The Life and Times of Sandi French

It's been a while since I dropped in on Sandi (French) Butler and her family. She is approaching her elder years. Some time back, she gained a new trait that edged out her "dislikes children" trait. It happened about the time Austin became a teen. Now she has experimented with cloning and created a clone of her husband Bernie. We call him Bernie Jr.

It's actually Austin's imaginary friend Lucky Butler, who seems the most devoted to little Bernie Jr. He's the one who autonomously goes to the crib and takes care of the little tike's needs.

We spent a lot of time working on Sandi's science skills to try and get her to her lifetime wish. It was so slow-going that I thought it was glitched, but she finally made it. Now she can take time to do the things she loves, like boating.

She went back to the island with the lighthouse so I could get some pictures of the area. There were no spawners or anything on the island to make it worth travelling to except the view.

Sandi thought this would be a great place to paint a landscape of the main island at sunset.

Better get home before dark.

Barnacle Bay by night.

I was thinking of putting some kind of tomb on the island to make it worth visiting, but I'm not too skilled or motivated in that area at the moment, so I dropped down some rare spawners and built a beach house. I'm not happy with the windows in the upper roof area. I might delete them and bring the roof down a bit. Here's the house.

During this episode, we had two birthdays. First was Austin (and Lucky) aging up to young adults. Sandi surprised Austin on the stairs as he was going down to breakfast.

Austin is a genius, excitable, a computer whiz, loves the cold, and never nude.

Then it was Sandi's turn to age up.

I gave her a makeover.

She's still got some spunk left in her.

The Butler family has gained some fame, but at what cost? The paparazzi seem to have made themselves at home and insinuated themselves into every mundane aspect of the Butler's lives.

The dog Sadie isn't even immune from their attention.

It seems Lucky has finally won his crush, Holli Darwin, over. They are now a couple.

The paparazzi won't leave them alone, either.

Lucky loves the heat, loves to swim, is perceptive, a couch potato, and a vegetarian. He has joined the private investigator career. I'm half-way thinking of moving him and the Darwin chick to join Coral Goldbeard in the Sunlit Tides save. Whether he would be a partner in her agency or the competition, I don't know.

While it looks like Holli is devoted to Lucky, when she stayed over at the house, she chose to sleep in Austin's room rather than Lucky's.

Could there be a love triangle forming?

With the kids now young adults, and Sandi achieving her lifetime wish, I'm not sure where to go from here. Once Bernie ages up to an elder, do I just leave them here to live out their lives and save the young adults to the bin to drop in another game? Do I follow Sandi to the end of her life and end the game there? I haven't decided yet.

Meanwhile, I keep getting notifications that the Bloodston family is getting stuck, so I went to investigate. This seems to be the problem area. There didn't used to be a problem with this house.

When I first got there, this area was kind of fenced in with some gnomes, but I got rid of them, and it didn't resolve the problem. I was going to save my visit to the Bloodston's until closer to Halloween, but whatever.

There are now two paintings of this woman in the house. I think it's Terence's mother, so I named the painting "Mother Bloodston." There's a bit of a resemblance.

Speaking of resemblances, Terence's son Cosmin seems to be a chip of the old block.

He looks too old to be a teen, so I darkened his hair. Cosmin's lifetime wish is to be a paranormal profiler (I didn't pick it for him; the game did while I was playing the Butler family.) Cosmin is artistic, eccentric, evil, and hates the outdoors. He likes Egyptian music, chili con carne, and the color red. He has one logic skill level so far.

I don't think Kristin, Terence's wife, is a vampire. She still goes off to work in the business building. I think she's a journalist. While I was with them, she left some pancakes on the stove and rushed off to work. I didn't have the option to have Terence or Cosmin take care of it, so a fire broke out.

Terence autonomously tried to put the fire out, but he was struggling with it. As a result, most of the kitchen was destroyed. It doesn't matter too much to Terrence and Cosmin because they mostly consume plasma juice anyway.

Terence works in the stylist career. I went with him on a few of his appointments. It seems no one in town appreciates his fashion sense.

Thor French, Sandi's half-brother (spawn of Molly French and Jared Frio), was asking for a makeover. He has since moved out from his imaginary friend Lucky French, and in with his girlfriend. He is now the Emperor of Evil.

"You need to change your image if you want your minions to respect and fear you, Thor. Let me help," suggested Terence.

"This is what you think an Emperor of Evil should look like? I look like I should be in a Marvel Comic movie!"

"Exactly! Everyone who sees you now will know you are an evil head-honcho."

"But this is so stereotypical! So cliche! I thought you would be more creative," Thor explained.

"Well, there is one more thing I can do for you that will make people fear you," Terence replied. "Are you game?"

"There, in a few short days, you will become a full-fledged vampire."

It was at this point Thor's girlfriend came home.

"You mean I can't go out in the sun anymore?!? I love the sun!"

"How could you do this to me, Terence? I thought we were friends!"

Then, Terence thought it would be a good idea to corner Thor's girlfriend in the bathroom and tell her about the fire his wife started that morning.

"Wow! Someone could have been killed!" she exclaimed.

"Just make sure you always mind the stove when cooking, so your kitchen doesn't suffer the same fate as ours," Terence warned.

"Speaking of food, I'm kind of hungry. Will you lend me your arm?"

Meanwhile, young Cosmin Bloodston had invited a girl over to his house and was trying to impress her. Things seemed to be going along well at the beginning, though she seemed to be uncomfortable around the cowplant.

However, when he tried to kiss her, she gave him "what for."

"You mean you never go out in the sun, like, EVER?"

"I don't like being outside. I'm an indoor cat," he replied.

The girl just couldn't fathom it. Better luck next time, Cosmin.

Before returning to the Butler household, I had Terence throw a party and invite them over.

Lucky French came along dressed in his Simbot costume and challenged the host and various guests to pillow fights.

Fiona Fleet showed up, but made it clear that she doesn't like vampires. You'd think she would have just stayed home if that was the case.

Terence fumed for awhile then let her have it by telling her it was improper to come to a party and insult the host.

Later, he entertained his guests with some piano sonatas.

Not everyone was paying attention, however. Lucky French and Sandi were having a tiff.

Back to the Butlers. Two of them wanted to go to China and another wanted to travel abroad, so I took them to China, leaving Lucky Butler to tend to baby Bernie Jr. and Sadie the dog.

Sandi went with a goal in mind: she was to capture some assassin bugs for her job. She spent her time tracking down the bugs, enjoying the mediation garden and the martial arts academy, and digging for treasure.

However, no matter where she goes, the paparazzi are sure to follow.

"What are they eating? Inquiring minds want to know!"

Bernie got some fishing in . . .

and worked on his martial arts skills at the academy.

Austin did some beginner tomb exploration and met a few women. One of them had the last name of Goth (I assume a distant relative to the Sunset Valley Goths). She was a little unhinged, however.

She was ranting at someone, but no one was there. Not the girl for Austin!

He befriended another woman, however. Her name escapes me, but I'm sure she's in his contacts now and he can invite her for a visit. I think she's one of the paparazzi.

He didn't make a very good impression at first . . .

but he patched things up. For awhile, I thought the girl in the hat might be Annie Aperture, but it's not. That girl really has long hair when she's not wearing her hat. There were definitely some "twinise" incidents.