The previous week with this family is here.
Yay!! I'm finally able to play again - so far without a hitch - thanks to Twoyys4me's advice to get the Legacy Edition, which I knew about but was not aware that it was specifically made for WIN10/11 users like me. Up until now, I've been struggling with the "Ultimate Collection", and as I've mentioned in nearly every post, could not get to the bottom of the frequent crashes and other issues with my game. What a relief to find out that it's been the incompatible version of the game itself and not something I had done!
And here we are in Belladonna Cove at 310 Bay View Drive, Carlos Contender's house, for the second time this round. Why the second time? You may or may not remember that Carlos' niece Isabel Baldwin and her family moved in with him some time ago; it just didn't make sense for them to keep renting when Carlos had a big house all to himself and was beginning to feel a bit lonely.
Here they are, the entire family gathered in the downstairs hallway on this Saturday morning.
Carlos is 94 and still working as a Hall of Famer with no wish to retire. His niece Isabel Baldwin is 56 and working towards becoming Captain Hero, as per her lifetime want. Her husband Benjamin Baldwin is three years older than her and aspires to become Mayor of The Cove. Their children are Sofia (behind her mother), in her mid-teens, and her little brother Marcus, in his early teens.
Isabel has to go to work today, but she still has some time left before the car pool arrives, and because the outfit she age-transitioned into is really not nice, she decides to buy new clothes. Having a former boxing champion as her uncle who is still keeping fit at 94, it is no question of how the family are going to go to I N Clothing & Apparel - on foot, of course!
Isabel is happy to finally have a good choice of suitable clothes...
...while Marcus and Sofia are equally happy to spend Uncle Carlos' generous top-up of their pocket money at the adjacent snack bar.
Back home, Isabel is off to work and nothing remarkable happens the rest of the day.
Everybody talks to a friend or two on the phone, they eat, Benjamin works on his charisma skill and Marcus shows Uncle Carlos that he actually deserves more pocket money (he is a Fortune Sim) and trims the hedges around the front door.
Sunday goes by with not much happening; since the household already consists of relatives living together, no Family Sunday needs to be arranged. Isabel has to work but uses the hour or so before work to re-gain a body skill point she lost yesterday thanks to a chance card.
Everybody else takes advantage of the beautiful spring weather, too, and the family members alternate between jogging and swimming in the pool.
Neither Carlos nor his niece have to work on Monday, and so they go for a swim first and then for a round of jogging. (I would have done it the other way round, but those were the wishes they both rolled, in that order.)
The kids are back from school at 1:00 pm and make sure homework is out of the way before it's fun time.
For Marcus, that means freestyling in his big sister's room with only her as his audience. She can't help but think that her little brother really has gotten the hang of this, and she'll miss him when she leaves for college soon.
Benjamin's purposeful stride says it all when he returns from work: Meet The Cove's latest Congressperson!
With summer fast approaching, Carlos finds he does not want to spend all day, every day in a track suit, much as he feels at home in athletic outfits. He walks to Desprit Deals and gets a few things that should serve him well with the warmer weather.
A day off is always good to brush up on one's skills, and Isabel does that today with her fingerprint scanner.
It is Sofia's last day as a teenager - time to make the phonecall for scholarships and leave for college! "My big sis... I can't believe she's really going," Marcus thinks.
Sofia's parents wave her good-bye as she boards the taxi, Benjamin clearly wondering when his little girl turned into a young adult all of a sudden. Carlos, who has always been very close to Sofia, appears stunned to see her leaving. It will be his 100th birthday soon, and he wonders whether he'll see her again.
Wednesday is a busy day: All three adults have to work, and of course Marcus is off to school. Carlos is up early enough for a morning swim, though, and then waits for the car pool still in his swimming trunks while doing the crossword.
It is obvious what's happening here, isn't it :-) Isabel has been promoted to Lieutenant and her husband to Judge. Benjamin's colleague is Hun Cho, still something of a newcomer to The Cove.
Benjamin maxes his logic skill on Thursday morning before work.
Isabel uses the hour before the car pool comes to work out; she'll needs the body skill for her next promotion.
That afternoon, Benjamin rides home in style - meet Senator Baldwin getting off the limo!
An hour later Isabel arrives home with colleague Vivian Cho in tow. Although it looks like it here, she has not yet been promoted again, but I don't think she'll have to wait long.
And indeed she's made SWAT Leader on Friday, the last day with this household (their week started on Saturday).
Unfortunately, her husband's decision with a chance card turned out to be the wrong one, and he was demoted to Judge. He can still make it to Mayor, unless he gets fired or dies before he achieves the necessary promotions (he is 66 now).
Isabel suggests to her uncle they go jogging together. You can tell from the look on Carlos' face that this centenarian thinks it's a great idea!
In the early evening, Carlos rings in the first weekend of summer by flipping burger patties on the grill.
The family - minus Sofia, who's at college - enjoy Carlos' burgers together.
What a good week it has been for them all! The Baldwins still have some work ahead of them before they will have reached their LTWs, and Marcus can't wait to go to college, too. We'll see Sofia there probably long before the round is over, depending on the teenagers from which families are going first.
I can't begin to tell you how lovely it is to play without constant crashes again, and to have the clearer graphics and detailed textures back that I remember from before 2023, when I was still using my former computer.
Now I need to think whether to go back to Capp Manor, which I was unable to play this round because of the crashes, or move on with the round and see about the Capps later.
