Week Six Part Four: Whitfill Ranch

Blake Whitfill: 39 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. (Formerly Romance.) LTW: Become Rock God. (Fulfilled: Become Celebrity Chef.) Astrological sign: Aries.
Mildred "Millie" (Landgraab) Whitfill: 34 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Become Hand of Poseidon. (Fulfilled: Become Education Minister.) Astrological sign: Gemini.
Landon Whitfill: 3 years old. Astrological sign: Libra.
Virginia "Ginny" Whitfill: 3 years old. Astrological sign: Aries.

The Whitfill Family. Blake is the eldest and thus the Generation 2 heir of the Whitfill family. He has two brothers who are happily married and two sisters who are happily single. This is the same picture used in Rishell and Veronica's update. They changed their shirts since then, but that wasn't worth making a new family tree thing. 

The Riedmayer-Landgraab Family. Through her mother, Millie is related to the Riedmayers of Riedmayer Cove (who featured in the last update), but I confined the tree to her more immediate family to make it more legible. Millie has five sisters and one brother; her older sisters have provided her with six nieces and eight nephews so far. She shares three of those nieces and one nephew with Blake, since her sister is married to his brother.

"Fatherhood"
Narrated by Blake Whitfill

Hey, Blake here. I guess I'm supposed to tell you about raising the twins? Okay.

To start off, let me just say there was a time in my life when I didn't want to do the whole marriage and family thing. I had a lovely mother once, but I never had a father, and I guess a part of me was terrified of messing it up with no examples to follow.

Let me tell you, though, the first time my son looked me in the eye and called me "Daddy", every doubt melted away and I knew I was always meant to do this.

Side note: When I opened this lot, both toddlers were in rock-bottom red aspiration. My best guess is that they had a "Relative breaks up" fear that was fulfilled when their aunt Edith broke off her engagement to Corbin Todd. Fortunately, neither of them had any toddler skills, so Blake did some marathon training sessions and got them in platinum pretty quickly.

At the time, I was working as a celebrity chef. It was good work; I was out of the house a few evenings a week but other than that I could be home with the kids. Meanwhile my wife, Millie, was working early days as an oceanographer--she'd leave long before it was light out and get home in the early afternoons, so we had some family time before I'd have to go off to the restaurant.

Next things we knew, it was time for the twins to go to school. It was so interesting to see them grow up and notice how they looked like their parents. Landon is my spitting image, except something about the shape of his eyes reminds me of his mother.

(In game, Landon seems to have the round Riedmayer eyes rather than his father's narrower eyes. In this picture he just looks like a mini-Blake, though.)

Ginny looks more like her mother at first glance, with her lighter complexion and blond hair (though she has my brown eyes, just like her brother), but she seems to have gotten all of her facial features from me. I'm a handsome fellow, if I do say so myself, so probably she'll end up a pretty woman. Oh, Millie is reading over my shoulder and says it doesn't matter if she's pretty as long as she turns out intelligent and good. Sure, sure. But I bet she's going to be pretty too.

(I worry about Ginny's looks myself, but I didn't figure Blake would share that worry. :))

Anyway, it was really important to Millie that the twins go to her alma mater, Bluewater Academy. It's this swanky private school, with uniforms and everything. I always just went to public school and I turned out okay, but what Millie wants, Millie gets. I just sign the checks.

Millie gave the headmaster a tour of our house--we had some landscaping done just for him--and I cooked my speciality, lobster thermidor. Naturally, the headmaster couldn't say no to our kids and they got admitted easily.

Of course, we made sure to sit the twins down every afternoon and go over their homework. No sense wasting that fancy private education by slacking off.

Sure enough, soon they were bringing home nothing but A+ report cards.












Shortly after the twins started school, I gave up my cooking show in favor of my other hobby, music. It was nice to be able to pursue my dream, but even nicer to come home.

(Recall that last round Blake maxed his enthusiasm in music and dance. By sheer coincidence, his second LTW was "Become Rock God.")

Millie was able to stay home with the kids while I was touring because she was the head of the National Oceanographers Association and hardly had to go into work. (Her coworkers jokingly called her The Hand of Poseidon. She's pretty brilliant at what she does.)

(TOC and LTW #2 for Millie. I think her new LTW is to become a City Planner.)

While I was away, Millie and the twins apparently spent their evenings sitting around studying quietly. I guess the twins got good looks from me and brains from their mom. 

They also worked on their extracurriculars--Landon was in the chess club (Imagine! My son in the chess club.) and Ginny played violin with the school orchestra.

Millie also taught the kids how to cook--now that's a manly occupation for my son! He'll be a celebrity chef someday, I bet, just like his dad!

In between school terms and my band's tours, we had relatives over all the time. We wanted to make sure the twins got to know their cousins and all that, plus Millie and I both like spending time with our siblings. We definitely had a full house, since I'm the oldest of five children and Millie is the middle of seven. (As much as I love my siblings and my kids, I'm kind of glad Millie and I stopped at just two. Five or seven or whatever would have been just a little crazy.)

Playing the bingo game: Marion Landgraab, Greg Pons, Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab, Malcolm Landgraab IV, Blake. At the mahjong table: Rishell Whitfill, Edward Pons, Theresa Dejackome, Landon. At the Don't Wake The Llama table: Fritz Riedmayer, Maggie Landgraab, Lauren Whitfill, Ginny.

Having hula lessons: Gabe Pons, Millie, Seth Pons, Charles Riedmayer, Edith Riedmayer, Joan Pons, Malcolm Landgraab V, Jeannie Pons.

These pics are actually from "Family Sunday." I got this idea from Jungfrun68 over at Mattsmyra. 

Oh, one more thing I almost forgot! Earlier this year, Millie got a perfect score on the SKILL test. She worked really hard on that and we're all super proud of her.

(Yay for Impossible Wants!)

I guess that's all for now, but the twins will be teenagers in just a couple of years and then there's sure to be something else to write about!

Here's the house at the end of the week. Blake and Millie have reclaimed the ground floor suite, but other than that not much has changed.

Incidentally, when I built this house I based it loosely off a Maxis house I had played once. I was puttering around in a different neighborhood and decided to check out that house just for fun and realized I had reproduced the first floor almost exactly. So, credits: Whitfill Ranch, copied from the Cape Cod Classic by Maxis. 

Here's the second floor. Landon and Ginny share a room for the time being, with screens around their beds for privacy. (Not that Sims care.) Maybe next time I visit them I will build a garage for the candy machine and treadmill and whatnot so that third bedroom will be usable instead of being a dumping ground for random stuff.

Here's the whole lot. Yes, I think a garage will fit in very nicely on the left side there.