Take note carefully of this picture of the Burb's remodelled house, as there's a clue in there of events to come.


Curiosity piqued?





John's such an adorable dad. He takes care of most of little Linus' upbringing by himself, as Jennifer is too busy trying to climb the careerladder.



Lucy's found friendship in the guise of Alexander Goth, after she brought him home from school one day. They get along fine, but Alex is a bit of a sore loser.

Lucy: "Haha, I won! Again!"
Alex: "RAGE!"

It's just rock paper scissors Alex, don't have a coronary.



Lucy still spends a lot of time trying to teach Mickey all sorts of tricks, but he's a bit of a slow learner, if incredibly well-behaved. Doesn't molest the furniture, eats his doggyfood, sleeps in his doghouse and primly pees on the sidewalk every morning, much to the chagrin of the mailman, who has to step through that stuff.



I missed Linus' birthday :( He had to grow up in the hallway. He seems pretty pleased, nonetheless.



Here he is after a makeover. His OTH is science, and he skilled his way up with that toddler logic toy. Smells like the makings of a knowledge sim to me, hence the outfit.



Jennifer, as previously mentioned, mostly works on her career. She needed some more logic skill, and Linus had been wheedling to buy a telescope for a while, so I figured I'd hit two birds with one stone.



Turns out I hit three. John had been rollings wants for another baby for a few days, but Jennifer didn't, so I figured two kids would do fine, and he'd just have to spend time with the ones he had.



Not John Burb though. Oh no. John Burb will find a way.



Even if it means getting probed by aliens a bit. I do have a hack in place that increases the chance of abduction slightly, but it's really not that much. John just got lucky I guess, even though right now he probably wishes he hadn't.



Meanwhile, Mickey has grown all old and grey. I felt a bit sorry for him, always having to sleep outside in that rather shoddy doghouse. It was fine when he was a young, sprightly dog, but now he's aged a bit, and the weather's set to get bad with autumn coming up...



So he got a brand-new dogbed in the living room. Much more cozy and warm. :)



Linus loves playing around with the old pooch.



I love the faces sims make when giving birth to alien babies, can you tell? ^^

John gave birth to a little green baby girl, Lyra. She's got John's brown hair and eyes. No black alien eyes for me :(



Good gods, is that Jennifer doing some mothering? It's not even her baby! I'm impressed.



Time flies when you've got an age mod when you're having fun, and soon it's time for Lyra's birthday. Jennifer has completely taken her in as her own, actually spending more time on her than she ever did on her 'real' children.



She's picture perfect!



I'm loving my P.T.s right now. They breed wonderfully well from the experiments I did with them, and little Lyra's no exception. Time's up for the Burbs, so moving on to the Curious family!

The Curiouses



Vidcund sees no sense in wasting any time, and arranged the wedding right after they moved into Pleasantview. It was just a small ceremony, with just the family invited.



Vidcund & Cassandra: still <3



Little kids don't get to drink champagne, so Orion compensates by cheering as loudly as he can when the adults toast. I'm not sure why Cassandra is tucking her glass under her arm like that, or why Morty seems to be gripping Vidcund's wrist.

Alexander: "Hey, I want to be in the picture too! Hello? Can anybody see me?"


Cassie's a family sim, and already wasted one marriage without getting any sprogs out of it. She's not going to sit back and wait for Vid to make the first move this time around.



Not that he's complaining :)



These two are so utterly adorable together. I've no idea why I've never thought of pairing them up before. They just work, in quite the same way that Don and Nina do for me now.



Vidcund's still working in the natural science career, and has started to lay out his own little greenhouse in their garden in his spare time.



Cassandra's enjoying being a temporary housewife, now she's on pregnancy leave. She's a General Practicioner nowadays, and sees no reason why she couldn't combine being a mother with her career.



Baby time! Cassandra gives birth in the dining room, of all places. Not that there's really a proper place in a house to give birth in, with the possible exception of the bathroom.

The newest Curious is a girl, which they called Marie. I suck at making up names, which is why I tend to go with naming schemes, and seeing as the Curiouses are big on science, I figured I'd go with famous scientist's names. 
Marie is named after Marie Curie, which should be a good strong female role-model for a growing girl. Apart from the bit where she went glow-in-the-dark and died of radioactive poisoning, of course.



With Cassandra back at work, Vidcund insisted they'd hire a nanny to help out with the baby. Here you can see her displaying those famous nanny skills that the SimNation Nanny Service is proud to boast.



Marie grows up quickly, and soon it's birthday time. She looks pretty much like a clone of her mother.



Cassandra: "Heeere comes the ticklemonster!"
Marie: *squeals*



Vid's happy imparting some of his knowledge on his child, even if that knowledge is so far restricted to 'poop goes into potty'.



Cassandra dreams of a big family though, and Vidcund doesn't mind, coming from a big family himself. They'd better get a move on if Cassie wants some time left to work her way towards that Chief of Staff position though. So no time is wasted in providing Marie with a little brother or sister.



Vidcund's greenhouse is starting to fill up with plants, and he's already earned a silver gardening badge. Together with his job, his wife and his daughter, it hardly gives him time left to eat and sleep, but he wouldn't change his life for anything in the world.



It's babytime!

Cassandra: "Oh gods, I hate this part... Why am I doing this again?!"



Right before the end of the round Cassie had twins, much to my surprise, as no cheesecake was involved. They're two boys, which are named Sigmund (after Sigmund Freud) and Carl (after Carl Jung).

You can't tell really well from this picture, but one of them (I can't remember whether it's Sigmund or Carl) has black hair, while the other baby is blond. At least I'll be able to tell them apart.


The Goths



When I loaded up the Goth family, I found this little tableau in Morty and Bella's bedroom. I've no idea what Don was doing there, as far as I know he wasn't invited when I last played them. Really odd.



As I mentioned in a previous update, I fixed Bella's age to be closer to Morty's, and it's time for her to transition into an elder. Refusing to let herself be dragged down by growing old, Bella threw one heck of a party and was determined to have a good time.



Don't worry Bella, you still look great.

Alexander: "Whoo! Go mom! Yeah!"



Don and Chloe were both invited, and spent the entire party being frisky.



The sight of which led to Cassandra hitting the bar pretty heavily. She's perfectly happy with Vid, but that doesn't mean old wounds can't still hurt.



Alexander: "Hahaaa, yes! Decapitated sister!"

I'd get those anger issues looked at if I were you, Alex.



Just another party shot that I liked...



Morty's agebar is looking dangerously full these days, so the skilling towards that LTW has been kicked up a notch. The first skill he maxed out was creativity, helped in no small manner by the addictive qualities of the piano.



Cooking, cleaning and logic were already along nicely, thanks to his work in the science career, and he was able to finish them off fairly quickly.



Alexander's creativity skill is close to maxed as well (that damned piano), and he rolled the want to buy this... thing, which I'd honestly never seen before. It took me a while to figure out what the heck it was or where to find it in the buy catalogue.

I regretted buying the damn thing soon enough, as all Alex does nowadays is make a horrible din with it.



Bella supporting her hubby while he tackles that tricksy mechanical skill. She makes sure he stays nice and warm when he's studying in the evenings by lighting the fireplace. So far, nothing has even combusted yet.



Another LTW completed! Morty's won the race against the clock, and is rewarded with a platinum aspiration for the rest of his life. Sadly, the rest of his life isn't going to be terribly long, judging by the agebar. 



His ambition to find all insects isn't forgotten, and with his time finally free of studies, he spends most of it in the gardens around the Goth mansion, combing shrubs and trees for bugs, spiders and butterflies.



Age hasn't dampened his love for Bella, either. They're still so cute together :)



Is it obvious I'm saying goodbye already? :(

The end of the week was nearing, and I was carefully hopeful that Morty was going to last for at least another week, so he could go on being an adorable old fart in other people's houses for a while at least.



But on Sunday morning, while out collecting bugs, Grim finally came for Morty.



The butler was simply inconsolable.

Goodbye Mortimer, I'll miss you. You were one of my favourite Pleasantview sims :(

Thanks for reading, and see you next time for the Strangetown update!