Bill and Estelle's wedding party is on.

I didn't mind Bill's piano-player grey suit, but I'm not keen on his "formal" outfit of leopard-skin smoking jacket.

They return from their wedding-limo honeymoon.

Estelle seems to be suffering from some post-wedding-night nausea, but at least it's not severe yet.

Not only did Estelle get a chance-card demotion, but she's also got morning sickness.

Bill and Estelle share a hamburger supper with Lorene Worrell (back again) and fellow bohemian Connie Dordain.

I seem to recall reading that the apartment-dwellers are supposed to show up based on the quality of a neighbourhood, probably determined by property values and the like.  I’ve never really paid attention to it, but noticing the two bohemians here…  I can’t quit remember, but I imagine it’s socialites as the richest, and gearheads and bohemians at the top, with jocks and techs in the middle.  I’d like to suppose that techs are richer than jocks…

The sheer quantity of the apartment-dwellers has kept me from really getting to know any of them that well, except for some of the standard ones that show up in every neighbourhood (Craig Ray, Sinjin Couderc, Gretchen Chin, etc.).  Maybe I should get each household to “adopt” one apartment-dweller and get to know them well.  Often they come home as co-workers, which gives you a head start.  I’m not sure if they show up on community lots, or at least downtown community lots.  Which is still okay, I guess, as I try to start getting my unmatched university students hooked up with downtownies or townies instead.  Maybe one day they’ll be more familiar to me–I remember when the townies were too hard for me to keep track of, and the gownies, and the downtownies…  And they still are, in Veronaville and Strangetown, for that matter.

Romilda heads off to her Professional Party Guest gig in Don's pickup.

Don makes his move on downtownie Deanna McFadzen. With Martin Rubin and two apartment-dwellers looking on, there's no way this'll get back to Romilda, will it?

Don and Deanna snuggle post-woohooally in the hot tub.

It may be getting a little cold for it, but Romilda is tending her hydroponic garden anyway.

Don took a little midday trip downtown to LuLu Lounge, and is now working on winning over Ivy Copur.

Somehow Don turned into a slob in his old age.  His elder outfit consists of the plaid shirt and overalls, and after that it seemed only natural to buy him a pickup truck.  Maybe he should get himself a cowboy hat like Deanna’s.

I’m still wrestling with the issue of whether or not to make more of the townies and NPCs playable, and if so, how many.  While I have made some of them playable, there’s still a fair number left.  But I already have so many playables, and I’m already having to house people in the shopping district…  Maybe I just need to move in a whole bunch into one household, though of course that only lasts until they want to have kids.  Maybe I should just leave it to chance–if a townie happens by, and the relationship is high enough to move them in, then I’ll do it.  We’ll see how that policy works out for me.

Teresa tries to teach her new dog, Rickon, how to Stay, for his new pet job.

Frederick and Teresa work busily away at their store into the evening.

Rickon's off for his pet job.

While I don’t really know what to do with my sims’ pets most of the time, I rarely get them jobs, because the idea of sending your pet off for a job just doesn’t work for me.  I know that there are pets who work like that, but somehow I don’t think that their owners send them off unattended…  Still, Teresa seemed like the no-nonsense, unsentimental sort who would just do it anyway.

The store is doing fairly well, though it is a fair bit of work, and most of the time when they come home it’s just to regain their Needs.  I suspect that they won’t bother having an actual wedding party, either, just a “Propose” interaction.  Once Teresa gets pregnant, they may have to hire some staff or something.  That’s part of the business thing I’m not quite sure about yet, but I’ll come to terms with it, I imagine.  It’s true that the store is much easier than the Langeraks’ attempt to run a restaurant…

Michael Bachelor doesn't get many visitors, but he kinda likes Dina Caliente's son Miguel.

Michael is still obsessively studying his magic, but that's all right--Miguel will just play with the fridge.

Michael pays a late-night visit to the Palace of Neverending Darkness.

Michael renews his acquaintance with Tamara Mendelson the Atrociously Evil Witch.

Michael recharges himself again. Only two bulbs left--will they be enough?

He thinks he's figured out the right incantation now...

But still Bella doesn't show up. He doesn't understand it. What could be wrong?

I think I had edited Bella Goth’s sim record in SimPE to remove the “disconnected” flag, but maybe the summoning spell didn’t work because she’s not a member of a household.  I could add her to the Townies household, and maybe she’d start showing up as a passerby the way she does in Strangetown.  Because, you know, Michael’s summoning spell only managed to bring her halfway back…

I find it interesting that Michael Bachelor has ended up friends with Dina’s son, since of course he used to be married to Dina before he died.  Miguel is Mortimer Goth’s son, not Michael’s, of course.  Still not sure if Michael will settle down with someone else if he can manage to bring his sister back.  Maybe Tamara Mendelson, though I suspect she’s an elder, and I try to keep my sims from getting involved with elder women because they can’t have any more children.  It may be cruel, but that’s still my main goal with the game, to breed my sims, and elder women aren’t a part of that.  It’s too bad that there isn’t a legitimate in-game method to de-age them, though.  There’s mods like the Insimenator, of course, but those are still mods.  Maybe I should make the Insimenator into a 100,000 aspiration point reward, by substrating that many aspiration points after they get one…  But I suppose the elders should get to die off sometime, or I’ll never get rid of any of my playable sims…

Lana Zediker is one of Jon Smith Tricou’s children (the “Tricou scions”, as I call them), and I sent her to university (along with her unrelated downtownie teenager friend Carolyn Sandner) to make her playable, and also to give her a chance to enter the Paranormal career, get a Resurrect-O-Nomitron, and start resurrecting the Tricou family.  She’s getting close to graduating and being able to meet that goal…

Carolyn playing chess with Jon Payne.

In the original Sims, my sims were always knocking back the espresso, but in Sims 2 they're much less caffeinated, as a rule. Still, I decided I wanted to keep Lana awake a little bit longer, so she's having some coffee.

Carolyn went hiking, but got followed home by some angry bees.

Carolyn does a bit of yoga.

Carolyn about to throw a water balloon at visitor Stanley Smith.

Carolyn has finished another semester of university, and of course so has Lana, an hour earlier.

I guess I wasn’t paying too much attention to balance when I took these snapshots–five pictures of Carolyn and only one of Lana.  Well, though Lana is most important to the Tricou plan, it’s not like I ignore Carolyn entirely.  Could be I just didn’t have Lana doing anything that interesting, like upsetting swarms of bees or having water balloon fights.  Or doing yoga.  Just drinking coffee.

I’m not sure if they just changed the rate of Energy usage between Sims and Sims 2, or if they’ve just got better beds so they recover their Energy quicker, but in The Sims they would rarely be able to stay awake long enough to get to bed at a proper time without the aid of caffeine.  In The Sims 2, it’s much rarer for those kind of Energy difficulties to arise.  Of course, the existence of the Eclectic & Enigmatic Energizer is also a boon for those cases when you really, really need Energy but don’t have time to sleep.  (The Electric & Enigmatic Energizer–get one today!)  Plus, I don’t like the jitteriness that sims get when they drink coffee.  It’s like the gross stuff you see when sims are eating snacks–it turns me off and makes me want to make them avoid it.  More for me, I guess…

Diane London in the obligatory morning sickness shot.

Diane has summoned her familiar, named Drusilla, for the first time.

Drusilla's probably not supposed to be sitting on the counter, but Diane is sleeping the sleep of the pregnant, and Randy's at work. The cat's transparent anyway, I guess.

Randy is back from work with a promotion to CEO.

Diane greets Marie Rauscher with an earthy hug.

I’m never precisely which pictures to take for these blog posts.  I try to cover all the milestones–births, deaths, engagements, marriages, and the stages of pregnancy.  Anything actually odd that happens, sure.  Sometimes meeting people, though sometimes I don’t bother.  Hobby lot awards, first kisses…usually.  Apart from that, it varies wildly, as you may have noticed.  If I get too caught up in it, it may not occur to me to take the pictures at all…or if nobody’s doing anything particularly interesting.

Diane’s still trying to spend time working on her magic while, so she doesn’t have a job yet.  As a witch, she can always make reagents and various magical knickknacks and artifacts, so she could always try to sell them.  Would you get just random people wandering in and buying reagents if you sold them in your store?  Could be interesting, but I don’t know if I’ll go that route with Diane.  She is a good witch, after all.

Erik helps Denise with her homework.

Erika's trying to teach Gerald how to walk.

A very pregnant Leigh puts Willow in the high chair for a meal that Gerald already refused because he was too tired.

Denise hunts for bugs in the yard.

Erik and visitor Nina Caliente play a little winter basketball in the back yard.

I don’t know if I have any non-University households that have managed to reach Spring yet, or if it’s been that many Days since I installed Seasons.  A household will always start on the last Day of Summer, and then there’s five Days of Fall and five Days of Winter to get through before you get to Spring.  With a University household, that’s less than four semesters, so a lot of them have already made it into Spring.  I’d have to say that Fall and Summer are my favourite seasons from the point of view of the bonuses you get–Summer gives you bonuses to normal friendship interactions, and Fall gives you bonuses for studying, both for skills and in school or university.  Winter gives you friendship bonuses with family or household only, and Spring gives you bonuses only for romantic interactions, which would probably be most useful to Romance sims.  As far as environmental influences go, Winter has cold and snow, Fall has leaves to rake, and Summer has thunderstorms and heat, so Spring would be the most pleasant there, though it may have its share of snow and/or thunderstorms as well.  (It always bothers me a little that rain and thunderstorms seem to always go hand in hand in TV shows, and often in Sims 2 as well, when in my experience there’s a lot of rain without thunder and lightning.  Maybe it’s a regional climate thing…)

Still not sure what to do with Erika Kosykh once the Swains get up to four or five children and want to go for six.  They will still need to help in looking after the children, but they won’t have room for the other member.  I guess I can just have one of the parents always stay home, or hire nannies or something, like everyone else.  If they don’t have any more twins, I guess it might be easier for them to look after the kids without outside help, but I think that one or more of them has the aspiration reward for increased twin chances, and they are admittedly a big timesaver in growing your family.  Maybe I will just wait until Denise is at least a teenager, if Leigh’s childbearing Days last that long…  (Notice that sims never have any triplets.  I guess they just decided it was easier to leave that small probability out of the code, and I suppose I can’t blame them.)

Beau concentrates on his violin playing.

Just because Contessa Deloris is a vampire doesn't mean she can't read up on Lifelong Happiness. Or should she be studying Parenting instead?

Being a vampire also doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep in shape. All that blood can be fattening, after all.

Chloe gets home, with a major part in a Broadway play, and a bun in the oven. Guess the play doesn't open for a few Days yet...

Contessa Deloris is awakened from her restful deathly sleep to bring life into the world.

Beau rises from his own slumber to greet little baby Evan Broke.

Roy, who has the day off, takes the first shift with his little nephew.

It may be cold and she may be pregnant, but Chloe's not going to let that stop her from getting that engine running.

Evan Broke becomes the second baby born on Day 21, after Dean Starchild, both boys so far.  When possible I like to use the mother’s maiden name as a starting-off point somehow for children’s names.  Dean, of course, was named after Dean Thomas of Harry Potter fame, since Sam Starchild’s maiden name was Thomas.  Evan…well, that’s just Nave spelled backward.

I remember thinking (and perhaps writing) that vampires would be the ideal solution to baby and toddler care; when the parents need to work in the morning and need sleep, let a vampire babysit them.  But, of course, the flipside of that is that if the vampires have children themselves, they need someone to look after them during the day.  In this case, hopefully, between Roy and Chloe they will be able to look after Evan while his parents are dead to the world, and they can return the favour for Roy and Chloe’s child(ren) at night.

This was the household, by the way, that was the starting inspiration for my last NaNoWriMo novels, The Basement Hallway and Corridors of Power.  I thought the family dynamic made an interesting starting point, though from there I jumped off into alternate worlds and simulated people, and then bogged down in the second book in the middle of giving up on NaNoWriMo, possibly for good.  Maybe I’ll pick it up again at some point…

Leaathal went downtown--to get a cell phone, of course--but decided to stick around for a four-handed game of pool.

Alfvaen about to go down the waterslide.

Elstree sits down to a meal of grilled cheese. Her favourite!

Elstree working on her soccer skills.

Pedro looking for new recipes for his restaurant.

Elstree, Alfvaen and Leaathal sit down to a nice omelet breakfast, Elstree having restrained her grilled cheese obsession this once.

Pedro decides to charge up his needs in a more direct fashion.

Elstree works on her yoga.

Pedro finally tries out his candy-making machine.

Mistletoe grows into a toddler...and possibly with brown hair, not black like all of her sisters.

And definitely brown hair for Erenthil, too. No actual red, but maybe there's some recessive genes in there somewhere.

Elstree doesn’t actually have a Grilled Cheese Aspiration, since I created her long before getting any expansion packs, and in any event I seem to recall that to get a true Grilled Cheese Aspiration you have to be Pleasure-oriented and then have a really bad date or something.  Perhaps I should try that sometime, but not yet.  No, she’s just got a secondary Aspiration for Grilled Cheese, which anyone is totally free to choose, so I have for a few people.  Not that many recently, though.  Don’t remember who offhand–one of the frat brothers from Urele-Oresha-Cham…Kevin Beare? Jeremy Elliott?  Not sure.

While Elstree is in Law Enforcement, and Pedro in the Cuisine career, that doesn’t match with either of their Lifetime Wants.  I think Elstree wants to marry off six children, so she’s got a start on that, at least (so I guess she’ll have to try to hang around long enough to see that happen), but I seem to recall that Pedro’s got a different career aspiration–Crime, or Sports, or something.  I have a lot of people who want to reach the top of the Sports career, and I don’t particularly want to satisfy them all, but if it’s not one of the careers I’ve done to death, I’ll try to get them into it.  Harder are the ones like Teresa Harper’s (5 top-level businesses) or Romeo Monty’s (something to do with owning a large number of pets).  But it does add variety to the game…

Margarita and Ed sit down to a friendly game of chess.

Ed gets himself some pancakes as a midnight snack.

Then it's time for some dancin'!

For some reason Margarita's Logic skill is going up incredibly fast--it went up from 2 to 5 during the game with Ed, for instance, while he went from from 3 to 4. So I'm going to milk it while it lasts.

Dewey Graves and Gretchen Conner show up to cheer her on.

And for some reason, after all that chess playing, Michelle Wilkie shows up to give Margarita her Games hobby lot key.

Ed has invited Angelica over to stay the night.

Margarita at the breakfast table with Angelica, who seems to have won her over as well.

Angelica plays bass and Ed smustles.

Margarita has invited her boyfriend Francis to spend the night.

Ed's doing an assignment to top off his grades before his final exam. He also just managed to break the dishwasher, but considering the repairman is due to come soon to fix the broken computer, his timing is pretty good.

I don’t know what is up with Margarita’s skill learning.  I don’t think she’s even a Knowledge sim or anything.  It’s just one of those random things, like the students whose grades never seem to improve on their home lot (though you can see their grades properly on other lots), except this is much better.  It would be so nice if her Lifetime Want was to max out seven skills, but alas, it isn’t.  I suppose I could try to change her aspiration type, but I do that so rarely that I don’t really see the point…

Not sure who I’m going to get to replace Ed and Margarita when they graduate, which I think they’re only a few semesters away from.  They should maybe start trying to cultivate some gownie friends.  Of course, Ed himself was a downtownie teenager, of the Tricou bunch, so I could also just grab a random teenager and promote them, if I can’t come up with two gownies.  I could even move in one of the playables if I wanted to, preferably one that’s living in the dorms.  Still a few Days to worry about that, though.