Round 7 Part 2: Dejackome Place (2053-2057)

Melanie Tse: 57 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Max All Skills. (Fulfilled: Become Game Designer.) Astrological sign: Virgo.
Gavin Dejackome: 35 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Become Criminal Mastermind. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Annie (Riedmayer) Dejackome: 32 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. LTW: Become Captain Hero. Astrological sign: Aquarius.
Rivka Dejackome: 3 years old. Astrological sign: Scorpio.

BJ Bigfoot

For a family tree, see this post. The only difference is that Caitlin and Patrick got older, but I didn't take updated screenshots so I can't update the tree anyway.

"One, Two, Three"
narrated by Annie Dejackome

Gavin had to go away on business a few weeks before I was due with the twins, and sure enough, I went into labor the day before he was scheduled to come home. Fortunately, I still had plenty of support. Aunt Mel kept Rivka entertained and out of the way the whole time.

Meanwhile, my dad and my sister Agatha came over to provide support and medical expertise (at least, Dad had a bit of medical expertise). We played lots of chess to pass the time. I think Dad won every game, but of course I was a little distracted.

Finally, the twins were born! First was Melanie Jill, whom we call Lanie. (As you might guess, she's named after Aunt Mel and my aunt Jill, who was like a mother to me growing up.)

The second twin was a boy, Quinton John. (That was my late father's name, but it also honors Dad, who goes by Johnson.)

Gavin had heard that his brother-in-law Donte had made a robot, so not to be outdone, he created Moh. Moh was a little obsessed with the babies, but I guess that's a good thing when you have twin newborns and a preschooler.

Fortunately, Rivka wasn't a preschooler for very long. She's still the spitting image of her father, though as she's gotten older her hair has turned more strawberry blond than true red (and of course her eyes are brown, like mine).

The same year, I finally got my dream job with the SCPD, and before I knew it I had been awarded the prestigious Captain Hero award.

While I was working the twins kept growing, and soon took Riv's place as resident rampaging toddler. (Times two!) Lanie looked pretty much exactly like her sister had at that age.

Quinton looked a bit more like me.

It was very important to Gavin that we get Rivka into Bluewater Academy. I would have liked to wait and do the whole admissions process when the twins were old enough to attend, but Gavin engineered the whole thing, so I let him. I figured Riv would enjoy being in school with all her cousins, anyway.

I must admit, even though they're a lot of work I'm not too eager for the twins to go to school. I'll miss those rare moments when they spend a quiet morning coloring at their activity table, being all tiny and cute everything. But that's how it goes, isn't it? You close your eyes and when you open them again everyone's grown a little older and all sorts of things have changed.

And here's the house at the end of the week. I feel like I need to scrap the whole thing and make it fresh at some point, because it has an awkward layout after being added onto many times. 

I am more pleased with the outside--it took a very long time to get the roof just right.

Notes:

1. All the adults got secondary aspirations this round...Melanie and Annie got Family (yay Comfort Soup!) and Gavin got Romance, which could spell trouble. I guess we'll see.

2. I don't know what Annie's new LTW is now that she's a Captain Hero. I'll have to look it up when I play them next.

Week Six Part Two: Dejackome Place

Melanie Tse: 50 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Max All Skills. (Fulfilled: Become Game Designer.) Astrological sign: Virgo.
Gavin Dejackome: 28 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Become Criminal Mastermind. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Annie Riedmayer: 25 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. LTW: Become Captain Hero. Astrological sign: Aquarius.

For complete family trees, please see the college update. For now, a quick recap:
Gavin is the only son of founder Rivka Dejackome, so of course he has returned to his childhood home after college.
Annie Riedmayer is the elder of Quinton Riedmayer's two daughters, and thus a member of the far smaller second branch of the massive Riedmayer family (the other branch containing Elwood's numerous descendants). She is Gavin's fiancee and thus came with him after college rather than moving back to her own childhood home.
Melanie Tse was close friends with the late Rivka Dejackome and became a live-in nanny to the children, which was fortunate since Rivka died before any of them became teens. She also served as placeholder while Gavin was away at college. 
Since the prosperity challenge rules dictate that college graduates can move in with a) a relative (or maybe just a parent?) or b) a best friend, and since Melanie is not actually Gavin's relative, I made sure that they remained BFFs throughout his college years. Gavin moved in with his BFF Melanie, and then Annie was able to move in with her BFF Gavin. 

"Role Reversal"

Narrated by Melanie Tse

Gavin and Annie ended up being able to leave Sim City earlier than they thought, so they arrived about half an hour after I left for work. (I'm a substitute teacher.) When they arrived, they were apparently terrified that I was lying dead or injured somewhere because the yard looked so terrible...old newspapers piled up, weeds everywhere...After they checked the house and didn't see me, they got to work cleaning things up, even though it was raining fairly hard at the time.

As soon as I reassured them that I was not dead, they started planning their wedding. It was held early the following year: Saturday, February 9, 2047.

They are a lovely couple, obviously very devoted, and I knew that they would be very happy together.

They also have a sense of humor, which is always important in a marriage.

This might sound crazy, but I had the strangest feeling that Rivka was somehow watching the wedding herself, from wherever she is now.

Outtake: I can only invite 5 or 6 people using the "Throw Party" option, so I did a regular "Call > Invite Over" for several guests. Some asked if they could bring friends and I thought, "Why not? The more, the merrier!"

This is why not. I didn't see what led up to this slap-fest, but I'm assuming Theresa interacted romantically with her fiance, Malcolm (they're three-bolt lovers and can't keep their hands off each other), and Dog Face there got mad because he thought the one-time fling he had with Theresa when she was at college actually MEANT something.

Since money was a bit tight, Gavin and Annie decided to go to Three Lakes for their honeymoon--it's just a couple of days' drive away, or a very short flight. We ended up flying because Gavin didn't think my old bones could handle that much time in the car. Yes, he insisted that his old auntie come along on his honeymoon. I expected Annie to object, but she was all for it. I decided to be flattered rather than insulted, though I suspect they secretly think I'm a child and can't be left home alone for a week.

We managed to rent a lovely two-bedroom cabin, just right for the three of us.

I probably could have spent a whole week just relaxing in the cabin, but we did take in some local sights. Annie was much better than I at the log rolling thing...

I got the hang of slap dancing pretty quickly, though.

I must admit, though, that my favorite thing about Three Lakes was the deep tissue massage.

Gavin and Annie said that their favorite part was the sauna.

We had heard from Jeannie about the Bigfoot...excuse me, Sasquatch...oppression that went on in Three Lakes. When we met Christian there, of course we had to apply to have him move back to Prosperity Plains with us. Our application was accepted, and he moved in with us and took over Gavin's old bed. (Not Gavin's old room, though, since we'd renovated after Gavin and Annie moved back.)

For some reason, Gavin and Annie weren't able to find jobs in their desired fields right away. I had a job as a substitute teacher, so I managed to support us all right during that period, but it was difficult. (Christian couldn't find a job either. He wanted to get into education so that he could teach future generations the truth about Sasquatches.)

Annie spent most of her time networking, hoping one of her many friends would be able to give her some help. Gavin worked on honing his skills so he could impress potential employers.

Gavin finally got a job with Malcolm Landgraab's imports business in late 2049. He seems to enjoy it very much.

With our income newly increased, Gavin and Annie felt free to try for a baby and were immediately successful.

(Annie actually got pregnant long before that--I think on the honeymoon--but again, I am trying to make Sim-pregnancies seem realistic lengths.)

Their daughter was born on October 25, 2050. They named her Rivka Anne Dejackome. She ended up with her mother's brown eyes and her father's red hair; it made her look a great deal like her aunt Theresa.








After little Rivka was born, Gavin decided to get back in shape. He had put on a bit of weight in college and I think he was self-conscious about it. It was a little funny that Annie had no trouble losing her baby weight but Gavin was working so hard on losing his after the baby.

Gavin had 8 or 9 body points the whole time he was fat, and now he has 10, so he'd better not get fat again--especially since he has only about one bolt with Annie and she is turned off by fatness.

Gavin helped me lose some weight too; I'd put on quite a few pounds over the years without really realizing it.











Christian managed to get a job lecturing at a university, but Annie still hadn't managed to find a job in law enforcement. So she was a stay-at-home mother to Rivka while the rest of us worked outside the home. Before we knew it, Rivka was a beautiful little toddler. I think I see more of her father in her as she grows, but it's hard to tell at her age.

Annie and Gavin both wanted a fairly large family, and they decided that since Annie was at home anyway she might as well have another child, so that she would not want to go on maternity leave as soon as she got a job. However, it took some time for her to conceive the second time. She found out she was pregnant again shortly before little Rivka turned 3 years old.

Annie's second pregnancy was very different from her first. She was hungry all the time and craved rich foods like cheesecake. When she was about 4 months along she found out that she is having twins! I suppose that explains it; growing two babies requires more food than growing one. We're all looking forward to their arrival early next spring.

This is the house at the end of the week. Everything to the left of the flowerbed is new, and the bedroom portion inside is extensively renovated. Melanie has her own double bed in the back bedroom there, and then Gavin and Annie and Rivka all share the largest front bedroom for now. Then there's the study, Christian's room, and an empty room. (The pink bed used to be Theresa's; no sense getting rid of it when Rivka will need one of her own soon.)

Once they have a little more money, I will probably bump out the kitchen/dining/living area to be level with Melanie's room, just because I like my Sims to have plenty of room to maneuver.

And here is the outside. It looks a little funny, but I still like it. I spent quite a while getting the roof just right, since the wall bumps out one space there to the left of the flowerbed.

Other than job woes, this week was pretty boring for the Dejackome/Tse/Bigfoot household.. Next week we get to find out whether one of Annie's twins will be the Generation 3 Dejackome heir or whether she will have to try again. (I haven't started playing Week 7 yet, because real life has gotten in the way, so I don't know any more than you do!)

(If Annie and Gavin don't have a boy in their third pregnancy, I will let them stop and just have one of the girls be heir.)

Sim State University Class of 2046

Loosely based on what I've seen in places like Sullivan and Lakeside Heights. I just felt like pulling some of this out of the narrative posts and into this. Plus I am starting to get a teeny bit better at taking close-up shots of my Sims and wanted to show them off.

Gavin Dejackome
Major: Mathematics
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Gavin plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with his aunt, Melanie Tse, and his fiancee, Annie Riedmayer. He is looking for a job in the imports business.

Theresa Dejackome
Major: Art
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Theresa plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with her fiance, Malcolm Landgraab V, and his family. She hopes to have a career in architecture.

Malcolm Landgraab V
Major: Art
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Malcolm will reside in Prosperity Plains with his parents, local entrepreneurs Malcolm Landgraab IV and Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab, and with his fiancee, Theresa Dejackome. He hopes to work in the publishing industry and eventually start his own newspaper.

Ryker Owens
Major: Drama
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Ryker has received a land grant in Prosperity Plains and will be living alone. He is looking to get into the entertainment business.





Agatha Riedmayer
Major: Philosophy
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Agatha will be living in Prosperity Plains with her mother, Jill Smith, and uncle, Johnson Simpson. She is keeping her options open in terms of future employment.




Annie Riedmayer
Major: Psychology
GPA: 4.0
Honors: Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House member, Landgraab Society member, Big Sim on Campus award recipient
Plans: Annie plans to reside in Prosperity Plains with her fiance, Gavin Dejackome, and his family. She is seeking employment with the Sim City Police Department.

Week Five Part Thirteen: Sim State Dormitory + Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House

Annie Riedmayer: 18 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. Lifetime want: Become Captain Hero: Astrological sign: Aquarius.
Theresa Dejackome: 21 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Become Celebrity Chef. Astrological sign: Libra.
Malcolm Landgraab V: 24 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. Lifetime want: Become Media Magnate. Astrological sign: Gemini
Gavin Dejackome: 21 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. Lifetime want: Become Criminal Mastermind. Astrological sign: Cancer.
Agatha Riedmayer: 19 years old. Aspiration: Romance. Lifetime want: Woohoo 20 Different Sims. Astrological sign: Sagittarius.

Gavin is the last in my wave of Knowledge teens, as you can probably tell.

The Riedmayer family tree. I might have to start breaking it up into subfamilies. Anyway, Annie and Agatha are first cousins, and then Malcolm is Agatha's nephew (even though he's older than she is) and therefore Annie's first cousin once removed.

The Dejackome family tree is much more manageable. Gavin and Theresa were adopted by founder Rivka Dejackome and I pretend that they are twins. Their older sisters are recently married with young families.


Narrated by Gavin Dejackome

My sister Theresa and I ended up getting assigned to the same dorm as three other students from Prosperity Plains. I think the administration puts us all together on purpose. Anyway. As soon as we step out of the taxi Theresa and her boyfriend Mal--they dated in high school--were all over each other. I wouldn't mind that; some people are just into PDAs, but I'm pretty sure Theresa wasn't faithful to him and it bugged me that she was letting him think she wanted to be with him when she was with a bunch of other guys too.

The two other girls were Annie and Agatha Riedmayer. Annie told me that Agatha was her sister, but then later explained that they're first cousins but were raised together and think of themselves as sisters. Considering that I have an aunt who's not my aunt, I don't really care if she wants to say her cousin is her sister.

Annie was pretty sociable, taking the initiative to get to know all the rest of us. Theresa definitely encouraged me to spend time with Annie. I think she thought that if I got a girlfriend I would be less curious about her...extracurricular activities. Like a guy is ever going to stop looking out for his little sister. (She's only 5 minutes younger than I am, but that totally counts.) I did think Annie was quite nice, though.

At one point that first semester Theresa asked me to "help" with her term paper. And then she said she was going to the restroom and didn't come back for an hour. So I didn't help her the second semester.

Meanwhile, Annie was connecting with Ryker Owens, who was currently in charge of ZZE Greek House. Pretty soon all 5 of us were members of the Greek house.

Theresa also managed to make it into the Secret Society during her freshman year, which is a school record. Apparently she's really, really good at making connections with the other students.

I must admit, I'm not sure where Theresa ran off to all the time. I was perhaps getting a tiny bit distracted by Annie after all.

The next year, we all moved to the ZZE house. It was way better than living in the dorms. The food was better, there were state-of-the-art computers for everybody, all sorts of tools to help learn different skills...

There were even a bunch of clothes left over from previous residents. Nobody had had the money to go shopping, so they eagerly raided the dressers and took what they wanted.

Time passed pretty uneventfully. We learned things, we all got into the secret society, we all eventually made Big Sim on Campus.

About halfway through our time at college, Mal and Theresa got engaged. I worried that they were going to regret it.

Theresa claimed that she had told Mal about her other lovers, but I'm not sure I believe that. She also said that she wasn't with anyone else after she and Mal got engaged. From the way she talked after that, I worried that she had picked Mal over her other lovers because he was rich, not because she actually loved him.

Anyway. I suppose that might have put the idea in my head, because within a year I had asked Annie to do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Dejackome, and to my immense delight, she accepted. I was blissfully happy.

Both of my older sisters had recently given birth, so they were unable to come meet Annie, but Aunt Melanie came. She and Annie hit it off right away.

Theresa asked a guy named Douglas to join our Greek House near the end of our time at college. I wasn't going to ask, but she made a point anyway of telling me that she never slept with him. He seemed very academically minded, at any rate, so I rather liked him.

Douglas Long
S4 skin, black hair, green eyes
Aspiration: Knowledge
Lifetime want: Become Prestidigitator (of course)
Astrological sign: Sagittarius

Even though he was several years behind the rest of us, he joined our study sessions and was actually quite helpful.

Just before graduation we had a toga party to which we invited as many of our family and friends as could come.

Then came graduation. It was easy for the five of us from Prosperity Plains; we were all moving back with our families or our future in-laws.

Ryker was the last to leave the Greek house. He wanted to stay in the area, but didn't want to move in with any of his friends and burden them--I doubt he would have been a burden to anyone, but I can understand that desire to stand on one's own two feet. Fortunately, Ryker found out a few months after graduation that his application for his own plot of land in Prosperity Plains had been approved. All the rest of us pooled our money and gave him some things to help furnish his new home, since he wouldn't have a lot of money to start out with. Maybe that was wrong, considering how strongly he felt about independence, but we had all become such good friends in our time together that not helping each other out at least a little was unthinkable.

Notes:

1. I was going to post pictures of the Greek House, but now I think I will do a more detailed tour in a separate post. It has changed radically over the years, but at the same time it doesn't change in the same way as the other houses in the neighborhood. 

2. I never would have thought that I could do a college post with a first-person narrator, but I think it actually  worked. I think it's funny that Gavin is so very different from Corbin, who narrated the post before this one.

3. I glossed over a lot of Theresa's escapades in the narrative, so here's a recap: I decided that I was going to shoot for her impossible want (30 simultaneous lovers) before she hit the end of her sophomore year, so that I could change her aspiration and get the prosperity challenge points for TWO impossible wants. So I had her purchase the cheapest community lot in Bluewater, threw in a double bed, and had her start inviting over every single guy she knew. (I used the college directory and the "network" business perk to get her more acquaintances.) She did manage to hit 30 lovers in time to change her aspiration to Fortune (new LTW: Become City Planner). I am so never doing that again, though.

Poor Agatha got neglected as a result of my getting burned out with Theresa; she had an affair with a professor but otherwise didn't get to do anything Romance-y. 

4. Ryker got a lot of stuff because I wanted to keep GH funds below 20k. I think they only take away funds if there's less than 20k per resident, but I am a control freak so I keep it below 20k just in case. Ryker was the only one who wanted for anything, since everyone else really did move back to established houses.