about a bunch of hybrid ghost children, and Kirby Hawkins was determined to find them.

 

One afternoon, Hunter persuaded Forest to come the park to work on their homework together. Ada kept an eye on them as she finalize wedding plans.

 

When she looked up, she discovered she had some unexpected company.

“You don’t belong here,” Ada hissed.

 

Kirby smiled. “It’s a free country, and I”m here to keep information free. Do you care to go on the record with your thoughts on living with a bunch freak children?”

Ada looked up a the boys, who were completely unaware they were being watched.

 

“I don’t get it, and I’m not going to get it!” Hunter cried. “Can’t we just go home? I’m starving.”

 

“I’ll drive you back,” Ada called. “Just give me a second.”

“You suck,” she said to Kirby. “We’re going to keep you out. The kids deserve a normal life.”

“Normal like you?” Kirby asked.

“We’ll keep you out,” Ada said.

 

Kirby chuckled. The Samples had certainly thrown a lot of walls and technology at keeping him and his people out.

 

But they were really naive. All those defenses didn’t amount to much if you had someone on the inside.

 

You couldn’t escape the press.

 

———-

I’m not writing my best work right now, but I want to tell the story. So imagine this was a lot more menacing.

No matter what I did with this lot, I never was able to keep out the paparazzi. I think it’s because it’s a rocky lot set in the mountains, and I thought the two-storey-tall boulders and hundred-foot waterfall would serve as barriers. Apparently not.

Veronica got hit again with being disgraced for Woohooing with an Occult.

4.36 End of an Era

The rest of the vacation flew by with everyone separating and drawing back together in a comfortable rhythm.

Charles continued to explore, sometimes with Veronica and sometimes on his own.

 

He was glad nobody was there to see it when he tripped over the lightning trap.

 

He had a chance to clean up by the time he stumbled back to camp and passed the bruises off as an epic battle with the ghost of Queen Hatshepsut. Nobody believed him. Charles is a really terrible liar.

Ada and her muse reconciled, and she spent several days with her mind so filled with art that she barely slept.

 

Rutabagas of War, the sequel to Kiwis of Peace, was a 900-page epic written entirely in the snack shop at the Al Simhara Bazar.

 

“Wow, I’m hungry,” Ada mused during a rare break.

“We have all sorts of food here!” the shop girl crooned.

“Gee thanks!” Ada said. “Oh, don’t get up. I’ll help myself.”

 

Left to his own devices, Alberto spent his time offending other adventurers.

 

“You don’t find the hip thrust romantic? I swear it gets me the highest tips. Maybe it’s the thong that does it.”

Charles even got a little time to fish.

 

The mini crocodiles were in particular demand. He brought back a dozen for the local pet shop and paid for the entire vacation from just a few hours of fishing.

(Dude, do you have any idea how large crocodiles actually ARE?)

 

Back at camp, Ada and Veronica got into a freak out competition.

 

Veronica won.

 

She picked some kind of crushed bug up from the ground and ate it. Ada’s muse could never produce anything that upsetting.

 

And Alberto offended more travelers.

 

“You don’t think I’m sexy? Really? Could you explain why? In the interest of professional development, of course.”

The steady stream of rejection finally got to Alberto. Even without his promise to Ada, the writing was on the wall that he needed to find a new career. He found himself wandering and thinking, and he eventually found himself in a garden around a secluded oasis.

 

The plants made him feel something he’d never felt before. This was what he was meant to do.

“Ada!” he cried when he found her that evening. “Do you know how many different kinds of booze you can make with fruits? I can make my own! Why didn’t I think of this before?”

Veronica spent entirely too much time with the local fire pit.

 

Alberto spent a bit too much time adventuring in the local catacombs.

 

The end was the same.

 

Actually, in the end, neither Veronica turned out to be the freakiest vacationer in Al Simhara.

 

Both paled in comparison to one other.

 

Alberto might have lost his edge as an exotic dancer, but he was still quite the showman. He told the gang a ghost story one evening that even gave Charles nightmares.

 

As the vacation rolled to a close, Veronica and Alberto made a decision.

“We’re headed home early,” they told Ada and Charles at breakfast one morning. “This trip is really about you two, and we’re just tagging along.”

Charles was a aghast. “You’re never just a tagalong,” he told Veronica.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Veronica said. “Besides, when you get home, I’ll let you make it up to me.”

 

So they parted with an unexpectedly close new friendship to show for it.

 

Ada and Charles found themselves alone for their last night in Al Simhara.

 

“This is it, isn’t it?” Charles said as he watched his sister over the fire. “You’re going to get married and move out. This is the last time we’re going to take a trip like this together.”

Ada sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t think it can ever be the same. I’ll miss it. I’m looking forward to showing Alberto France, though. Their art museum is has the greatest hospitality.”

Charles opened his mouth to ask what she meant. Then he decided he he was just as happy not knowing.

They sat back and and drank in the stars on their last night alone on vacation together.

———-

This post doesn’t even have much content, but it took forever to write because life kept happening. October 12 was my 10th wedding anniversary, and the hubbie and I spent four days at a lake retreat with two other close couples and our daughter, and we renewed our vows. Then we had toxic lead paint removed from our house, which required us to crash at our friends’ place with a toddler for two days. Then we went to a wedding at Virginia Beach. I’m exhausted. But we are nailing our feet to the floor now. No more travel until after the new year AT LEAST.

Most of this is cute stuff the sims did autonomously. It was a very entertaining vacation.

I swear, every time I left Alberto to his own devices, he tried to flirt was a stranger, and it never worked out well. He also flirted autonomously with Veronica, who loved it, and neither Charles nor Ada gave a whit while they were on the lot. Sims are forever mysterious.

Alberto’s LTW is actually Bottomless Nectar Cellar, thus the booze remark :).

Since Wishacies taught me that I could get my sims to figure out how to fulfill their needs by clicking on the moodlet (I honestly did not know this), many more entertaining things happen for the most mundane of reasons. Which leads me to ask — should the snack shop REALLY have a working fridge? Isn’t that bad for business?

Apparently Daredevils are immune to fire naturally, and they have a Play with Fire interaction that entertains them and gives them the Adrenaline Rush moodlet. I need to do more with that. Daredevils appear to be the actual perfect firefighters, which I’ll keep in mind for any future child who rolls it. Oh, and Daredevils also have the Watch This interaction, which leads them to eat dirt and gross out another sim. That also gives them an Adrenaline Rush :).

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.

4.31 Crazy for Love

This time, it was Alberto who called on Ada. She jumped when the buzzer at the gate sounded. “Hey, it’s me!” came the familiar voice on the intercom. “I was, you know, just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by.”

 

Ada rushed to the gate, but hid behind the carport to catch her breath. When she emerged where he could see her, she had a stern expression. She eyed him critically as the gate slowly opened.

“We don’t have a neighborhood,” she said. “The closest subdivision is 20 minutes away.”

 

Alberto cringed. “You’re right,” he confessed. “It’s a line. I looked up your address and drove all the way out here in hopes that you’d be home. You’re not mad, are you? I thought, you know, we had something going the last time.”

 

Ada’s face lit up. “You thought up a pickup line just for me?” she said. “That’s so thoughtful! I picked you some flowers in our garden yesterday. I hope they’re not too wilted.”

 

“Wow!” Alberto said. “Nobody’s ever given me flowers. Usually it’s a thing I do for girls. Thank you!”

 

“It’s not too weird to give you flowers?” Ada asked anxiously. “I know I’m weird, and guys usually aren’t around when I call, or they won’t call me back. I don’t want you to do that. I really like you.”

 

Alberto chuckled. “Weird doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You make me laugh.”

They stood talking until dusk. “I have to get to work. Some girl has a bachelorette party tonight, and she wants me to be a barbarian in a loincloth.

Ada raised her eyebrows. “Too bad I don’t know her. I’d love to see that.”

“You know, next time you could invite me in. We don’t have to stand in the driveway all day. Not that I minded or anything.”

“Oh!” said Ada. “I’ll remember that next time! I hope next time is soon.”

 

The next night, she called again. “I hope it’s not too soon! I wanted to invite you over and let you in the gate this time.”

Alberto laughed on the other end of the phone. “Sure! I don’t have a job tonight. I’ll be right over.”

This time, when he buzzed the intercom, Ada chirped, “Come on in! The water’s fine!”

When he walked into the yard, he found her sitting in the hot tub.”

 

“This is a nice place,” he said. “You know you’re tubbing in a running jacket, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I think it’s more comfortable in the water than a swimsuit. Besides, I wore my swimsuit to Charles’s wedding.” Then she dropped her eyes and said nervously, “Would you like to join me?”

 

“I don’t really like to go hot tubbing in my clothes like you do,” Alberto said. And when her face fell, he added, “But I think I have a costume in the car that will do the job. So, um, give me a minute to change into something more comfortable.” He dashed away and came back surprisingly quickly.

 

They had fun splashing about for a while, and then Ada wrapped her arms around him, laughing. Alberto looked at her huskily and said, “Uh, how far were you thinking about going tonight?”

“I didn’t plan to go very far,” Ada said. “Not out of the yard anyway. Are you bored with the hottub?”

 

Alberto flushed. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Am I being too forward?”

“Too forward? No! I just wanted to know what you had in mind.”

Ada thought for a minute. “Well, this is what I’ve been thinking about all the time since we met at the Art Museum.” And she kissed him.

Then very quickly, one thing led to another.

 

“Yahoo!” Alberto gurgled.

 

 

“Whee!” Ada squealed.

 

 

 

They clung to each other afterward, flushed and breathless. Ada nuzzled close and breathed into his hair. “That was so much fun! Can we do it again?”

Alberto sighed contentedly. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I’m sure there’s nobody like you.”

———-

This hot tub gets a lot of action! The original event was lost in the missing pictures, which infuriated me. This is a recreation from much later in gameplay. And then it took so long to actually GET them to woohoo because of every possible distraction possible in the game that I quit without saving. I was NOT going to lose this moment between them!

4.29 Third Shift

The triplets were growing like weeds. Every time Veronica and Charles turned around, they seemed to have learned a word or a new skill.

 

Three toddlers were a lot of work, and that means a LOT of work. There was barely time for anyone to follow their personal lives. Zahra and Charles’s beloved garden became overgrown with weeds. Charles cancelled his classes at the dojo as often as he taught them.

 

Fabian at least made it his personal mission to make sure everyone was fed.

 

He spent most of his spare time cooking. It was nice to at least not have to worry about food.

 

Especially since Fabian had the least patience of the family. And with the way things were going at work, he didn’t always treat the adventures of parenthood with good grace.

 

Then every once in a while, in the middle of all the hard work and exhaustion, there was a golden moment where everything was quiet…

 

but those moments seldom lasted long enough for anyone to do anything about them.

 

There were new ideas to teach the children.

 

And new physical skills too.

 

And then there was potty training.

 

And potty training.

 

And did we mention potty training?

 

The lifestyle was hardest on Veronica. She often came home from a long shift gathering ghost specimens to jump right into child care. She subsisted on catnaps and stubbornness.

 

Charles would ask her over and over again if she needed a break. She’d smile and say, “Of course not! I’m fine!” And then in a heartbeat she’d become a raving, sobbing lunatic. During those times, Charles banished her to her room to get some sleep.

 

But all the hard work, long nights, and lost sleep were paying off. Day by day, the triplets were becoming their own people.

Hunter’s first word was, “Pretty.”

 

Forest’s was, “Color,” but he seemed to mean more by it, like he wanted to color the world to his liking.

 

Sky’s was, simply, “Art!”

 

There were lots of fun times too. There’s nothing that warms your heart like a happy toddler.

 

And those unexpected moments of silliness.

 

One day, Charles realized how independent they were becoming. The workload was lifting. They were getting some of their own back.

 

 

Charles began to walk with a spring in his step. This parenthood thing was hard, but he was schooled in the arts of zen and endurance. He would win, and it would be worth it.

 

That’s when Fabian got the call. “Shanni? Is that you? I can barely hear you. Are you crying?”

 

Shanni was at Sacred Speen Memorial Hospital. Agnes was rushed there in the night, but it was too late. She had passed on.

———-

Sorry to end on such a downer, but it had to happen sometime :(. I actually saw Agnes’s age on a Twallan menu, and she was 92.

I have a great picture of Fabian throwing a temper tantrum over being awakened by screaming kids, but I can’t find it. Not like it vanished, just that I didn’t get it into the right folder and haven’t been able to find it again in the mountains of pictures that I take. I may try once more tonight if I have some time :). EDIT: Found it!

I’ve really been blocking on this post too because I just dumped all the cute toddler pics into a big pile, but I couldn’t think of anything to say about them. So here were are — the toddler skilling redux. Dang, five adults pretty much did nothing but work, sleep, and skill toddlers, and Hunter still finishing potty training on the morning of his birthday!

Avalon Update: I am VERY close to moving the family over in current gameplay. I’ve downloaded all the families except the ones you let me know about in the last week-ish. Once I finish up playing in Sunset Valley, I’ll download the last, drop in the other sims I’m downloading and adding to round out the population, and to the final tweaks to the world. Then we cross our fingers and go.

I am about a bajillion posts behind, so the plan is that I’ll get my posting up to current while I’m finishing getting the world in order.

Yes to Simmentary, I love doing the town updates, and I hope they’re something fun and distinctive about this legacy. I definitely plan to do updates on the cross-pollination families. I think I will do a post with a quick introduction to the families so that you guys can follow along.

4.23 Voices

Somehow, three toddlers managed to consume all the free time of five adults. Ada started out just wanting to be supportive and active in the lives of her niece and nephews, and soon she found herself working with them every moment.

 

Her easel sat untouched for weeks with a half-finished painting. Her publisher sent her a dozen emails about her missed contract deadline, and she didn’t even open them.

She found herself far more engaged in conversations about poop.

 

When she had brief moments of quiet, her muse was silent. That was the frightening part. Taking a break from being creative was all right, wasn’t it? Just so long as it was there to go back to when things calmed down.

One day, after she had helped get the triplets up from their nap, Ada looked out the window of the nursery and wondered how long it had been since she had even taken a step out of the house. She wasn’t sure.

“The voices in my head stopped talking to me,” she said with a sigh. “I need to call them and find out what made them angry.”

 

She stared down at the cell phone in her hand and saw a phone number in the contact list that she’d never been brave enough to call: Alberto Royale.

“Levar and Jabari didn’t like weird girls like me,” she said. “If I call, maybe he won’t be home forever.”

She was just stir crazy enough to try anything. She made herself dial the number.

“Hello?” came the voice on the other end of the line. It had been long enough that she wasn’t even sure if it was Alberto’s voice.

What were you supposed to say to a guy on the phone? “I was wondering if a hot male stripper likes art,” she said nervously.

“Duude?” came the reply. “Wait, you’re the girl from the Sample bachelorette party? Ada?”

“There’s a new exhibit at the art museum,” Ada said. “It has nothing to do with baby poop.”

The voice on the other end was laughing. “That’s good enough for me! When do you want to meet?”

 

That evening, Ada headed to the art museum early. She tried out leaning against all the streetlights, the doorway, and the exterior sculptures to find the most decorative place to wait.

“Hey there!” she heard across the lawn. “I almost didn’t see you!”

Ada’s face lit up. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Why not? Isn’t this when we were supposed to meet?”

“When guys are supposed to meet me, sometimes they leave town or get married instead.”

“Dude,” Alberto said. “That’s heavy stuff.”

 

Ada looked him over. “I like your outfit,” she said. “Your hair is a lot longer than I expected.”

“They want me doing an act as a fantasy barbarian, so I grew it out,” Alberto said.

“I wasn’t sure if this was a dinner date, so I brought fruit from the garden just in case.”

Alberto took the offered fruit and turned it around in his hands. “Um, what is it?”

“A pomelo. Mom grows some weird stuff. My grandmother used to, but she’s dead now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

They stood in the light that streamed from the art museum windows and ate an impromptu picnic from the Sample garden. Alberto was delighted to see each fruit and vegetable, and he asked her all sorts of questions about how they were grown.

 

Then the last few art enthusiasts drifted out the doors, and the art museum went dark. Ada looked at her watch. “I have to get home to the babies,” she said.

Alberto looked up at the dark building and smiled. “We never got in to see the exhibit.”

“Maybe if we do this again, we can make it in the front door,” Ada suggested.

Alberto caught her hand and kissed the tips. “Absolutely. I want to see you again as soon as possible.”

Ada flushed. “I won’t look any different,” she said.

 

Ada flew home, her head filled with thoughts. She almost couldn’t make it to her desk before the words came tearing out onto whatever surface she could type them.

“The voices in my head weren’t mad at me at all!” she told Charles later in delight. “They were just bored.”

———-

Confession time: I had to recreate Alberto. He and Ada had this great meeting at the Veronica’s party, and they left with a high relationship. Then at some point the game wiped out and completely replaced the dancer sims. Argh! There isn’t a whole lot of variation in the appearance of these sims, so I loaded the one with the same hair and skintone into CAS using MasterController. changed his name and traits to match Alberto, and set their relationship back to what it was. I was pretty ticked off that the game annihilated Ada’s dream man.

I only knew three of Alberto’s traits from looking him up when Ada met him: Adventurous, Clumsy, and Flirty — a Clumsy exotic dancer! Ha! (I think Flirty is required.) I left the other two as whatever they had been before and picked a random LTW from the suggested list. Then when I saw the everyday outfit the game rolled for him, I could only be more sure he was made for Ada :).

I was able to scrounge up enough pictures for this, but they weren’t the ones I planned to use. For one thing, I got the Through the Spyglass furniture set and redid Ada’s room in it. The last picture should have been of her sitting at the Spyglass desk and chair, which are much more her style. There was also a forlorn spontaneous moment where she went and looked at her high school diploma that is also gone. I keep thinking if I went back to the right backup, I’d find them, but I just want to play the game for a while.

4.20 Strategic Retreat

The next few days were a blur of out-of-sync feeding schedules and catnaps in between. Everyone pitched in to help, but three infants was still a staggering amount of work.

Finally, a bit of a rhythm began to develop to life, and there were small segments of time to do something other than feed babies, cuddle babies, change babies, and sleep.

 

At which point, Veronica looked out the window to watch her parents-in-law and saw red.

 

She ran out of the house shrieking. “You crazy trespassing bastard! Get out of my house! Get off my lawn!”

The paparazzi was so taken by surprise that he dropped his camera and ran. Veronica ground the expensive equipment under her heel and glared at Fabian, Zahra, and a shocked Charles standing in the doorway.

“That’s it,” she said. “We’re moving.”

 

Nobody saw fit to protest. “It’s nice to be on the beach,” Charles said haltingly, “but this place is awfully close to downtown. It would be nice to live a bit closer to nature.”

“Close to nature we’ll have,” Veronica agreed. “Someplace nice, secluded, and private. Let’s go hunting.”

While Veronica and Charles looked for a new place to live, Fabian and Zahra picked up the slack. They scheduled movers and packed up the car in between baby feedings.

 

They really outdid themselves. 57 Waterfall Way was an old park that had been converted into private property. It was private, secluded, and breathtakingly beautiful while still within an acceptable drive of town.

 

The house itself was rustic and cozy.

 

With a few incredibly luxurious features.

 

And best of all, it was on the shores of a private lake stocked with fish.

With some of the most beautiful fishing views to be found anywhere.

 

There was a perfect nursery with space for three cribs.

 

A downstairs bedroom that would be perfect for Fabian and Zahra just as soon as Fabian took down all the decorations and replaced them with Ada’s paintings.

 

There was a cozy little bedroom with just enough space for Ada’s bed and writing desk.

 

And an upstairs master bedroom right next to the nursery with a back deck just the right size for Veronica’s chemistry gear.

 

“Thank you for rolling with me on this, Veronica told Charles as they retired, exhausted from the move.

“I think you could make it up to me,” Charles suggested with a raised eyebrow.

And she did.

 

Meanwhile, Zahra reinterred Cyclone’s ashes in the newly-relocated family graveyard.

 

“It’s time,” she confided in his headstone. “You’ve been sitting beside my bed for most of my adult life. I miss you. I hope there’s something for us to find in the Netherworld. But I’m ready for just the living to sleep inside my house.”

Veronica took breakfast at the new breakfast bar, gazing out over the beautiful scenery that was now theirs.”

 

“All right, you bastards,” she said under her breath. “This place is my castle. If you cross me here, you’ll regret it.”

———

The story timing was good, but the truth is that I got completely fed up with the English Country Estate. It was a lovely home, but it was clearly not well playtested and was filled with things that looked pretty but didn’t work. There were navigation issues in the house. Something was rotting in the kitchen/dining area that the maid never cleaned up and I couldn’t find, so whenever anyone walked into that area, they took something like a -40 hit for being in a disgusting environment. The stairs in the landscaped yard never worked — the sims would take forever to walk way around them on the grass.

And then the final blow was that I added the garden improperly to the concrete patio. The sprinklers dumped huge amounts of water onto the patio, and the water couldn’t be cleaned up due to routing issues. I wanted to add a fence around the garden to keep the water in, but you can’t put fencing on top of water puddles, and the water puddles couldn’t be cleaned up because of routing problems ARGH!

On the contrary, THIS house is the best house I have EVER played in the game, hands down.

Waterfall Way Estate.

It had a couple of weird minor issues, like the bathroom had no wall covering and gave an “unfinished” moodlet. That was easy to fix. And it had almost no lighting. But it’s very attractively decorated and has perfect routing. And it’s just a friggin gorgeous lot. It’s such a delight to play in that it is affecting my decision to move to Elfland soon. I think I may have to try to move the lot too, even though it doesn’t fit the style of the Harry Potter world very well. And I’ll lose the water fall because that is part of the worldscape. Ah, well.

In best news of all, I have gotten to play!

4.16 The Butler Did It

Charles came strolling into the house with a string of fresh caught fish to fry and was stunned at what he saw.

“Hello!” Ada called as she walked down the stairs. “I want to talk to you!”

Charles grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the office and out of sight. “Ada!” he hissed. “There’s a guy cooking in our kitchen!”

“I know, silly,” Ada said. “That’s Kirby Hawkins. He’s our butler.”

Charles blinked. “We have a butler?”

Ada beamed. “We do now! I called up the service and hired him yesterday.”

“Why on earth did you think we needed a butler?”

Ada shrugged. “They wear monocles, and monocles are really neat.”

So the Samples had a butler. It took some getting used to, but after a while even Charles had to admit that there were some advantages to having live-in help. Kirby eagerly learned recipes for Charles’s fish, and the house was always filled with the delicious scents of fresh gourmet food. The family had never eaten so well.

Fabian was a little put out, though. He loved to cook, and now there was no reason to.

After a while, though, the leftovers were piling up in the fridge. Kirby began stacking plates on top of plates. Food began to go bad.

“I think we really have enough to eat,” Charles said pointedly when he found Kirby in the kitchen making yet another delicious batch of poached salmon. “There’s water pooling up on the back deck. Would you, um, mind cleaning it up?”

“I’ll do that immediately, sir!” Kirby said, and he meant it. It dropped the platter of salmon on the counter and dashed out the door.

And he scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed.

The back deck was certainly a lot to clean, and it seemed like no sooner had Kirby made it spotless before the garden sprinklers came on and showered more water on it to mop up.

Kirby took to roaming around the back yard at all hours, muttering about cleaning supplies.

He stopped bothering to put on his suit and monocle, which disappointed Ada to no end.

One morning, Charles woke up to Veronica shaking him. Her face managed to look both delighted and terrified all at once.

“I couldn’t wait to tell you,” she said breathlessly. “I took the test, and it’s positive. We’re going to be parents!”

“Oh, wow,” Charles gasped. “I don’t know what to say. I think I need a drink. Would you like, um, a glass of water.”

Then he froze. “What is HE doing here?”

“Who?” Veronica said.

Charles stared across their bed at Kirby Hawkins.

He looked like he’d been sleeping in the back yard again, and Charles could smell him from across the room.

“What the heck were you doing?” Charles demanded. “Watching us sleep?”

Kirby gave him a twisted smile. “There’s water on the back deck again,” he said. “I have to mop it up.”

“You are one heck of a creepy bastard,” Charles said. “You’re fired! Get off my property or I’ll get you off!”

And that was the end of the Samples’ experiment with live-in help.

———-

Ada got a high-value wish to hire a butler, so I gave one a try. OK, I don’t see the point. He cooked about 4x the food the household actually needed and did very little cleaning, which we really did need. And there’s an interaction to ask the butler to cook, which I never needed to prompt him to do, but not one to ask him to clean!

Once he did do some cleaning, it’s like he never even tried to go back to his bedroom to sleep.

I wish I’d taken more pictures of him cooking, so there would be more photo continuity for the first part. But I had no idea how messed up he was going to get. I did include the closeup, though, because I thought his eyes were awesome.

At least ours didn’t set the house on fire like DragonWife’s. Charles tried to fire him, and it failed, just like it did for her. I had to use the Dismiss option, which worked.