Busman's Honeymoon...

(With apologies to Dorothy L. Sayers.)

My game is getting corrupted. I have already reset it by removing the .nhd files for all vacation worlds and the university, followed by Kuree's SaveCleaner on what was left of the save folder. This means of course that all tombs are reset and that Alexander will have to start over with his China adventure chain...

Alexander and Alexandra are in Egypt for their honeymoon. Of course they do the usual sharing-the-tent-and-making-it-fly thing. And they do quite a bit of stargazing.

But also, they both have work to do. Alexandra has a good camera now, but she really would like a book on photography as well.

She decides to read the book before doing anything else - at this stage photographs are pretty expensive, and she doesn't really need a lot of pictures of her thumb, or worse, of a magic gnome!!

While she's reading, Alexander checks the board for adventures.

He does a few small things, like finding lost relics and selling copper to the relics merchant and disarming a lot of traps in somebody's basement. That gets him up to level 1.

Pangu's Axe comes in quite handy:

After a few minor adventures, though, Alexander gets involved with MorcuCorp, and things get stickier.

He does manage to become a "hazmat Sim" by disarming ten traps, so now he has all the adventurer awards.
Unfortunately he didn't manage to find the relic he was looking for before it is time to go home. So he needs to return to Egypt in a few days to finish that adventure chain.


I didn't take too many pictures, but Alexandra did!! She got a lot of wishes regarding her photographs - taking black and white or sepia pictures of things, or vignettes, or just generally taking photographs worth a lot of money...
All in all she manages to scrape together a lot of LTR points, so that at the age of barely twenty she can buy herself a midlife crisis.

She changes her 'over-emotional' and 'unstable' traits to 'artistic' and 'photographer's eye' - which will not only help her with her career, but will probably make her a happier person altogether. Being unstable is really annoying!

Alexandra brings home about twenty photographs. She keeps the ones that are worth more than 100 Simoleons, and puts some of them up in the garage. She does sell the smaller ones. They are a pain to hang (they do shift, but you can't 'stack' them).

(There's one of the sphinx on he other wall, I forgot to move it over...)

The Fox Family: More Weddings

Susannah Fox gets a small make-over. She's an adult now, and might even become a grandparent soon, so she wants to look a bit more mature.

She also manages to paint something I hadn't seen before, which is quite a feat, considering how many painters I've had over the years.

The Fox family recently moved into an old barn - in the exact spot where Stacia McGoverns converted barn used to be. Only this particular barn is a bit larger. It's not quite big enough for five Sims, though.

However, Alexandra aged up recently, so that solves at least part of their problems. Since Alexandra has been dating Alexander Kim since they were very young, and they both have similar goals in life, it seems logical for them to get married. At least Alexandra thinks so, and it looks like Alexander agrees.

In the meantime, Carlton is developing an annoying habit of wanting to impress his family with his business propposals. Lynsay is sleeping in the bed behind him, but that doesn't stop him from calling his parents upstairs to listen to another rambling proposal...

The graduation gnomes seem to be impressed with his work - but I still made him sell that business planner, because it was starting to get ridiculous.

* * *

The next Saturday they have a wedding party, again at City Hall. Both couples get married, and Alexandra of course moves in with the Kim family.

Susannah's parents, Jonathan and Lucia, are at the weddings as well.

Alexandra moves in with the Kim family, but of course she stays to watch her brother marry Lynsay.

Susannah holds it together until Carlton says "I do". (Apparently marrying off Alexandra isn't as moving as losing her little boy?)

There was a party downstairs after the weddings, but somehow I accidentally deleted the few pictures I'd taken of it.

Christal Kim is bored with the wedding, though, and moves next door, to the playground.

* * *

The Kim family move house as well - in fact, they move to the old Fox house, so Alexandra finds herself back in the house she spent her teenage years in.

Alexandra wants to have a World Class Gallery of photographs from three different vacation countries, while Alexander wants to visit those same countries and get to Visa Level 3 in all three.

Alexander has a wish to go to Egypt, and Alexandra needs to read up on photography. She's been given Bianca Kim's old Hikon camera, which is a good start.

So next up: honeymoon in Al-Simhara.

More Moving: Bernard

The Bernard family had already moved. They now live on Caswell Farms, which I took out of the Pets version of Winchester - it's perfect for their horses and has just enough room for three Sims and a dog, too.

Although with a new basement, they can also comfortably fit in all the minor pets. And possibly, if they decide on another child, they could extend the basement a little. The lot is very large (40 x 20).

Raphael decides it's time to get married. He also decides to take Gina's last name Bernard. It's his second name change - his mother changed his name from Mendez to McGovern when it became clear that Pablo Mendez had no intention of supporting his son.

Now Raphael wants to prove to the town that he is NOT like his father. And what better way than to take on the name of his new wife and his son?

It's a very small, private wedding. They decide not to invite anyone and just get married in their new back yard.

Their son Pascal has aged up, too. Unfortunately for him, he looks a LOT like his father. (Both Raphael and his half-sister Lynsay Mendez look like Pablo, poor things. Those genes seem to be very strong!)

Their dog seems to have found a new chew toy... Hopefully that wasn't somebody's favourite running shoe!

The elder Bernard family moved, too. This was a hard decision - they really liked their house, but it was a bit small.

They now have a house with a basement, which is very convenient - now they each have their own separate floor to live on, and Yves finally has room for his easel indoors.

Yves and Harmony have taken the ground floor, while Ginny and Julien have moved their things downstairs.

Yves managed to achieve his LTW just before the move - he's now a Master of the Arts.

It's fun to move houses and families around and decide what goes where, but it's hard to find places for *all* the houses I like - so I guess some sacrifices will have to be made.

And it's only going to get worse when I get to the community lots...

Moving Around

This round is going to be dedicated to moving Sims around to proper homes. During the great Island Paradise tidal wave (i.e. when I finally decided to update the town to newer IPs, after much resistance) many families were evacuated with their own homes. These Old Winchester cottages took the place of many newer converted barns that the town council had planned.

It is now time to re-evaluate the living areas. Many of those 'cute' and 'charming' cottages 'for two Sims and a baby' are just too small for a town where generations live together in the same home as much as possible. Some families are too crowded, others are broke, living in houses that are too big for their income - courtesy of NRaas Income Tax.

The new town is going to be a mix of older and newer houses, but all houses are going to be from one version of Winchester or another... Just like most of the community lots.

* * *

The Retirement Home stays where it is.

And of course the Adams farm doesn't go anywhere either. Yue Xiulan is already training her grandson Benjamin to be a farmer one day.

Yue also decides to replant everything with better quality plants.

The farm looks very bare, and things seem to be growing back very unevenly... But the quality is so much nicer that I fear Sims will start stealing their produce to start their own gardens...

* * *

The third house on the hilltop is a barn that came with Old Winchester - to replace another barn in that spot.
Michael and Layla Adams live there, but they really need a slightly larger home. And they don't particularly like farming, so why live out on a field...

Gina Bernard and her family already moved, to a new house (Caswell Farms, from the Pets version of Winchester), freeing up a space on Deerfield Drive. The house that used to be there is still small, but with the basement and the more luxurious interior it seems much more suitable for a police officer and an actress.

So this is Michael and Layla's new home.

The garage is perfect for Michael's squad car. And with the addition of a treehouse, it's also perfect for the kids. The girls will still have to share a room, but they don't mind.
Nena is now grown up as well, so they can go to school together and do their homework together.

(Although from the looks of it, Nena is slightly annoyed at the way Nicola scatters her clothes on the bedroom floor when there's a perfectly good hamper in the corner!!)

* * *

Gwendolyn and Judith Adams moved in the opposite direction. Judith wanted to be near Sun Young, her sister-in-law, who was getting old (and who died a few days later, actually). And Gwendolyn wanted to stay near Judith.
So the hilltop barn was the perfect spot for her. She's an art forger so it's an added bonus that she can now do her painting where nobody is likely to see her.

The original barn was pulled out of storage and placed. And Gwendolyn then asked her friend Stacia McGovern to be her roommate and share the expenses.
Stacia could use a barn so her horses can have a roof over their heads, and Stacia's old barn is on the list to be replaced, too.

So everyone is happy with the new arrangements. Stacia immediately cluttered up the kitchen and the bathroom.

And the horses like the improvement, too. There's only room for one box stall, but both horses can be inside.

* * *

In the meantime, back at the big farm Roger is practicing his contortion skills.

And Lori Adams has a lucky break at work.

Since she was at level 9, this means a promotion to level 10 - and her Lifetime Wish accomplished!

Lori is now a Dynamic DNA Profiler. That's an unexpected bonus this round - she was only at around 30 percent of her job performance, and it's slow going.

RIP Victor Adams (and Russell Mendez, and Sun Young Adams)

Victor Adams was next to die of old age. He's the last of the Sims who still remembered the family's search for a new home - starting in Fort Sims, where his great-grandfather, David Adams, settled down with his wife and twin toddler sons.

Here he is, with his proud mother, Corey (Harrell) Adams:



And as a toddler, being held by his grandfather, Frederick.

He went to elementary school in Fort Sims:

Then the family moved to Mesa Valley, which was a deserted desert town at the time they moved in. There his little brother Brandon was born.

Victor ended up marrying a girl from Shang-Simla, Sun Young Kim. They had one child, a son named Chen.

Chen and his girlfriend Angelina never married, but they did have a son, Michael Adams. And they stayed together all their lives.

Soon after Michael's birth, the family moved to Winchester Island. The second time Victor was uprooted, and had to get used to a whole new town.

Michael grew up, and married Layla Lufti. Victor played the violin at their wedding. (By then he was a Hit Movie Composer).

Victor loved his two great-granddaughters, Nicola and Nena. They were a comfort to him and his wife Sun Young after they lost Chen and Angelina in quick succession.

After Chen's death he managed to persuade Angelina to let all the elderly in town who wished it live in their enormous house. After Angelina's death soon after, the house became known as the Chen Adams Retirement Home. It is there that Victor died, surrounded by his extended family.

So all in all, Victor had a full life, and he will be remembered by many. His grandson Michael petitioned to rename the retirement home after Victor - since it was Victor's idea - and Chen didn't do anything except die from greed (transmuting one too many apples to gold).
So Victor Adams Retirement Home it is now. :)

* * *

Fittingly, Victor was the first to be buried in the new churchyard, next to the new church. His ghost came to check it out when his friend Russell Mendez was buried there a few days after his own death...

Sun Young died soon afterwards, making Regina and Harmony the eldest citizens of Winchester.