Aliens Don't Play Fair

Life isn't fair. Or should I say, aliens aren't fair.

Ever since I heard about what happened to Connor O'Neill - my fiancée's brother - I've been hoping to meet those aliens myself. What could be more fascinating? Not just a different culture, but a different race of beings! There is intelligent life out there other than us sims! I am sure I could find a way to make myself understood, if only they would give me the chance.

So I've been spending a lot of time at the telescope, since I understand that's what Connor was doing when he was abducted. I don't know if there's any connection, but I figured it was worth a try, right? For hours on end, night after night, I gazed up at the stars, hoping for a glimpse of something that moved. I would start as soon as night fell, and keep going until the early hours of the morning, with only short breaks to use the bathroom or grab a bite to eat.

And that's how it happened. As I was taking one of those potty breaks, my old man decided he wanted a peek at the stars. Can you see where I'm going with this? You're absolutely right. While I was inside, the aliens picked up my father. I rushed out there as quickly as I could, but it was too late to do anything about it.

They returned him after a few hours. He was shocked, babbling and shivering, but claimed to have enjoyed meeting the aliens. He says he's sorry I missed it, but I know perfectly well he's glad it was him and not me. Maybe he figures I'm younger than him, so he should go first, since he may not get another chance... But he wasn't the one spending hour after hour watching and waiting!

Oh well, I'm not giving up. If they've taken two sims, they may take more. I'll be right here. Well, except when I'm otherwise occupied - I'm a husband now, after all. Maeve and I were married, and I have to spend some time with her, you know. But I'll admit something that she will never find out about - after we woohooed for the first time as husband and wife, and she was fast asleep in our bed, I snuck out to the telescope...




Paul - reached top of second career and fulfilled LTW, Mad Scientist
Carol - reached top of second career, Celebrity Chef
Henry - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, Criminal Mastermind

Carol writes in her diary about her affair with Brandon Lillard.

Michelle's Journal

I'm Michelle Kearney - well, Michelle Lawrence now, since Jack and I got married. I'm going to keep this journal to document the ins and outs of life here at our house.

First of all, I should clarify that it's not just our home. Jack and I share a place with his brother Derek, Derek's wife Laura, and their little girl Teresa. Jack and Derek grew up here - although the house was much smaller then. We've added to it a bit. They grew up with their grandparents, Zedekiah and Donna, who are dead now but haunt the place every so often. Can you imagine - I have my very own ghosts right here at home! If only I could talk to them, find out what it's like on the other side...


The ghosts inspired me to leave my original job as Chief of Staff (I was succeeded by Kevin O'Neill, and then when he left, Byron Preston took over) to study the paranormal. I find the work fascinating, and frequently come home feeling more refreshed and filled with energy than when I left.


At home, even when the ghosts don't appear to us - and they do that a lot, especially to poor Laura, who is always so terrified to see them that she wets her pants - we frequently sense their presence. Like when I gave birth to my son, Casey. I could just feel someone watching us, as Jack said hello to our baby boy.



Jack doesn't seem overly bothered by his late grandparents; he's too focused on the here and now. When we first moved in, he was happy to stay home with Teresa while Derek and Laura worked on their careers. It was only when I found myself pregnant that he decided he should get a job. He's Captain Hero now, but still considers raising the children to be his true calling.


I wonder if he even knows that his brother is one of those criminals he has sworn to fight? The mastermind behind them all, in fact. Probably not; Derek is good at keeping secrets. Laura doesn't seem to suspect that her husband is carrying on with Deirdre O'Neill behind her back, or she wouldn't still treat her as a friend.



Derek - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, Hall of Famer; reached top of second career, Criminal Mastermind; fulfilled impossible want, earn 100 000
Laura - reached top of first career, Mayor; reached top of second career, Icon
Jack - reached top of first career, Captain Hero
Michelle - reached top of first career, Chief of Staff; reached top of second career, Cult Leader

The perfect husband: he not only fights crime, he cooks, too!

Extended Family

Hey there, Byron speaking.

It's good to be home again. Although it's a bit weird how in some ways everything feels the same, and in some ways it's all so very different. I mean, when I was younger, it was just me and my mom. Now we're both married with young children.

Yep, Isabel and I got married, almost right away after coming home from college. At one point in my life the mere thought of tying the knot would've sent me running for the hills, but it turns out married life suits me just fine. Mom seems happy, too, and Komei is okay - although it's a bit strange to have a stepfather who's not that much older than me... I'm not sure exactly what he does for a living, but he does work hard, and he dotes on Mom and Faith.


See, that's one of the big changes. I'm not an only child anymore. My kid sister Faith is in school now - she has struck up a friendship with Isabel's niece, Elena. Faith must be the tidiest kid I ever met - she loves cleaning and scrubbing - but more than a little shy, so it's nice that she has at least one good friend. Otherwise she spends most of her time with books, or running the obstacle course that Isabel brought home from work, or something like that. Guess she takes after Mom.


Mom may be a bit older, but that doesn't stop her. She's still as obsessed with learning things as she's always been. She has reached the top of the heap in science, and works nights now, which means she's always at home during the day to help Faith with her studies. Or spend time with Julia.


Julia is my daughter. It seems the Ramirez family runs to girls in this new generation, Isabel says - Maria, Elena, Teresa, and now Julia. Isn't she adorable? I wish I had the chance to spend more time with her, but somebody's gotta put food on the table, you know? I spent some time as an artist until there was a job opening at the local hospital. I'm Chief of Staff now! Isabel is in the military. It's a good thing Mom loves being a grandmother - she was actually the one who taught Julia to walk and talk.


Sometimes I get weird looks when I mention that I live with my mom, my stepfather, my half sister, my wife and my daughter. Well, who cares? Let them look. Ours may not be the traditional kind of family, but it works for us.


Verity - reached top of first career, Mad Scientist
Byron - reached top of first career, Visionary; reached top of second career and fulfilled LTW, Chief of Staff
Isabel - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, General

Faith as a very pretty teenager.

Alone Yet Not Alone

My house is haunted. Everybody knows that. My late wife, Evelyn, walks at night. "Jan," my friends tell me, "Why don't you move? Or at least get rid of the headstone!" They don't understand that I would never do that to Evelyn. This is how she keeps an eye on us, her loved ones.

I admit that it isn't always easy, living with a ghost. She will appear when you least expect it, and sometimes it almost seems as if she's trying to scare us. But I guess she's frustrated at not being able to communicate. She has to watch our daughters grow up without her, after all.

They have left for college now, both girls. Christa insisted that she had to get into private school, but as soon as we'd had the headmaster over for dinner and persuaded him to let them in, she started packing her bags. I guess it wasn't going to private school that was important, it was getting in, and proving that she was good enough. I don't know why she feels that way - she and Mackenzie have never needed to prove anything to me or Evelyn, and I believe they know that. I certainly hope so. But Christa has always been ambitious.

Well, I live alone now. I have friends who visit, of course, but not all of them are comfortable with having a ghost watching their every move. Most of them leave when night falls. But I did have a big party for my birthday. We had a great time, even though we aren't as young as we used to be. Except Brandon, of course, he never seems to age a day.

Yes, I am getting older. Be patient, Evelyn, and you will soon have company on the other side. I hope to live long enough to see the children come home, though, and perhaps a grandchild or two. Time will tell. For now, I am content.

Full House

Buenos días - I am Ricardo Ramirez. You may call me Rico if you like, I do not mind, since I intend to be very rico one day, he he.

Much has happened in my family lately. It seemed that one day, my wife Alison and I were alone with our baby girl, and the next, we had two daughters and my brother Gabriel was living with us again. It's not that I mind my brother coming back home, you understand. He belongs here, with his family. But with the life he leads, there are some problems.

He has a new boyfriend over almost every day, sometimes two of them in one day. Half of them I have never seen before I find them in my house, making themselves at home. And Gabriel does not seem to know the word discreet. They are all over the place; making out in the living room, cuddling - and more - in the hot tub... There are children in the house!


Yes, the children. Shortly after my brother's return, Alison gave birth to our second daughter, and we named her Elena. She is the most beautiful child you ever saw, just like her sister. I love them both more than I can say - and if there is a small part of me that wishes for a son, they will never know it. Two children are enough, and they are wonderful children. I just wish there was someone to carry on the Ramirez name, but since Gabriel is not likely to have any children... Well, it is a pity.


The girls grow up so quickly. They are both going to school already, and Maria has struck up a friendship with the boy who delivers our newspapers, Alon. She needs glasses, my oldest - I wonder if that runs in Alison's family? No Ramirez has ever worn glasses as far as I know.


Alison has left science for crime - I believe it annoyed her to be called "mad" when she was perfectly sane - and I became a business tycoon when Elena was still a baby. The children are both in private school now, since of course we only want the very best for our daughters. Gabriel is a chef, and a very good one, too, who made a fortune selling food in airports. Before that, he was an artist. We have spent some of our money on expanding the house, and most recently adding a second floor. It is hard to believe how tiny this place was when we were children, after Mamá died... Maria and Elena will never know the kind of poverty we did, I swear it!

A glitch in the game turned Alison into Rapunzel...

... and then into something much worse.

Ricardo - reached top of second career, Business Tycoon
Alison - fulfilled impossible want, max all skills
Gabriel - reached top of first career, Visionary; reached top of second career and fulfilled LTW, Celebrity Chef

Abduction!

You've probably heard about a sim here in Prosperity being abducted, haven't you? Well, that was my son, and I'm here to tell you the true story, not some rumor.

I'm Kevin O'Neill. I have four kids, all adults now, and a gorgeous wife named Melissa. The whole thing went down not long after my two youngest, Maeve and Connor, came home from college. My daughter wanted to focus on her career for a while before marrying her fiancé Henry - she knows the importance of working hard and making money, that one. She takes after her old man in that way. Fortunately she's much prettier than me. Here, I have a picture of her.


Now, the boyo, he'd fallen in love in college, too, but there was some trouble between him and the girl. See, she's not too particular about which side of the law she's on. Me, I don't see the big deal - I may have been a cop at one time, when I was younger, but I left that job when better opportunities beckoned. But Connor, now, he was never happier than the day they named him Captain Hero.

Well, we went about our lives as people do. I became Chief of Staff! At the time, that seemed like the biggest thing that would ever happen to me. Well, then I decided I'd like to try my hand at cooking for a living. Maeve made a name for herself in business, like she'd always dreamed of. Melissa made the Hall of Fame! And we had ourselves a grand anniversary party, the missus and I. We're getting up there in years, you know. But all those things happened before The Abduction.


I didn't see it myself, you understand. Melissa and I were upstairs... well, never you mind what we were doing. But Maeve saw it all through the window. She says there was this sudden bright light out of nowhere, aimed at Connor where he stood stargazing. And then it started to pull him up into the sky!


He tried to cling to the telescope, but whatever that force was, it was too strong for him. The next thing we knew, he was just gone. We were horrified, wondering what had happened, where he was, and if he'd ever come back to us.


He did come back, hours later. A big flying saucer came to hover outside our house, and it just spit him out onto the street. Flat on his face! He wouldn't talk about what had happened, except to mutter about aliens and cry a bit. But then he dusted himself off and went to work. There was some big crisis that day, some thing about a giant robot on the loose, but my boy handled it so beautifully that they gave him a big reward - 50 000 simoleons! No aliens are gonna make my kid crack, I tell you.


Well, he did quit his job after that. But minutes after quitting, he was calling up that girl of his, and she came over for a visit. I don't know what was said between them, but when he came back inside after several hours, he told us there was going to be a wedding soon. Guess he got his priorities straightened out.


Looks like it's none too soon, too. Somehow, those aliens got him pregnant!


Kevin - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, Chief of Staff
Melissa - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, Hall of Famer
Maeve - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, Business Tycoon
Connor - reached top of first career and fulfilled LTW, Captain Hero

Uni, week 4 - crowded campus

This week two waves of Prosperity students hit Sim State - first the CAS children, then the CAS toddlers. Somehow, all 13 managed to become Greek House members, Secret Society members, Big Sims on Campus, and Summa Cum Laude graduates.


Grace Preston and Mark Lawrence continued their romance freom high school, and were engaged. Since Mark wants at least six children, it was perhaps no surprise that they spent a lot of their time practicing. Grace also managed to make a lot of friends, and by her junior year, she had fulfilled her LTW of having 20 best friends.


Byron Preston and Isabel Ramirez were also very much in love; so much so, that halfway through their college time, Byron decided that woohooing lots of sims wasn't what he wanted after all. Instead, he was going to work hard and earn lots of money - going into medicine appealed to him.


On the other side of campus, Henry Johnson and Maeve O'Neill found themselves falling in love. They got engaged, and decided to turn their little place into another Greek House. Soon they had as many members as Prosperitas.


Maeve's little brother Connor was one of them, as was former store clerk Nicole Thompson. There was one big obstacle to their relationship, however; Connor had always wanted to go into law enforcement, while Nicole planned to make her fortune through a life of crime.

Also living at this second Greek House was Henry's younger brother, Colin. All he cared about was making friends and more friends - even streakers. He showed no interest at all in anything romantic, besides a brief curiousity over what that woohoo thing was all about. That curiousity passed as soon as he'd had it satisfied, by...

Gabriel Ramirez, romance sim with no interest in girls whatsoever. He only ever wanted to flirt with male sims, and of course there were plenty of those around, from dormies - like Ash here with the mohawk - to professors. No commitment for Gabriel!


In the same dorm were Jack Lawrence and his girlfriend Michelle Kearney, who had been going steady since they were teenagers. Michelle is a friendly and very lazy knowledge sim, who fulfilled her LTW of maxing all skills while in college.

And there was Amy Jones, a former newspaper girl who had gone to college with her close friend Grace. While Amy herself didn't find love at university - just lots of friends - she did play matchmaker, and attempted to set up two teenage friends, Matthew Johnson and store clerk Zoe Barrett. The two did seem to hit it off, so who knows...

I've never had a backrub that looked like this!

Grace - fulfilled LTW, have 20 best friends

Henry - fulfilled impossible want, max all skills

Michelle - fulfilled impossible and LTW, max all skills

House 9: More O'Neills. Week 4

Riordan and Meadow grew into adults with questionable taste in clothes. They built themselves the beginnings of a house - so far just one big room - and got started on their family right away. First, of course, came the wedding.



And then the baby - Aisling, with her father's red hair, her mother's dark blue eyes, and a skin color somewhere in between.


This is Eric Johnson holding Aisling. He simply appeared outside the house the day after she was born, waiting to be greeted; and when he was, he marched straight up to the crib and picked her up. He wouldn't put her down until Riordan eventually asked him to leave.


With a job in show business, Riordan decided he needed a make-over - a bit of a nose job, but most of all doing something about his weak jaw. Apparently he really liked the result. Of course, the new clothes help, too...


Meadow has a job as an artist, but she barely had time to put in a day's work before she was pregnant again. She wants to watch three children graduate, so she saw no reason to wait. Riordan was ecstatic to hear the news.

Daddy's little girl.