There goes the neighborhood

Round 8: Winter 2009


Ryland and Jackie Whitfield are 58, Dawn and Zach are 5.

Narrated by Ryland Whitfield

I'm so glad I forgave Jackie for having an affair. In fact I think it has only made our relationship stronger. We love to lie in bed in the morning and just enjoy each other's company.

Especially now that we've moved the kids' activity table on the 3rd floor so they don't come to play in our bedroom the moment they wake up!

It's been a surprisingly warm winter this year. We still haven't had any snow and kids and their friends use our heated pool all the time. That's Liv Harris in the pool. I'm not very fond of the idea of my children befriending Deacon Burrows's children but it's not really their fault that their father is a scumbag.

We want to make sure that the kids do their homework so we usually stand beside their desks. Zach especially couldn't care less about homework. Dawn on the other hand is a overachiever in the making, she loves school!

Jackie spends her days in the restaurant although it's not making much money yet. She decided to start working as the chef after two of her employees quit their job. Rianna had popped in for lunch the other day and promised she'll come for a visit with Emily soon.

The new waitress Carole isn't very good yet. Fortunately she spilled the salad on Denise's fiancé Ben instead of some new customer. Ben just laughed and said that luckily he didn't order soup.

Rianna and Anthony came for a visit so we finally met our grand-daughter. Jackie slipped into the role of granny right away. I could tell she was completely smitten.

We carried the activity table downstairs so the kids could play together. Dawn and Zach are only 4 years older than their niece.

Anthony said they've been thinking about buying a house but they're really aren't any vacant houses in the neighborhood and they can't afford to build one from scratch. Maybe I can talk Ben into building some affordable houses for young families. He is the head of the construction company and this kind of project might interest him.

Emily is such a sweetie. She looks so much like her mother at the same age.

We finally got some snow and the kids were thrilled! They almost missed the school bus because they were busy building a snowman.

They rushed back into the snow the moment they got back home from school. Winters aren't that much fun when you're an adult!

We were burglared but thanks to our security system the police was there in a few minutes and was able to catch the burglar. I have to do something to this crime wave! The voters are getting frustrated with constant burglaries.

Notes:

• Title from "There goes the neighborhood" by Sheryl Crow
• I love this new calendar system! I play with aging off and adjust the ages manually with the multi-painting. Ryland and Jackie are turning into elders at the end of this round along with a bunch other sims but I won't age them up until Dec 2010 (Wellington time, not RL time!). I'm imagining all my sims age at the end of December.
• In case you're wondering about how the seasons change, check out the Aging, rounds and seasons post. It's pretty much the cycle we get here in Finland.
• My game works fine now after all that "missing sims" drama.