A Blast From The Past - Ambrose and Virginia, the College Years

 A big thank you to Julie for helping me with this dilemma I have.

Rather than take my original Sims 3 family and splitting them up, I've just taken a copy of Ambrose and Virginia, when they were still Young Adults. And I'm doing their back story.

When they went to college.

Twinbrooks. Ginny's parental home.
It's the day of enrolment into University and both Ginny and Brosie are nervous.
And slightly scared.

It was to be a big day for the two of them, in more ways than one.
They'd been friends for a little while, on/off boyfriend/girlfriend, nothing really concrete per se.
But, with the thoughts of them starting their academic careers in a university miles away from home, there was something that was bugging Brosie a lot.

He's not really the jealous type, and they DID agree to enrol at the same university together, provided they passed their aptitude tests ... and had enough money to pay for tuition fees. But Brosie was wondering, because they were meeting new people in a new environment, that maybe Ginny's eye would start wandering a little.

There were the proverbial Jocks on campus. A few of them would be quite good looking. And of course the Rebels with their 'don't give a damn' attitude. He was a Nerd - or at least assumed he was one, since he preferred to stick his nose in a few books and other nerdish stuff.

Maybe these other types might .... just might .... turn Ginny's head a little.

There was one thing for it.

"Brosie? You okay?"

Ambrose looked really uncomfortable and shuffled his feet.

"Nervous about Uni?"

There was a long pause and Brosie took a deep breath and gazed openly at Ginny.

"Um, Ginny?"

"Yes?"

He noticed the flush of excitement in her cheeks and realised that this was a 'now or never' moment.

"Brosie? You o ....."

He lunged forward and kissed her deeply, crushing his lips against hers. She gasped, but the gasp was lost in the heat of the moment. This had been a complete surprise ... and a first for the two of them. Until now, they'd only offered small pecks on the cheek and perhaps sharing a comfortable moment together, she watching TV, he reading a book.

But this....

..... this was .....

He pulled away and she gaped openly, still shocked. Now it was her turn to be take by surprise.

"Ginny?"

A long pause.
Too long.

Brosie wondered maybe that he'd possibly overstepped the mark here? That he'd blown it for good with her.

Until she grabbed his hands and pulled him in closer, crushing their lips together in a passionate, almost swoon-worthy kiss.

They drew apart, grinning stupidly at each other.

"I guess that means we're still an item," Brosie said quietly.

"You betcha," came the reply, "I wouldn't swap you for the world!"

The distinctive sound of the moving van brought a sense of reality to the two of them, as they realised that this was the next step in their young lives.

Whipping out his phone, Brosie pointed between the two of them.

"Want a pic as a reminder?" he offered.

As the flash went off, they locked lips to seal the deal. Then both checked the screen. Big silly grins on their faces.

"Hey, you don't look too bad there!" Brosie grinned.

"You're not too bad yourself," Ginny quipped back.

Taking their suitcases, they both headed for the moving van.

Time for them to go to college and a whole new adventure before them.

Need Your Input Re: Sending Sims to University in Sims 3

For many of you reading this blog, you're more than familiar with this family and all it's dramas. But I've come up with a dilemma here that I need your advice/input with.

As you know, in Sims 2, Ambrose and Virginia met in college, graduated, moved back home, married and started a family.

In Sims 3, sadly college was not an option. They met as Young Adults, got married and had their kids. Or at least some of them. The youngest - Tristan - is still a baby. All the rest are teens, all 3 girls. Helen, Violet and Susan.

I've tried sending Brosie back to college from his home town, but I've been met with disastrous results. There's a glitch in game that prevents Sims from seeing their class schedules.

So I was wondering.
Should I continue this path I'd started. Or shall I try and follow the original Sims 2 story and go back, before they had the kids and send them both to college as Young Adults. Maybe changing the colour scheme slightly so that it looks like a 'blast from the past' between them.

Any feedback will be welcome indeedy

Rina's Back!!

*please note, this does NOT happen in game, I just cheated a little and used a precious saved game, since I didn't have the heart to see the family all upset at the loss of their beloved doggy Rina*

Truth be known .... I wimped out.

Anyways, nuff said, here's the next instalment in the Graystone family saga (didn't think I'd forgotten them did you???? I'm waiting for University Life so that I can properly continue their saga)

After begging, pleading, even downright bribery and corruption, Rina was finally allowed back home. With a warning. Because of her self-trained aggressive behaviour, she'd have to be watched around younger children and babies. Plus, if she was ever neglected again, her removal was PERMANENT. Next time there was no going back.

 
Violet was the first one to make a fuss of Rina.

Followed by Helen, who'd cycled like mad from her art class to get home to greet Rina.
And gave her a good brushing. Which resulted in a sloppy lick and a wagging tail!!!

So all's good with the world.

Saying Goodbye

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. I just wish I'd used the cheat mode to stop it, but I didn't, and let the events unfurl.

Whilst everyone was gathered to witness Violet's transition, Rina wanted to play. Holding her favourite squeaky toy, she looked hopefully up at everyone, silently begging them to give her just an iota of attention.

Alas, it wasn't so. What with birthdays, work, another pregnancy announcement. Rina was becoming more and more neglected. It wasn't for the lack of understanding. They kept her well fed. She slept wherever she wanted. It's just that they never had time to brush her, take her for walkies, even give her a flea bath now and then.

And it hurt Rina.
Deeply.

So much so that suddenly, without warning, she started turning nasty. Snapping at the postman, chasing the paper delivery girl. Even growling whilst she was eating her food.

Yes, she'd trained herself to have the Aggressive trait and it was making life around the family VERY uncomfortable indeed.

But worse was to come.

Because of Ginny's pregnancy, she was awarded maternity leave and was home alone with Rina when the worst possible scenario happened.

Alerted to Rina's obvious 'distress', the 'social worker for pets' Esteban Owen, arrived to chew out Ginny.

He tore shreds out of her, listing all the wrong things she and the rest of the family had done.

Already in a hormonal state, Ginny was pushed to the brink with this devastating news. And she took it very badly.

Rina in the meantime, stood by, confused at all the yelling and screaming.

He gave Ginny an ultimatum. Either they give up Rina for good.

Or she goes to a facility for badly behaved dogs and is retrained. *
Her choice.

He was fair but extremely disappointed.

"Please remember," he said as he turned to walk out the door, "she's aggressive now, and you've got that new baby coming up soon. I shudder to think of what would happen if Rina was ever left alone with the baby. I could be wrong. But I don't want to be the one to run the risk."

With a heavy heart, Ginny agreed with him and let him take Rina away with him.

Rina trotted out of the house and jumped into the car to await her fate. To her, it was just another adventure. No biggie really.

Whilst indoors, Esteban tried to reassure Ginny that everything will work out just fine.

He left the house, climbed into the car and turned to Rina.

"Come on girl," he said quietly, "let's go shall we?"

Ginny watched through the window as the car drove up towards the hill.

She burst into tears when she saw that Rina had turned around and was looking out of the rear window of the car.

Rina's toy box, and food bowl were a sad reminder that Rina was gone......

... maybe not permanently, but she was still gone.....


She didn't know how she was going to break the news to everyone.
She really didn't.

*please note that this does NOT happen in game. Once the social worker turns up, there's no plea bargaining at all. You can't even talk to the social worker, the option isn't there. They take the pet and that's the end of it. But because I've got a real soft spot for Rina and don't REALLY want her to leave. I've left an option open for her to 'return', by making up a separate saved game so that I can always return to the original saved game prior to her departure.

 I'm just soft like that.

Virginia Has An Announcement

Prior to Violet's birthday, Ginny had been feeling a little unwell. Perhaps it was something she ate?
Or maybe it was the results of the marathon WooHoo session she and Brosie had put together a few weeks back. Whatever it was, she was finding herself being more and more friendly with 'Mr Porcelain' - aka the toilet!!!

Not wishing to burst Violet's birthday bubble, nor upstage her in any way, Ginny tried to keep things quiet.
However, that didn't go quite to plan as Susan caught up with her mother as they sat outside eating the birthday cake.

And Violet collared her dad at the table.

"Mom's pregnant .... again?" she asked, utter disbelief in the tone of her voice, "don't you think you two are a little bit 'old' for that now? Seriously. I mean it!"

At the counter, staying utterly quiet and slurping at a mangonilla ice cream, Susan's IF doll Rags, pretended he was invisible.

 

However, much later on, he did try to help out when Rina's bladder gave out on the verandah.

Anyways, I digress.

The news of Ginny's pregnancy did NOT go down well at all!! The only person who was really happy.... was Brosie!! Tired of girls, Ginny wanted to try a new approach, Apples. Apparently, if you eat plenty of apples, the gender is guaranteed to be a boy. Ginny wasn't that bothered. In fact, she much preferred girls. But Brosie was adamant that he wanted a SON.

There was one little snag in their game plan.

Ginny didn't like apples all that much. It took a lot of effort for her to choke down at least one of them!!
Not only that, whilst she was eating, a complete stranger turned up.

Proud of her small garden and how much she'd accomplished with her vegetables, she mistakenly thought he was a representative of the Garden Club. There'd been word going around that they were looking for entries in their annual 'Garden in Bloom' contest.

However, he wasn't. He was just a nosey reporter, sniffing around for a juicy story.
Ginny soon sent him packing.

In the next update: get your tissues out