Week Five Part Four: Whitfill Ranch

Blake Whitfill, 32 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. (Changed in college from Romance.) LTW: Become Celebrity Chef. Astrological sign: Aries.

Mildred "Millie" Landgraab, 27 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Become Education Minister. Astrological sign: Gemini.

Blake is the oldest (adopted) son of founder Larita Whitfill. Millie is Blake's girlfriend, newly graduated from college, as you can tell from the coral pink cowboy-style shirt paired with the bubblegum pink cargo pants. Even I'm not that fashion impaired.

Blake has a fairly modestly sized family tree. He's on the far left there.

Millie, on the other hand, is part of the Riedmayer clan, the largest in Prosperity Plains. I've put a red box around her in the tree there so she's easier to find. 

You might also notice that Blake and Millie share a niece; his brother Jihoon is married to her half-sister Francine.

After college, Millie Landgraab decided to accept her boyfriend Blake's invitation to spend some time at Whitfill Ranch. There would be plenty of time to go home to her folks' place later.

She had only just stepped out of the taxi when Blake got down on one knee and presented her with a diamond solitaire, asking her to do him the honor of becoming his wife. Millie accepted, of course.

They didn't see any reason to wait and were married just a few months later, in September, with their families and close friends in attendance. 

An airport had just been built not far from Prosperity Plains, so the new Mr. and Mrs. Whitfill decided to honeymoon on Twiiki Island--the warm weather was a pleasant change from the unseasonably cold autumn they were experiencing back home.

 

 Life soon settled into a busy routine. Blake was working hard at his restaurant, and Millie had gotten a job as Dean of Students at their alma mater. A little less than three years after their marriage, Millie found out that she was pregnant.

For their third anniversary, Millie had contractors build a state-of-the-art kitchen as a surprise for Blake, since they could finally afford to upgrade the appliances that had been installed when he was a teenager.

Of course, Blake was not the only one who enjoyed the new kitchen. Partly inspired by her husband, Millie was developing quite a bit of enthusiasm for cuisine.

(She did not actually max out cuisine enthusiasm. However, she did, according to my notes, max out her Logic and Cleaning skills.)

Meanwhile, Blake used his new hobby of dancing to unwind after work.

Blake's hard work paid off; at the beginning of 2043 he learned that he had gotten chosen to host a cooking show with the largest TV network in Simlandia. (TOC and LTW #1 for Blake! New LTW: Become Rock God.)

His success came just in time, since the Whitfill family expenses went up quite a bit with the unexpected arrival of TWINS! The babies, a boy and a girl, were born on February 4. Landon was the elder and greatly resembled his father; Virginia (called Ginny) was the younger and took more after her mother.

(The twins were actually not unexpected; if you look closely at the honeymoon pics you'll notice I was feeding Millie cheesecake. I wanted to see if it'd actually work.)

Millie soon found success in her own career, being appointed Education Minister just a year after the twins were born. (TOC and LTW #1 for Millie as well. New LTW: Become Hand of Poseidon.) She soon found the demands of bureaucracy too taxing and took a position as a marine biologist at a small research lab nearby.

The twins were soon toddlers and kept their parents hopping.

However, Blake and Millie still found time to just be a couple, even if their dates had to be stay-at-home dates after the twins were in bed.

The house at the end of the week. It's not much different except that the downstairs bedroom is a nursery. (In the past I've found it more convenient to have the nursery on the same level as the main living area in two-story houses.)

The upper level isn't much different either. The bedroom on the left is currently the master bedroom; the bedroom on the right is the Place to Store Random Junk. (Don't we all have one of those?)

And the outside. The plants in the greenhouse got sadly neglected; I forgot how much work toddler twins are. (They still own the green car, by the way. Millie had taken it to work that day.)

It was a fun week overall for me at Whitfill Ranch. The Whitfill family got a male heir right off, so no worries there. Blake and Millie both fulfilled a lifetime want. And I just find this family fun in general for some reason, maybe because I've been playing Blake since he was a child and Millie since she was a baby, so I'm attached to both of them.