Hi. So I’m not really feeling my OWBC for various reasons and I’m not in the mood for writing my Hunger Games Fanfic either. So what’s a girl to do?

I know! Play the sims!

What can I say, it works for me.

We’re now on to the Second Summer in Challenge Island.

We’re starting out with our Pure Entrepreneur/Keeping up with Joneses family. They’re also the most boring to play. I’m just grateful I don’t have snap dragons in the house. It’d be deathly dull with them.

I realized that the Joneses yard wasn’t quite up to snuff. So about 30K later we have a partially walled yard with a house ringed with flowers and shrubs.

There, that should keep them happy.

Although, all of the flowers seemed to attract this delicate smelling thing. It’s almost like real life.

Because I get bored easily, I throw a lot of parties. I think I threw something like four during the rotation. Essentially one a day. Just so I could get something interesting to shoot.

However, the Joneses throw boring parties.

Essentially they all sit around on the front lawn and talk with each other.

Boring!

“Did you know that you’re wearing the same dress that everyone’s wearing in the hood?” Pauline asked looking at Tabitha.

“Yep. But I wore it first and best!”

“That’s what you’d like to think.”

“You’re just jelly,” random townie teen interjected like an anon on the internet.

“Of bad fashion sense? Not really.”

“So I was thinking, how do you feel about one of the Hardens as the mother of your grandchild?”

“I’m certain you can do better, honey,” Amara said. “They’re just not the right kind of people.”

“What do you think, Dad?”

“I think you should marry who you want. You’re the heir.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

“I am not happy with you, Damion.”

“It’s not your choice to make, Amara. Now let’s just garden.”

“Stupid Amara! Thinking my girls aren’t good enough for her boy. I’ll show her.”

“Hi, Suzie. You’ve grown up fast.”

“Trailer park, only way out is to go to college. So I went.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to get out of that house as fast as possible. Before I lost all of my marbles.”

“It’s okay. So long as you’re willing to put up with me when I grow up.”

I’m pretty sure she’s willing.

And so time passed...

Parties were had...

Sims got fat...

While others got fit...

Some sims learned the secrets to happiness...

While other sims talked to plants...

And others made really awesome faces...

And it was finally time for something interesting to happen. Namely a birthday.

Ellen gave Tabitha one last noogie...

And then it was time for everyone to grow up.

Tabitha was first.

“Ohhh yeah! I love the shirt. Oooooh baby!”

I like it too, even if Amara is unamused. She’ll get to keep it.

Ellen was next, but she will not be keeping the dress. It does not work. Tomato red with bright orange hair? Not a good color combo.

Finally Alexander wins all of the age up clothing awards with a steampunk inspired vest. Suzie and I most definitely approve.

“I wanted to win best dressed for once!”

“Dude compared to your brother, your fashion choices stink! Or is that your father?”

“My father. He hasn’t bathed in two days.”

“Ewwww.”

“I need to smell something nice, what do you say, Regina?”

“Back off! I’m married!”

“But-!”

“No!”

“If you want to smell something nice you can smell me.”

“Okay. Besides I think my little sister has the same idea.”

She totally did.

“I’m really glad you came, Suzie. I’ve really missed you. When are you going to graduate from college?”

“In about 5 days. Do you think you can wait?”

“I’ll wait forever for you.”

“Let’s go to the bedroom.”

“I mean it, you’ve stolen my heart. Is there anyway I can convince you to drop out early? It’s not like you’ll be able to have a career and I’ll take care of you.”

“I’ll think about it. Do you have eggplants?”

“Yeah... Why?”

“I have this hankering to learn everything and eggplants would work for that.”

“So you’ll drop out?”

“After a season? Sure.”

“I don’t want you to regret this.”

“What I’ll regret is if I spend one minute away from you more than I have to.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m really not.”

“Then Suzie Harden, will you marry me and make lots of babies with me?”

“I’d love to, Alexander Jones!”

“Yay!”

“So I know I can’t move you in and get married to you then move out, because you’ve got your own challenge. So how do we do this?”

“How do you want to do it?”

“Well, I suppose I could get pregnant and then get engaged and you could just invite me to live with you when your house is played.”

“Done.”

Pregnancy achieved...

Engagement unlocked...

And bad memory ho! This’ll be fun...

Meanwhile, Ellen was getting her svelte figure back. Not that she cared, but that stationary bike was just so gosh darned attractive.

So this is where we will leave off.

The plan is to move in Tabitha at the end of Brent’s rotation. That should keep her age pretty close. Same with Suzie. She’s about the same age as the triplets and wants to max 7 skills. Something she doesn’t need college for.

So let’s move on!

~*~

Ahhh on to a slightly more interesting house. My trailer Park family where mother and daughter can have two hour apart pregnancies and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Hayleigh is my heiress and as such is carrying an illegitimate child, fathered by Damion Jones of my keeping up with the Joneses family. Because of course she is!

Here’s the lot. Two trailers no waiting. Eventually there may be a third, it depends on how much money they have.

For now I splurged and bought a pretty marriage corner. Because of course you need that. Not like it’ll get used much. But it’s there and it’s pretty. What more do you want?

Because as you may or may not remember, Hayleigh’s fiancé, Jerome, caught her cheating at Pauline’s last season.

“That kid ain’t mine, is it?”

“Don’t be silly, Jerome-baby, of course it ain’t yours.” Hayleigh isn’t high on nice points.

“Hayleigh! You’d best be reconciling with your beau there, this family don’t cotton to unmarried mothers or any of that tomfoolery.”

“Do I haveta, Daddy?”

“Yes! Don’t make me get my shotgun.”

“But you don’t have a shotgun!”

“Just apologize and get that boy to agree to marry you before you pop!”

“Fine!”

“Look, I’m sorry I cheated on you while I was uncontrollable. Will you forgive me so we can get married?”

“That’s it? That’s your apology?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“But Jerome-baby, I love you!”

“Not good enough! You’ve got to make me believe it. And until that happens you won’t get any Jerome-lovin’ from me.”

“Aww, man! Is there anything I can do to change your mind? I spent all of my family’s hard earned money on decorations and a punch bowl for the wedding.”

“Hayleigh, none of what you’re saying is changing my mind any.”

“Fine, I’m sorry I haveta do this. Macro-Socialize Friendly.”

And so they macro socialized.

And socialized. Until Jerome started thinking that maybe he’d been too quick to jump to conclusions.

They macro-socialized until the kids came home from school. Hello Heck! He’s still so very easy on the eyes.

“Oh Jerome-baby, let me show you just how sorry I am. You’re the only husband for me.”

“Well, when you put it that way...”

“You’re wearing my dress! I was supposed to be special!” Random townie girl complained.

“Can you go gripe to someone else? I’m trying to woo my man here.”

“Ooooohhh! I’m so mad I’ll lose a star for your home business.”

“Uh. Okay.”

“So where was I?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh I know. How about I show you just how much of a man you are?”

“Okay.”

She showed him in the best way a popularity/romance sim can. In the bedroom.

After the woohoo, Jerome was amenable to moving in. Which I did before anything else could happen.

I also changed his turn ons so that he likes Plant sims with high cooking. Since Bonnie is slacking in the skills department. Something about her always being pregnant or in the garden or pregnant in the garden.

Jerome Hogan, soon to be Harden, is a Popularity/Knowledge sim, who wants to own 5 top level businesses. Poor deluded thing. He also moved in with 4000 simoleans and an inventory full of fish along with his renu-porta-chug. Yeah... I’m counting the elixir as his one item to put out.

The fish can all go in the yard sale.

While Jerome was tracking down Stu to give him all of the fish in his inventory, Hayleigh zoomed in on one of her baby daddies to be, Jack Lynwood.

I admit it, I kind of love Jack’s features and his three girls all look a lot like his wife, Tish. So I’m hoping to get more of his genetics in whatever kid he gets on Hayleigh.

One little flirt...

And Jack is in love. Hayleigh will be calling you later. When her husband is at work.

Nothing to see here, just Heck being influenced to make grilled cheese.

The following morning, Jerome made two very important phone calls. One to his job telling them to shove it. And another inviting all of his friends over for his wedding.

Although two of them showed up in dresses more suitable for being a bride.

Oh Amara... Part of me thinks this is sweet (she’s part romance sim and has been wanting to fall in love with another sim for ages.)

But a greater part of me is annoyed, mostly at Nerissa here who is trying very hard to get her own miserable sims challenge.

So the party began like all sims parties in this hood. With people cheating or townies attempting to get first kisses and failing.

It’s just like real life only with less party-funk and awkward selfies.

Hayleigh selected “Get Married” on the arch and slowly people started to take their seats.

Only to get distracted by Bonnie giving birth on the front lawn.

“Do you think we should go watch the birth?” Jerome wanted to know.

“No, we should really get this over with. I’m due to give birth an hour after mom so we’d better hurry.”

Hayleigh and Jerome proceeded with their wedding while Bonnie spin and twirled for the last time.

Note Tabitha running to the toilet. Yep, this is a perfect sims party.

Say hello to Titus Harden. The surprise baby and hopefully the last of Gen 1 of the TPC challenge.

Since he can’t be in the heir poll, I reserve the right to make him knowledge just so I can get him out of the house faster. I’ll roll for his secondary. But this kid is definitely not important in any way shape or form.

Now, of course, having said that, my game will go out of its way to prove me wrong.

“Hayleigh, I love you. I want to spend my whole life loving you. And getting abducted by aliens so I can have that alien baby you always wanted.”

“Jerome, I love you and I promise to have at least one kid that’s for sure yours. I can’t promise more than that other than I’ll love you until you die or I die.”

Note that only Amara is actually paying attention to the couple saying their vows.

Everyone else is cooing over the new baby.

It doesn’t really matter, since it was a good wedding anyway.

I’m really feeling sorry for that social townie. Except she keeps picking the wrong sims to try to get her first kiss with. Robert loves his zero bolt wife madly. They are the strongest no bolt couple I’ve ever had and I loves them.

Also note where Hayleigh is in the background. She’s basically made it back up the altar.

And promptly went into labor.

Ten sim minutes after getting married. Did I cut it close or what?

Say hello to the first child of gen 2, Lala Harden. Her father is Damion Jones and she’s got blonde hair and Damion’s brown eyes.

And that, my friends, is how trailer park weddings roll on Challenge Island.

And it was a roof raiser, which made popularity sim Jerome happy.

“Oh yeah, aspiration points taste like beer. I like beer.”

“Why do I feel like I’ve missed all of the fun?”

While Heck and the other school age kids missed most of the festivities, it didn’t mean that the drama was over.

Nope, it wouldn’t be a party without a few boings!

Namely Pauline and Jack getting it on in front of Pauline’s townie squeeze.

He was very unhappy about it and took it out on Pauline. I didn’t really care either way. Pauline’s going to marry the streaker if I have any say and the streaker wasn’t here.

Heck! Put your sister-niece down!

“But I was just wanting to get to know her!”

I decided that the next day was going to be yardsale day. I forgot to take a picture of all of the items (they had 6 treasure chests) but I think this gives a good impress of all of the stuff they had.

As you can see the treasure chests were the first items to go. At the extreme discounted rate of 2500 a pop when they’re worth 5000, it’s no wonder they were snatched up that’s one heck of a Return on Investment.

Although some townies didn’t think the ROI was that good.

The yard sale ended with 18,000k more in the bank for the family.

I bought two items and left the rest to sit for the kids who move out later. Considering that Hayleigh spent their inheritance on frivolous things like a wedding party, it’s only fair.

“I can has alien baby?”

Not today.

Debbie grew up and is a Popularity/Family sim with the doable LTW of graduate 3 kids from college.

“Mmmm Skills!”

So... Annoying story, Jerome made a serving of eggplant juice and it disappeared when he set it on the counter. Talk about having your internal organs ripped out from your back.

Oh wait, that’s Heck channelling a certain simself. All he needs is the patented ear nibble and he’d be perfect.

“Now how did that happen?”

The usual way I suspect.

To be honest, I have a picture of them woohooing except it’s got a bit of Jerome’s bits in it. While it ain’t much to speak of, it’s enough that I went, “nope!” and I don’t feel like editing it out. Chalk it up to laziness.

Lala grew up first. She’s got a lot of the cute features of both of her parents.

She’s a Saggitarius with stats of 7/5/9/9/2.

“I wanted to age him up and then hold him for hours until he pees on me!”

“Too bad, Heck, you snooze you lose.”

Unimportant Titus is unimportant. He looks like a lot of his siblings and has fairly boring personality of 5/5/7/2/8 which makes him a Pisces.

“I’m sexy and I know it!”

“Yo, look at my body! I work out!”

So a slightly greener lawn and some well worn paths and that’s it for the Hardens.

~*~

And it’s on to the final house of this update, the idiotic Lynwood family. Who so far this season pretty much tied with the Joneses as the most boring house.

I admit, I went a little landscaping crazy when I loaded it. But it’s so pretty now!

So’s the back yard and it’s also so energy efficient.

Which is good since I have a tendency to forget to pay bills around here.

Since I’d spent all this money on decorating, it was time for a garden club visit.

They loved my butler cared for eggplants and new fountain.

And they left what I hoped they would. The wishing well.

As an added bonus, I’ve decided that the torchholder will be wishing for love to find out their future spouse. It adds another element of randomness to an otherwise random household. I’ll also be wishing for love when the kids are teens on the off chance that their true love is a teen or young adult so I know if I need to age someone up or send someone to college.

Delight shows us the joys of being uncontrollable. “I want a nap! Then I want to be up all night so I barely make the bus in the morning I’m so tired!”

“Yay! Mom’s home!”

“Which one are you again?”

“Delight.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

I had Jack greet this townie only to find out that they’re on the verge of enemies. How did that happen?

Well, no matter. Time to put Operation Permaplat to good use.

“What am I doing here?” Frances Worthington III asked. “I feel like I’m about to get used.”

He was.

Now, Jack just needs one more friend and he’ll be permaplat.

“I don’t like you!” Random green townie said, poking Tish in the boob.

“Hey!”

“I can kiss it better if you’d like,” William Williamson offered.

“No kissing any of my parts! Got it! I’ll make you wish you were dead, got it?”

“I get it. Geez, no need to get all in my face about it!”

“Grrr....!”

We interrupt your impending argument to show Bliss’s smustle face. Because smustle faces are awesome!

“Mommy, why do we always eat Jello?”

“Because it doesn’t go bad quickly.”

“I’d really like something other than Jello.”

“Then go bake a muffin.”

The next day, Jack wished on the well and got three more college drops.

And a quick friendly hug later, he was permaplat.

Now he wants to be a media magnate. I’m down with that once he tops Adventurer. We could use a quill.

From experience, I know that uncontrollables will gain charisma by talking to the bird. So I’ll take a chance with Sparrow here and hope he doesn’t die from getting stuck on eating food all the time. I have cagedpetfixes but it doesn’t always seem to work.

So Jack gets to teach Sparrow how to talk. I think lock picking and leverage is involved.

And then he gets to woohoo with his wife to celebrate.

I love his chin. It’s an awesome chin and it makes me sad that I don’t think any of his kids have the chin.

Is it sad that I find this picture really pretty?

Apparently, I like my ghosts.

Because I don’t want to bloat my hood, I have a lot of the random objects from the various locales scattered about the lot. I like vacations, sometimes, but I don’t like hood bloat. It’s part of what’s causing my OWBC hood to go wonky. Right now this hood has 193 character files (thanks to townies, NPCs, and the 53 playables.) That is enough.

So he gets to rake zen gardens.

And get pelted on by 1000 coins.

“Hey, isn’t it time for you guys to grow up?”

Yep! Delight went first, followed by her sisters.

A trio of quick makeovers later and here’s our first Teen.

Delight Lynwood. She’s got her mother’s eyes, hair and mouth but her father’s nose. She’s a Romance/Knowledge sim. She’ll also be wearing Green from here on out.

Bliss Lynwood. She’s a Popularity/Romance sim. She’s got her father’s eyes and nose and mother’s mouth and hair. Her color is Yellow.

Glory Lynwood. Knowledge/Fortune sim and definitely going to college later. She’s got her father’s mouth and eyes and mother’s nose and hair. Her color is Blue.

And here’s a close ups of their parents so you can see which triplet got which features.

All three of them are pretty much prettacy contenders.

“Gold!”

“Do you like it? It’s new custom content!”

“Gold!”

She got a charisma point out of it.

“The girl next to me is wearing her bra without a shirt over it.”

“Don’t be silly, Blonde Komei, all of us at this table are only wearing bras.”

“My sister’s not wrong. It’s the only way we can get a bed to ourselves around here.”

“More info than I wanted to know.”

“Yeah. Some of us need our beauty sleep.”

“I heard that!” Bliss yelled from her place on the kitchen couch.

“I rather thought you might.”

Glory and Delight then moved to the living room and worked on getting some skills.

While ust to prove that she wasn’t afraid of wandering around in her underwear as the rest of her sisters Bliss took it a step further and went bowling in her undies.

“Yes! Score!”

“Why don’t you have clothes on?”

“Because I bowl better without them.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Try it!”

“A gutter ball! That sucks!”

“I told you I bowled better without clothes.”

“You don’t need to rub it in.”

“The bird’s stuck in a loop. I’ve filled his food four times in less than two hours.”

Sigh. Even resetting the bird doesn’t work. Nor does interacting with it.

The only thing Jack could do was let Sparrow die.

The last day of summer rolled around and Jack finally got to go to work.

Spoiler alert, he got a promotion and got sent right back to work.

Leaving Tish alone to paint a masterpiece.

And chain herself to the piano of doom.

And then the triplets all came home from school and beelined to their favorite beds. Meaning that I could cheerfully ignore them.

Jack got the final adventurer promotion.

And immediately found a job in Journalism as an Obituary Writer. He’s got a lot of skilling to do before he’ll make it to the top. He might not even be senile when he does it.

So now you have a choice readers! I’m going to put the torch holder position up to a vote so click on to see your choices.

Bliss Lynwood

Popularity/Romance

20 Best Friends

Virgo

10/1/8/7/9

Straight

Pros – Very pretty. Cleans up like a champion. Can Run. Has a very easy LTW.

Cons – Very easy LTW that I’ve done in the house.

Delight Lynwood

Romance/Knowledge

20 Lovers

Leo

10/9/1/3/3

Bi

Pros – Very pretty. Cleans like a champion. Easy LTW if annoying. Interesting Spouse potential.

Cons – will not be happy to get married. Other than the nose is a clone of her mother.

Glory Lynwood

Knowledge/Fortune

Criminal Mastermind

Aries

7/10/8/1/2

Straight

Pros: Very pretty. Best mix of genetics from parents. Easy LTW. Can run.

Cons: Will have a breakdown if she doesn’t go to college. I’m not fond of the nose.

So that’s it for this update. Don’t forget to vote in the poll at my livejournal!

I hope you enjoyed!

And until next time! Happy Simming!