Life on the Bayou - Part 2 - The Ransone and Echols households.

Story Progression has placed a couple families in the new houses added to the world. Some of the family members have ages that don't make sense for their roles, but rather than age them up. I worked it into the family lore.

The Ransone family is a large, old-monied family who live in the elegant estate called Fleur de Lis. (create by Sandraelle.)

The matriarch of the family is Shana Ransone, the widow of a firefighter (who may be created later - for now we'll call him Clayton Spencer) who died in the line of duty.

Clayton had a young trainee with whom he was very close named Bart Ransone.

After Clayton passed away, Bart took it upon himself to step in and help Shana and her four children with whatever they needed. Shana, who was very lonely, grew to rely on Bart and fell in love with him, even though he was a lot younger than she was. Bart, being a hopeless romantic fell in love with her as well and formed close bonds with the kids. He's the "fun parent" who is more of a friend, especially to the teenagers. When they want to learn to drive, Bart is their go-to.

Bart is a great kisser, a hopeless romantic, friendly, a virtuoso, and handy. He can often be found practicing on the family's grand piano.

Despite losing his mentor, Bart is still a fireman, and he wants to gain maximum influence in all social groups. (Too bad Bucko, I have a mod that limits that to University.) Oddly enough, Bart keeps getting wishes to send all the kids off to a boarding school for the arts, which is also not going to happen.

Shana is a great kisser, nurturing, excitable, a green thumb, and a mooch.

She tries to stay hip and relevant, so her kids will include her in their activities and confidences. She'll stay up late at night trying to get the hang of the most recent video games so the kids will want to interact with her. Shana wants to master charisma and the guitar.

The oldest child is Haley, who is a couch potato, family oriented, a genius, and a virtuoso.

She wants to get a university degree and have a perfect GPA. She has a boyfriend - Louie Echols, whom we will meet shortly. There's no school in town yet, but since I have a mod for it, all the teens have enrolled in a science charter school that meets at the Quantum Research Institute.

The next oldest child is Henry, who is also a great kisser, but oddly enough is unflirty. He's also an excitable bookworm. He's a multi-faceted individual. It will be interesting to see how those traits interact and which ones dominate his personality.

He seem to be interested in psychology, and may really enjoy the school he has just enrolled in. Henry wants to earn 3 degrees. Maybe some of them can be honorary. I might try to set him up as the town psychiatrist when he grows up.

The next child is Curtis, who is good, a bookworm, and loves the outdoors. He can most often be found swimming in the pool or hanging out in the tree house Shana bought for him and his little brother.

Curtis also likes to sneak into his sister's room and use the bake oven she's had since she was little.

Ira is the baby of the family. He's excitable, a slob, and meanspirited.

I expect he'll be a handful. The younger boys look quite a bit alike. I'll be interested to see what they look like when they are older. They have different birthdays, so they aren't twins.

The Echols family live in the Bourbonnais Townhouse (also created by Sandraelle.)

The family consists of one young adult brother raising his three siblings. When their parents met an untimely demise, Logan Echols had to sacrifice his college education to come home and take custody of his siblings. (Note to self: create the parent ghosts?)

Logan is adventurous, lucky, a great kisser, grumpy, and a loner. I've never seen this before, but I was watching him on the computer chatting to someone and checked his relationship panel. This guy was "just born" via Story Progression and hasn't done any traveling, yet he has a long-distance girlfriend named Leslie Briscoe. I'm going to assume they met in college and have been communicating online since he has had to return home. He might need to invite her for a visit, so we can find out more about her.

Louie Echols, (Hayley Ransone's boyfriend) is neat, charismatic, a loner like his brother, and dislikes children. However, he has a better relationship with his two little sisters than he does with Logan.

The fact that he dislikes children might be an obstacle to his relationship with Hayley long-term.

She appears to want kids, but at this point, it seems to be a deal-breaker for Louie.

For now, however, they seem to really enjoy each other's company. When they aren't making out on the trolley, (created by Soocoolsim), they're calling each other on the phone.

Harmony and Bridget look so much alike, you'd think they were identical twins, but their birthdays are a couple days apart. Harmony (above) is a couch potato, light sleeper, and lucky. Bridget, (below) is adventurous, excitable, and a vehicle enthusiast. They originally had the same hairstyle and I couldn't tell them apart, so I gave them different ones.

Both girls seem really interested in the supernatural even though it isn't one of their traits. I suspect it's because their parents have died and they miss them.

So far the town only has a few venues, but they are loaded with things to do. Bayou Beats is a favorite haunt for the Blackmon's - especially party animal Billy.

The mixologists aren't quite sure what to do about him. The town is still very lightly populated, and they can't afford to lose any customers. Besides, Billy is a regular.

Billy's definitely the life of the party. Not everyone appreciates his antics, however.

The mixologists all seem to be content enough with their jobs. (The blonde pouring the drink is Mindy Briscoe. I wonder if she's any relation to Logan's long-distance girlfriend.) There is one mixologist, however, who appears to hate her job. Meet Cori Aaron.

She's counting the minutes, looking for the earliest opportunity to leave.

The next time we visited Bayou Beats, she had moved on. I'd be curious to see if she pops up behind a cash register somewhere else in town.

It's been pouring down rain nearly every day so far. The townsfolk tend to hang out at the library most rainy afternoons, and a few of the older sims check out the dance club in the evening -except when there's a protest going on. I'm surprised they don't all have pneumonia.