Roper - Introduction & Backstory

The Ropers are part of the TSR The Most Excellent Education challenge. Skip Roper is the target sim for it, and the objectives involve various achievements during his education from child up until he graduates from college. I have played them for a little while so far, but so far have only completed the requirement that he get an A+ report card, so there is still a lot left to go for them. But first, let me introduce you to them.

Woody Roper
Aspiration: Family
LTW: Become Education Minister
Hobby: Unknown
Zodiac: Aries
Turn Ons: Glasses, Great Cook
Turn Off: Fatness
Personality: 5 Neat, 8 Outgoing, 6 Active, 3 Playful, 3 Nice
Badges: None

Daphne Roper
Aspiration: Family
LTW: Graduate 3 Children from College
Hobby: Arts & Crafts
Zodiac: Aquarius
Turn Ons: Swimwear, Logical
Turn Off: Hats
Personality: 6 Neat, 2 Outgoing, 4 Active, 7 Playful, 6 Nice
Badges: None

Skip Roper
Aspiration: Grow Up
LTW: N/A
Hobby: Unknown
Zodiac: Virgo
Turn Ons: N/A
Turn Off: N/A
Personality: 9 Neat, 1 Outgoing, 9 Active, 1 Playful, 5 Nice
Badges: None

Skip starts out as a child in this challenge, and I haven't yet played them long enough for him to transition up to teen. He's only a day away though, so he'll grow up the next time I play them. So far things have been pretty much the normal childhood routine for him of going to school, doing homework, and painting or playing with friends to have fun in between. He has gotten his grades up to A+ so far and I'll have to make sure he keeps them that way. Shouldn't be too difficult.

One of the first things I did with Woody, besides giving him a makeover, was to have him switch careers to the Education field to work toward his LTW. As with Skip, things have been pretty much just the normal routine of going to work and skilling to get promotions, interspersed with spending some time with his family and starting to make a few friends. He's gotten a promotion or two so far and is currently up to Elementary School Teacher. The salary raises and bonus money have been much needed by them so far to expand their house to allow for a larger family

Daphne so far has been unemployed, and has been spending her time keeping the house clean, making friends to help Woody with his career, and sewing to work on her hobby enthusiasm. She's also been studying Cooking to raise her skill to improve the chemistry between her and Woody. In order to make her LTW possible, I had them Try for Baby, and she conceived. She's currently still pregnant, and due to give birth within a day or so once I play them again. They'll need to have at least one more child after this one, assuming she doesn't have twins (or more) this time.

Here's a look at how things stand on their lot currently

I plan to play their lot next and work on finishing the challenge. Stay tuned for an update or updates on their story, hopefully in the near future.

Druff Estate - Introduction & Backstory

The Druff house is an offshoot of the Wieser household, and most of their story to date is told there. This post will follow up with the Druffs on their new lot as they start their own household separate from Bud Wieser's. I didn't play them for very long after moving them to their new house, but there is still a little more of their story left to tell. But first, a recap of the residents here.

Dan Druff
Aspiration: Knowledge/Family
LTW: Become Chief of Staff; Become Mad Scientist
Hobby: Sports
Zodiac: Gemini
Turn Ons: Fitness, Vampirism
Turn Off: Fatness
Personality: 4 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 8 Active, 3 Playful, 3 Nice
Badges: Silver Fishing

Misty (Cupp) Druff
Aspiration: Knowledge
LTW: Become City Planner
Hobby: Sports
Zodiac: Gemini
Turn Ons: Fitness, Vampirism
Turn Off: Fatness
Personality: 4 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 8 Active, 3 Playful, 3 Nice
Badges: None

Nathan Druff
Aspiration: Pleasure
LTW: Become Game Designer
Hobby: Fitness
Zodiac: Gemini
Turn Ons: Creative, Good at Cleaning
Turn Off: Makeup
Personality: 2 Neat, 10 Outgoing, 10 Active, 6 Playful, 7 Nice
Badges: None

Neville Druff
Aspiration: Grow Up
LTW: N/A
Hobby: Fitness
Zodiac: Scorpio
Turn Ons: N/A
Turn Off: N/A
Personality: 10 Neat, 8 Outgoing, 10 Active, 4 Playful, 3 Nice
Badges: None

Norris Druff
Aspiration: Grow Up
LTW: N/A
Hobby: Games
Zodiac: Sagittarius
Turn Ons: N/A
Turn Off: N/A
Personality: 4 Neat, 2 Outgoing, 8 Active, 10 Playful, 3 Nice
Badges: None

After Misty had been eaten by her cowplant a second time, Dan decided enough was enough. There was a newly renovated old Victorianesque house around the corner that was up for sale, so he quickly purchased it, packed up himself and his 3 sons and moved them there, leaving Misty's grave and her cowplant behind. He didn't want to risk losing any of his sons to the nasty thing as well.

Meanwhile, back at the Wieser house, Bud decided that it was worth bringing Misty back from the dead once more so that his friend Dan's family could be complete. He made the call, but this time when Misty came back, she had no memory of Dan whatsoever. She did remember her children, however, and when one of them called she eagerly accepted the invitation to come over to their new house as she was anxious to see them again. She was at first puzzled about who the man was they were living with, but once he began talking to her and took her into his arms to give her a kiss, it all came flooding back. She happily accepted his invitation to move in with them. And so, the family was once again whole.

Shortly after moving, their oldest son Nathan had his transition to teen, followed a few days later by their son Norris transitioning to toddler. They decided that it was time to see if they could get Nathan and Neville into private school, and so they called up the headmaster and invited him over for dinner. Things with the dinner went rough for awhile*, but in the end the headmaster agreed to accept the boys into his school and told them that they could start the next day.

* Actually, it took me about 4 attempts at the headmaster scenario, leaving without saving in between each one, before I could get it to work. Each time I kept either being glitchy, or I simply messed up on it since I hadn't attempted it for a long time and had forgotten how to do it all. In the first attempt, Norris wanted to transition to toddler right in the middle of it, which distracted everyone from what they were doing with the headmaster. And from there it was just a disaster. They were rejected and Misty promptly went into aspiration failure since, as a Knowledge sim, she had a fear of her sons being rejected. Dan was already permaplat by this point from achieving his LTW, so it didn't affect him so much. For the second attempt, I had Nathan grow Norris up ahead of time and then kept Norris busy playing with one of his toys up in the nursery, flagrantly cheating his needs up to max so no one would get worried about him being hungry or anything and interrupt what they were doing with the headmaster. I'd planned for Dan to make a sparkly fish dish for dinner, but the butler had made hamburgers before then and everyone had filled up on those. Traffic in the smallish kitchen got jammed up, I had to keep fighting everyone to keep them on task, and again, it was a disaster. Third try, I turned free will off temporarily so they wouldn't keep trying to wander off on their own. I cheated motives up to max ahead of time to keep the butler from preparing a meal that wasn't on the agenda, then pulled them back down when it was time for dinner so they'd eat and not end up fat. But again, I couldn't figure out why the headmaster wouldn't come when I used the "Call to Dinner...Guests" on the plate of fish. Eventually I figured out I had to use the "Entertain...Call to dinner" option instead to get him to sit down, but by the time I did, time had pretty much run out and it failed again. So, exit, try again with free will still turned off for the lot. And the 4th time was a charm. Tour went great, as it had all of the previous times pretty much since I gave them a pretty nicely furnished house, I got him to come to dinner alright and it got high points on the scenario. In fact, between the tour and the dinner of sparkly fish it scored something like 101/90, and the scenario ended in a success well ahead of the time limit. I'll have to practice with this some more in other households so I can get the hang of it better. I think that dismissing the butler early that day, if there is one, might help, since he seemed to just get in the way. I'll also not attempt it on a day that someone in the house is due to have a birthday, especially if it's a baby that requires help to grow up.

I left off playing this house after the headmaster scenario had finished and they'd been accepted. Before I close this post, however, here are a few more pics of them:

Norris as a toddler playing with his xylophone

A screenshot of the lot info on the neighborhood screen the way it looks currently

Wieser-Druff - Introduction & Backstory

After playing the Ball lot and all that happened there, I decided I should probably go ahead and play the Wieser lot and do their challenge before any of them got any more tangled up in the lives of the others in the neighborhood. The challenge for this lot was The Supernatural Challenge which focuses on Bud Wieser, and involves his friends Dan Druff, Misty Cupp, and Luke Warm. When you first load the lot, Bud, Misty and Dan are there, and Luke is a tombstone on the front lawn. Along the way they get to experience zombies, vampires, a cowplant and aliens. Before I get started on their story, let's meet them.

	Bud Wieser Aspiration: Knowledge LTW: Become Education Minister Zodiac: Leo Hobby: Music & Dance Turn Ons: Vampirism, Black Hair Turn Off: Fatness Personality: 10 Neat, 10 Outgoing, 0 Active, 0 Playful, 5 Nice Badges: None
	Dan Druff Aspiration: Knowledge/Family LTW: Become Chief of Staff (achieved!) New LTW: Become Mad Scientist Zodiac: Gemini Hobby: Sports Turn Ons: Fitness, Vampirism Turn Off: Fatness Personality: 4 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 8 Active, 3 Playful, 3 Nice Badges: Fishing - Silver
	Misty Cupp Druff Aspiration: Knowledge LTW: Become City Planner Zodiac: Gemini Hobby: Sports Turn Ons: Fitness, Vampirism Turn Off: Fatness Personality: 4 Neat, 7 Outgoing, 8 Active, 3 Playful, 3 Nice Badges: None

Notice that Misty is labeled as being Misty Druff on her picture? Well, that's because almost as soon as I'd started playing the lot after renovating and furnishing the house, ACR got ahold of her and Dan, and before I knew it they were in bed and I heard chimes. This immediately threw a bit of a kink in the plan I'd had to have Dan move in with Crystal to help raise their triplets once I'd finished this challenge. Misty was slated to get eaten by a cowplant at some point to satisfy the requirements of the challenge, so a relationship between them at this point didn't really matter, but for Dan to move in with Crystal, he'd have had to leave his child with Misty behind, and I'd hate to split up a parent and child like that. But I went along with it and figured I'd sort it out later. Then - and this is where I messed up and made the challenge uncompletable with the original sims, more on that later - I decided that if Dan was going to have a kid with Misty, I wanted it to have his name, so I had them get married. Just an informal exchange of rings, nothing fancy. A few days later, Misty gave birth to their son Nathan. He grew to child while they were still on the lot, though was close to becoming a teen by the time they moved. Here's a look at how he progressed - I'll introduce you to him more completely in a future post.

Meanwhile, all of them got jobs. Bud got a job in the Paranormal field to start working toward the grim phone reward that he would need to resurrect Luke as part of the challenge, as well as a position as UFO Investigator which was another requirement for him. Misty got a job in the Natural Science field to start working toward getting the cowplant that would cause her ultimate demise. She of course didn't get to start right away due to her pregnancy. Dan had no particular career requirements for the challenge, so I got him a job in the Medical field to work toward his LTW. Once Nathan was born, their work schedules were all spread out such that there was always someone home, so a nanny was never needed for him. Misty hadn't been back at work very long when thanks to ACR, she got pregnant again, thus further complicating the plan to have Dan move in with Crystal when this was all done. At least she was getting plenty of time to work on her skills so she'd be all set for promotions while she was on maternity leave. Shortly after Nathan had transitioned to toddler, she gave birth to their second son, Neville. By the time they moved, he'd become a child. Here's a look at how he progressed - as with Nathan, I'll introduce you to him better in a future post.

While Misty and Dan were busy filling the house with babies, Bud was working on his skills and friendships to get promotions. By the time Neville was born, or shortly thereafter, he had gotten the promotions he needed to unlock the grim phone reward. He collected his reward, set it up in the study, and made the phone call to the Grim Reaper to bring Luke back to life. Since the challenge required that Luke be resurrected as a zombie, however, he didn't pay very much even though they could have afforded it. And with that, I had my first ever zombie, with the typical zombie personality.

Luke Warm Aspiration: Knowledge LTW: Max out 7 Skills Zodiac: Leo Hobby: Games (maxed) Turn Ons: Underwear, Vampirism Turn Off: Fatness Personality: 0 Neat, 4 Outgoing, 2 Active, 1 Playful, 0 Nice Badges: None

I wasn't sure what to expect with Luke the Zombie, but I found out they're not really all that bad. His needs were all near critical at first, of course, though it didn't take all that long to get him into better shape. I learned that his needs, some of them at least, deplete a lot faster than normal sims, so he takes a bit more maintenance. He also reminded me pretty quickly of why I don't let very sloppy sims take a shower - they can't seem to do so without flooding the bathroom and making a huge mess that they whine about when you make them clean it up. Luckily I'd also put a bathtub in the house, so most of the time I can direct him to use that instead of the shower. Overall, however, he made a pretty good addition to the household. I didn't make him get a job, so he was always at home to serve as a live-in nanny of sorts for Nathan and Neville. He did pretty good at it too, and at times I think he was doing more for the kids than their parents were. When he wasn't taking care of the kids, he spent most of his time playing chess to work on his Logic skills and to cater to his love of Games.

Once he'd resurrected Luke, Bud got to work on one of the next requirements of the challenge and went downtown to try to meet a vampire. He got lucky, and was able to meet Contessa Angel Tellerman and get to know her fairly well.

He didn't immediately work their relationship up high enough for her to bite him, but he continued to call her and work on the friendship. In due time, they were best friends, and one night when he was off work, he invited her over. Prior to this, however, I'd had him call up the gypsy woman and have her come over so he could buy a few bottles of the vampire cure potion. He gave one to Dan as a gift, to give his relationship with him an extra boost and so Dan would have one in his inventory, then kept the other two. Once they were both set up to be able to change themselves back quickly after being bitten, I had Bud invite Contessa Angel over. Within minutes of her arrival and Bud greeting her she was working her spell on Bud and then bending him over to have a drink. Bud was thrilled to become a vampire, and immediately went inside to nibble on Dan. Then, once Dan had turned, I had both of them chug their potions. And voila, three of the challenge requirements met within a couple sim hours. Bud pretty much ignored Contessa Angel after this - eventually she either left on her own with dawn came, or he said goodbye to her, I forget which it was. Since she'd served her purpose, and their chemistry wasn't really high enough for her to be a good romantic match for him, I didn't make any direct efforts for him to stay in contact with her after that.

Next on the agenda for Bud was for him to get abducted by aliens. This is where the Freetime aspiration rewards came in handy - with the Summon Aliens ability he got from the Knowledge line, he had no real trouble getting himself abducted. I did learn that the ability only really works at night, however. When I sent him to the telescope to Summon Aliens during the daytime, he just stood there swinging it back and forth and up, and murmuring something along the lines of "Here alien, alien, alien" but nothing ever happened. When I sent him to do it after dark, he got abducted almost immediately. And soon, baby number 3 for the household was on the way. Luckily Nathan had aged up to child by this point, or was close to it, so I didn't have to get any extra cribs, not that buying one would have been a problem for them. A few days later, Bud gave birth to his son Castor who by the time I finished with this lot had aged up to toddler.

Castor Wieser Zodiac: Aries Hobby: Music & Dance Personality: 8 Neat, 10 Outgoing, 5 Active, 1 Playful, 10 Nice

Now, the only thing left for Bud to achieve for the challenge was to Drink Misty Cupp. Misty eventually had managed to stop being pregnant long enough to go to work and get a few promotions while everything else was going on in the house, and so not to long after this she was able to get the cowplant reward. For reasons I don't quite remember now, I didn't feed her to it immediately upon getting it, though I did within a few days. Her husband and kids were understandably devastated. But, not to worry, we have a grim phone in the house, and we have lots of money now, so we can get her back easily and as good as new. I had by this point given up on the idea of moving Dan in with Crystal and had decided instead to have the Druffs move out to their own place once the challenge was finished. So, once Bud had gone out to drink Misty from the cowplant, I had him resurrect her. He paid top dollar this time, so she came back perfectly. And as a bit of a surprise, she was still married to Dan. Nothing had changed with any of her relationships that I could tell. Not sure why this was, but I'm guessing it had to do with how quickly she was resurrected - it was within sim hours of her death. At this point I thought I was done with the challenge. I exited the game and ran the challenge wizard to be sure though before moving the Druffs out, and...I wasn't. It hadn't registered that he had Drunk Misty Cupp. Hrm. I went back into the game to check his memories, thinking maybe resurrecting her so soon somehow negated it, but no, he still had a memory of "Drank Misty". Huh. Well, we'll try again.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try again right away, because just after Misty had been brought back to life, ACR had its way with her and Dan again and she once again was pregnant. Quite the fertile woman is Misty. This forced me to wait until she'd had her baby, since while I was perfectly willing to kill her again for the good of the challenge, I wasn't willing to kill the baby as well. So, I waited, and a few days later she gave birth to her third son, Norris. Then, almost immediately after she'd given birth to him, I sent her back out to the cowplant. It gobbled her up, then I sent Bud out to milk it and drink her. I checked his memories, and now he had two "Drank Misty" memories in his panel. This time I held off on resurrecting her and exited to check it with the wizard to see if it had completed. It hadn't. Still didn't register a completion for the "Drink Misty Cupp" requirement. *sigh* So, all I can think of at this point is that there must be something in the code that knows he drank Misty Druff, not Misty Cupp, even though the memory just says Misty with no last name, and it must be making a difference to the challenge wizard being able to recognize it as completed. So...while I could have just called it finished at this point, I wanted it to get officially marked off as completed, so I decided that I'd just have to create another Misty Cupp to feed to the cowplant, which I did. Here she is:

Misty Cupp Aspiration: Knowledge LTW: Become Head of SCIA Zodiac: Cancer Hobby: Science Turn Ons: Blond Hair, Logical Turn Off: Cologne Personality: 6 Neat, 5 Outgoing, 5 Active, 4 Playful, 5 Nice Badges: None

I did goof a little though, and moved her onto the lot before I'd resurrected the original Misty again, and once I had, the lot was full and it wouldn't let me resurrect her. So I had to have Dan go ahead and move out with his boys to the house I'd already gotten ready for them. Once they had gone, I was able to resurrect Misty Druff with no problems. This time, however, she came back unmarried, and she didn't even know Dan at all now. He was missing completely from her relationships window. She still knew all of her children though, and her relationships with them were unchanged, even baby Norris who she'd only just given birth to when she died. Her not knowing Dan was bothersome, but I figured I could fix it easily enough by having one of the boys invite her over once I'd finished with things in the Wieser house.

Now that I had the original Misty Cupp, who was now Misty Druff, back and mostly ready to go and start a new life with Dan once I got the relationship issues straightened out, it was time for the new Misty Cupp to meet the cowplant. Like a trooper, she went marching right out to its pen at my command and soon she was a tombstone by its pot. I sent Bud out to have his 3rd drink of cowplant juice, checked the memories to make sure "Drank Misty" was there for a 3rd time, and exited. And, hooray! it worked. The challenge was now complete, and I was free to go follow the Druffs to their new house and work on getting their family back together. Stay tuned for a follow up report on them in the next post. For now, I'll end this post with a look at how things stand with the Wieser lot currently:

Future plans for the Wieser household involve getting Bud and the new Misty Cupp together as a couple. Perhaps they'll have some kids together so Castor won't be an only child. I'll most likely keep Luke with them in the house. Always nice having a live-in nanny for the kids. And might be kind of cool seeing him get to know subsequent generations of Wiesers without ever changing himself.

Ball - Introduction and Backstory

After finishing Sue Shi's challenge, I decided to give the Chewy Ball: Stunt Double challenge a try. The target for this challenge is a dog, Chewy Ball, who lives with Crystal Ball. The objectives involve getting him getting him a pet job in the Showbiz career and getting him promoted to Stunt Double as well as teaching him a few specific learned behaviors. I had tried pets a little bit after the Pets expansion came out, but hadn't really done anything with them since then, so I thought I'd give them another try. Before I get into their story, let me introduce you to them.

Crystal Ball Aspiration: Knowledge LTW: Max out 7 Skills Zodiac: Aries Hobby: Sports Turn Ons: Fitness, Swim Wear Turn Off: Stink Personality: 5 Neat, 6 Outgoing, 6 Active, 5 Playful, 3 Nice Badges: Gardening - Gold

Things were easy enough on this lot for awhile. Crystal didn't have any trouble finding a job for Chewy in the showbiz career, and since she didn't work herself, and had plenty of money for the time being, she had plenty of time to teach him the commands he needed for promotions and to train him in learned behaviors. Once he had achieved the top of his career, which didn't take very long, I decided to try out having some puppies while I was working on finishing his other training, so I had Crystal call the pet adoption agency and adopt Lulu to be a mate for Chewy.

Chewy and Lulu got along well, and within only a day or two I was able to send them to the doghouse to make some puppies. When Lulu gave birth, she had 3 puppies: Dewey (female), Huey (male) and Luey (male). Here's a look at their personalities:

Things in the house got interesting in a hurry with 2 dogs and 3 puppies to keep up with. It was around this time that I built the first expansion to the house to create a bigger room just for the dog bowls and some chew bones behind the kitchen, since it quickly became apparent I was going to need to have several bowls to make sure there was always one filled and available when dog or puppy got hungry. Housebreaking was a very hit or miss affair, mostly miss, as I didn't always see the "accident" occurring to know which one did it and scold them for it to try to get them all trained to go outside. In fact, by the time I finished playing this lot I still hadn't gotten them all fully housebroken, though they were doing a lot better by that point. Here's a group collage of all the dogs after the puppies had all grown to adult. I should note that all of the pups grew up looking exactly like Chewy, so I eventually had to change their appearances and add markings to them so I could tell them apart. I tried to stay with colorations that would be reasonable given the parents though.

It was around this time, when the puppies were still puppies, that I decided that Crystal could probably use some sim companionship too instead of only having the dogs for company. Since she didn't have a lot of time or energy to go out looking for someone, I decided I'd take the quick route and had her call the matchmaker for a blind date. I was hoping to get someone who'd be a good husband for her, but instead the gypsy set her up with Dan Druff who was already part of another challenge I had yet to do and so could not be moved away from the lot he was on. I'll be telling you more about him soon in another post, but for now, here's a quick look at him:

Crystal has a 2 bolt attraction for Dan, so their date went well. They got along so well that it wasn't long before ACR was taking hold of them and sending them to the bedroom where fireworks were seen...and chimes were heard. A few days later, Crystal went into labor, and I chose the "random babies" option on the Triplets & Quads screen. Up comes the screen that told me that TWO new babies were on the way. Ouch, twins...well, ok, we can handle this. Crystal proceeds to have the babies, delivering the first, setting it on the floor and holding her belly before spinning and delivering the second. But then, instead of the name choosing screen coming up, she proceeds to put that baby on the floor. Um, what? Oh no. Yep. Moments later she's giving birth to baby number 3, and I'm just praying she doesn't immediately lay that one down. Thankfully she didn't. All of the puppies had grown up to adult in the meantime, so I now have 5 dogs, triplet infant girls and one adult sim on the lot. Let the fun begin.

One of the first things I did after adding more cribs to the nursery I'd built, was to call a nanny over to help with the babies. For the first day or two I kept a nanny there almost around the clock to help out, or to mostly leave the baby-care to them, but there were periods where one nanny's shift would end and it would take me a bit to get another one called over. After a couple days of this, however, I decided to give it a go to see if Crystal could manage on her own, and it turned out she could. Once the girls all grew up to toddler it got a little bit easier...and a little bit crazier. With all the dogs in the house, there was always dog food down at least that the girls could eat if they were really hungry, though I did my best to keep them fed with bottles and smart milk instead of leaving them to eat kibble all the time. There were also plenty of pet beds around that they could crawl onto to sleep when they got tired enough, and since their energy refreshes a lot slower when they're sleeping on a pet bed, it helped to space out when one of them would need the potty, or fed, or some time with mommy to learn the toddler skills. I believe I managed to teach all of them all of the toddler skills, though I don't think I made it to doing the nursery rhyme.

I think it was around the time of playing this lot that I started having trouble with trying to teach a nursery rhyme...the parent would be singing, and the progress bar would be over the kid's head, but the progress would never go up, or would only go up very very very slowly. So I sort of gave up on that one for now until I can figure out what the problem is. It was sometime during their toddlerhood, or perhaps it was earlier, I forget, that I finally managed to get Chewy fully trained to not use sim beds and officially finished the challenge. I was having fun with the house though, so I kept playing them for ahwile after finishing it. I wanted to at least get all the girls through the crazy toddler years so I wouldn't have that to come back to in future.

As all toddlers do, the girls did eventually grow up to child. Here's a look at them now:

	Darice Ball Zodiac: Pisces Hobby: Unknown Personality: Neat 5, Outgoing 7, Active 8, Playful 3, Nice 8
	Darla Ball Zodiac: Aries Hobby: Unknown Personality: 6 Neat, 10 Outgoing, 6 Active, 5 Playful, 3 Nice
	Doreen Ball Zodiac: Virgo Hobby: Unknown Personality: 10 Neat, 1 Outgoing, 8 Active, 8 Playful, 1 Nice

And a peek at how they looked along the way:

Darice

Darla

Doreen

That's pretty much where I left off with this lot, with the girls all just grown up to child, all of the dogs employed and bringing in decent money, and with things hopefully to soon get a lot less chaotic around the house. Maybe Crystal will eventually get enough time to be able to work toward her LTW of maxing all her skills. I'd like to breed further generations of the dogs, to keep Chewy's line going, but I'm not sure yet how to handle that. There's currently not room enough on the lot to add another unrelated dog for one of Chewy and Lulu's "kids" to have a mate and be able to breed. I could add another dog (I think) but then there wouldn't be any room for them to be able to have puppies. I imagine I'll eventually have to give a couple of them away, even though I don't really want to. I don't think Chewy or Lulu will die before the others are too old for one of them to have pups of their own, but maybe some kibble of life would help that. Or something. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment on this post about it.

Here's a final look at the lot the way it stands now

Shi - Introduction & Backstory

Finally I've gotten back to a lot that I've actually played for a fair bit, and one that had a few interesting happenings. Sue Shi is the target sim of the TSR Here Fishy Fishy Fishy! challenge. The challenge is fairly easy, though takes a little while to complete all of the skill gains necessary for it. I took a little bit longer than some might as I decided to let Sue have a social and family life along the way.

Sue Shi Aspiration: Popularity LTW: Become the Law Zodiac: Scorpio Hobby: Nature (maxed) Turn Ons: Fitness, Underwear Turn Off: Fatness Personality: 7 Neat, 6 Outgoing, 6 Active, 3 Playful, 3 Nice Badges: Gardening - Silver, Fishing - Gold

Sue starts out as an adult in the Politics career, though with pretty much no skills. The objectives of the challenge include getting her a promotion to Campaign Manager and maxing out her Cooking skill and earning a gold badge in fishing, while learning to make a few different fish dishes along the way. Pretty simple objectives, and one of the first that I set out to achieve was the promotion, which didn't take her very long to get. Once she had achieved it, I had her switch to the Law career to match her LTW. She hasn't gotten very far with that career so far due to lots of maternity leave, but more on that in a minute.

She didn't have a lot of time to work on her fishing skill before winter came and her pond froze over and made fishing impossible. So she started to work on her cooking. And on meeting men. One of the first men she got along well with was Sonny Day, with whom she has 2 bolts of attraction. They had a Dream Date together, but I didn't really want to combine their households, so I had her keep looking. And maybe a good thing that I did, as not to long after she met a Townie named Shea with whom she has 3 bolts. I forget what Shea's last name was originally - They had a date not too long after meeting, which turned out to be a Dream Date, and they got engaged and then married in pretty short order, and I had him take her name so that the challenge wouldn't get messed up by a name change for her. And it's a good thing I did, since I later ran into trouble with one of these challenges because of changing someone's name via marriage. Here's a look at Shea, now Shea Shi:

Shea Shi Aspiration: Popularity LTW: Become Hall of Famer Zodiac: Leo Hobby: Fitness Turn Ons: Custom Hair, Charismatic Turn Off: Formal Wear Personality: 4 Neat, 10 Outgoing, 4 Active, 4 Playful, 3 Nice Badges: Toy Making - Silver, Gardening - Bronze

Almost as soon as the date had ended, and they were now married, ACR sent them to bed, and after the fireworks were over, I heard the chimes. A few days later, Sue gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy. I don't remember now if they were natural twins or twins I got via "Have Random Babies" with the Triplets & Quads mod, but I know they weren't cheesecake twins. They are children now, and here are their stats:

	Tanis Shi Aspiration: LTW: Zodiac: Gemini Hobby: Sports Turn Ons: Turn Off: Personality: 4 Neat, 6 Shy, 9 Active, 4 Playful, 3 Nice Badges:
	Terrance Shi Aspiration: LTW: Zodiac: Sagittarius Hobby: Fitness Turn Ons: Turn Off: Personality: 1 Neat, 10 Outgoing, 10 Active, 10 Playful, 4 Nice Badges:

Realizing that they were going to need some help with the twins, and with keeping things up around the house and yard since they were both busy with jobs and kids now, I had them hire a butler. I hadn't tried out the butlers yet since getting AL, and it seemed the most cost effective choice. I'm not sure I'm entirely sold on them - they want to cook too much if you let your sims get the least bit hungry, and he doesn't help out with the gardening as much as I'd hoped.

Life for the Shis became fairly routine, with Sue spending as much time as she could working on her fishing badges now that they had help watching the kids and cleaning the house. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of them, but I did manage to capture some pictures of their birthdays along the way at least:

Tanis transitions to Toddler:

Terrance just after becoming a toddler (missed the cake picture with him):

An attempt at doing cakes for their transition to childhood. I managed to get Tanis out to the cake in time...

...but Terrance grew up on his own inside the house before I could get him out to his cake

There were a few other things of interest happen along the way. It started with one of the first people that Sue met when she started to go out and about. This was Barbara Kimbrell, who was a clerk at the local bookstore:

Barbara came home with Sue from work one day - and then nearly every day after that. Anytime Sue brought someone home from work, it was Barbara. I'd hoped to try to have Sue get promotions via work friends, but it seems that Barbara is a hobby friend, not a work friend, so she's of no use to help string Sue along. And Sue still doesn't ever bring anyone else home with her. Most annoying.

The other anecdote to tell involved Shea. The day after he and Sue got married, I sent him down to Nerissa's Clothing to buy himself some new clothes, as I didn't much care for the Townie outfit he came in. While there he met Camryn Lee:

Despite having just been married to a three bolt love, Sue, he rolled the want to ask Camryn for a date. Normally I probably would have just ignored the want - he was a married man now after all - but this time I figured, what the hell, and let him have a date with her. It ended up as a Great Date, and she brought him a flower later on that night. Not sure how he explained that one to Sue. After their date, I'd been semi-hoping to have a bit of intrigue with him seeing Camryn on the side, but he hasn't continued to roll any wants regarding her, other than a few platonic ones, so I've let it be. I guess it was just a final fling on his part before he settled down into married life and fatherhood.

Sue did help out with teaching Tanis and Terrance their toddler skills, despite spending much of her time working on fishing, and they both had learned all of the skills by the time they transitioned to child. While they were still toddlers, Sue got pregnant again, and the maternity leave gave her plenty of time for her fishing without taking too much time away from the kids, and she eventually got her gold badge, caught a rainbow trout and learned how to make Stuffed Rainbow Trout, and the challenge was complete. I kept playing a little while longer, and shortly thereafter she gave birth to her second son, Thomas.

Thomas Shi

Here's a shot taken just after Sue, following apparent sim tradition, gave birth to Thomas in their little bathroom

And that is pretty much where I ended my playing of this house for the time being, just after Thomas had been born. I think the twins had just transitioned to child the same day as well, and haven't even gone to school yet. I had fun with this family, and will look forward to playing them again sometime.