Week Five Part Six: Bridgeview

 

Greg Pons, 47 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. LTW: Become General. Astrological sign: Aries.

Joan Pons, 47 years old. Aspiration: Family. LTW: Marry Off 6 Children. Astrological sign: Leo.

Sarah Pons, 10 years old. Astrological sign: Aries.

Joseph Pons, 7 years old. Astrological sign: Aries.

Seth Pons, 3 years old. Astrological sign: Gemini.

Gabriel Pons, baby.

This tree should look familiar; you've seen a similar tree in the last two updates. Joan is a member of the mighty Riedmayer clan and thus has many, many relatives; Greg is an ex-townie and therefore has no relatives at all save his wife and children. 

Incidentally, I think it's kind of cool that I started out with 4 families. It feels kind of elemental or something.

Life in the Pons household was a constant bustle of activity. In addition to the two busy parents and four active kids who lived there full-time, Joan's various relatives seemed to be over almost every day--the older ones helped with childcare; the younger ones just provided friendship to the kids.

(From top left: Step-grandpa Malcolm holds Gabe; Joe chats with Cousin Todd;  Aunt Edith holds Gabe while Step-grandpa Malcolm looks on; Joe chats with Aunt Maggie; Sarah chats with Aunt Marion; Gabe gets attention from Grandma Beata.)

Meanwhile, birthdays happened constantly. In just one year, Sarah turned 12 and thus moved from primary school to upper school, Seth turned 5 and thus started primary school, and Gabe turned 2 and thus started potty-training and other such important things. (And Joseph turned 9, which was important but not quite the same sort of milestone.) 

Sarah Pons, daughter of Joan (Riedmayer) Pons and Greg Pons. S4 skin, black hair, gray eyes. Aspiration: Fortune. Lifetime want: Become The Law. 

 

In that same eventful year, Joan and Greg celebrated their 15th anniversary. Inspired by Millie and Blake's stories of their Twiiki Island honeymoon, they decided to book a weeklong stay at the Potterhouse Bungalows themselves. Joan was reluctant to leave her children (she'd never left any of them for more than a day, and Gabe was still so small!) but she ended up enjoying herself immensely relaxing, seeing the sights, and reconnecting with Greg as a couple instead of just as co-parents. She did head straight for Gabe's crib and wake him up for a snuggle the second she got home, however.

Shortly after they returned home, Greg and Joan decided that it was high time to try to get the older children into private school. A man named Vince came over to evaluate them and ended up accepting Sarah into the upper school and Joseph and Seth into the primary school.

I had a whole series of pictures of this meal; flipping through them is amusing because Todd and Gabe suddenly appear in the background and play peek-a-boo at one point.

Before they left for their first day, Joan took a picture of all three kids in their new uniforms.

(Joseph is on the left, Seth is on the right. I think.)

As time passed, Joan noticed that her three boys were quickly becoming best friends, but that Sarah was often off by herself. Part of that could be that Sarah was a teenager with teenage concerns like scholarships and an after-school job, but Joan started to wonder if maybe she felt left out in the house full of boys.

(From left: Seth, Gabe, Joe.)

Joan had rather hoped to have a fifth child at some point, but at 50 years old her chances of another pregnancy were pretty slim. Besides, that child would be at least 14 years younger than Sarah. So she discussed matters with Greg and after much deliberation signed on as foster-to-adopt parents with Sim City Social Services. Jeannie was placed with them almost immediately. She was 5 years old at the time, 9 1/2 years younger than Sarah. (And just six months older than Gabriel.)

Despite the age gap, Jeannie and Sarah soon became fast friends and happily shared a room. 

In the process of adopting Jeannie, Joan and Greg met a little boy named Edward. He looked like Sarah and was exactly a week younger than Gabriel, which tugged at Joan's maternal heartstrings. He was available for adoption and they had room; Gabriel was by himself in the bedroom that had been the nursery for so many years. So it was that Edward arrived at the Pons household some months after Jeannie did.

Edward fit right in and Gabe was delighted to have a "twin."

Of course, not everything was gender-segregated in the Pons household. Jeannie loved playing blocks with her new brothers.

Meanwhile, Edward seemed to be musically inclined like his new sister Sarah.

During this time period, Greg began to feel that his life in the music-making world was taking too much of a toll on him. He wanted to be home for his family more, with two new children and the older kids rapidly becoming teenagers. He managed to enlist in the military, which had been his dream for many years. Joan supported him even though it meant a drastic reduction in the family's income; her work as an artist was lucrative enough that they could weather a few lean years even with six children to support, and she had recently sold a successful novel, a sequel to the one she'd published her senior year of college.

(TOC #1 for Greg, and now he can finally work on his lifetime want.)

Joan and Greg were especially concerned about Joseph. Around the time he entered upper school he started talking about how he wanted to have tons of women hanging on his arm all the time when he was older. His parents hoped that it was a phase he would outgrow. Joan in particular wanted to see all of her children happily settled with families of their own someday.

Joseph Pons, son of Joan (Riedmayer) Pons and Greg Pons. S3 skin, black hair, light blue eyes. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Have 20 Simultaneous Lovers.

With a face like that and only 1 nice point, that'd never fly in the real world. Meanwhile, I'm tired of Romance, so he'll probably see the light in college and reform. 

 

The inside of the house was not much different at the end of the week. The nursery is now Gabe and Edward's room, and there's some new furniture in the common area, including a Rock Hammer. That's about it.

The only difference on the outside is the obstacle course.

Technically, Joan was young enough that she could have had a couple more children, but the way I calculate her age, she was 50, so I decided to have them adopt instead. Besides, adopting is cool.

(Two of my real-life siblings were adopted.)