With the town slowly expanding and attracting more visitors and new inhabitants, the little clearing in which the settlers first set up camp has become too small to house all the sims of Riverside Hollow.
Kate Button has always wanted to live closer to the riverside, so she can study the aquatic flora and fauna from her backyard. After selling their old house to Riana Quisenberry, who was in need of a house of her own close to the Police Station, they relocated and built themselves a new home on the shores of the river.







Kate's private research lab is on the ground floor. The siding looks deceiving, the inside is actually reinforced concrete to stop the sand and seasalt from getting into little nooks and crannies. 
The upper floors house the actual living space, with Ryan and Roxanne's bedroom up on the second floor.



The kids absolutely love living on the beach, and invite over their friends to play in the sand or go swimming in the river. Ryan likes showing off for Emily, who always seems really thrilled about it for some reason.

Meadow: "Why is Em so impressed with a headstand? I can do a headstand. You can do a headstand. It's not like it's that hard."
Roxanne: "Beats me. I guess she doesn't get much excitement over at the farm."



Kate has been getting more and more renown for her research. Turns out that the river serves as spawning grounds for a particularly rare type of fish that's nearly extinct in the rest of SimNation, and other marine biologists have been clamouring to come and study them. 
Great news for Kate's reputation as a scientist, not that great for the fish, who get poked and prodded a whole lot more nowadays. She has to chase off some rogue biologists from time to time who don't seem to care much about fishy well being. It bothers her, and she's been playing with the idea of founding some sort of fish protection organisation.



She also worries about the research facility and the impact it will have. She knew Teddy Babbling well, and through him she could stop any plans that would have negative consequences for the river and the life in it.
She doesn't know the new head of the facility at all, and she's heard that he's a complete rookie, only operating on the notes that Teddy left behind. 



Liam, on the other hand, has started up an entirely new project: his own magazine, the SimCity Arcane. The magazine publishes stories about supernatural happenings, flowing out of his observations of Stephen Withergrass and some other research of his own. He writes the articles himself and does all the editing, for now, but he hopes that he'll be able to recruit some more journalists soon.



Roxanne: "... and Freesia said there's this weird old gypsy woman living in the woods somewhere, and if you've been really good, she'll give you a magic lamp! And in it is a genie, and he lets you make three wishes. Wouldn't that be so cool to get a lamp like that and have three wishes?"
Liam: "What would you wish from the genie if you got one of those lamps then, pumpkin?"



Roxanne: "I can't tell you that, stupid, or the wishes wouldn't come true!"



Home life is very harmonious for the Buttons. By day they go about their own business, but the evenings and nights are reserved for family time. They make a point of always having dinner together, and Kate and Liam always go to sleep together, despite their different working hours. 



The twins still spend a lot of time with Freesia Fenwick, against the wishes of their mother. 



Especially Roxanne is taken with her, and looks up to her. She sees Freesia as a cool older sister, and hangs on to her every word when Freesia is telling tales of her explorations and adventures.



Roxanne: "You really found ancient ruins in the woods? No kidding?"
Freesia: "No kidding, Roxie. I thought the stone circle was the only ancient structure, but looks like there used to be this entire civilisation where the woods are now. When my new museum is complete, I'll ship some of the ruins there to display, and you can go see them for yourself."
Roxanne: "But you could take us into the woods and show them to us! That would be way better than seeing them in some old stuffy museum."
Freesia: "No can do kid, it's plenty dangerous out there. You need to be a real adventurer to survive safely."
Roxanne: "I could be a real adventurer! I could!"
Freesia: "Well, why don't you prove it by digging around on the beach here? If you found something yourself, maybe I could be convinced that you could have the makings of a good sidekick."



You don't have to tell Roxanne twice. So far nothing has turned up on the beach, though. Ryan keeps telling her that all there is buried under the sand are seashells and stones, but Roxanne is convinced she'll dig up some pirate's treasure sooner or later.



Ryan is definitely the more logical one of the twins. He enjoys doing grown up things, like reading the newspaper and playing chess. He often has his nose in a book, and has asked his dad if he could help out with his magazine.



He's meticulous in keeping the bedroom he shares with Roxanne neat and tidy. 



Roxanne is just as meticulous in getting it all messy again.



Roxanne might look up to Freesia as a rolemodel, but for Ryan there's no hero greater than his dad. Whenever he can drag Liam away from his articles about werewolves and magic, they spend time together playing catch on the beach.



They used to play on the deck in front of the house together, but Kate put a stop to that.



She wasn't very pleased with Liam when he accidentally broke a window.



Not that she stayed mad at him for long. Yep, regular woohoo is still their main hobby.



Party time! Roxanne and Ryan's teenage birthday is important enough to deserve a lavish garden party, according to Kate and Liam.











Roxanne has some serious cheekbones going on, but Ryan is as cute as a, well, Button :)



Ryan's personality makes him pretty well suited for life as a Knowledge sim (Neat 9, Outgoing 8, Active 9, Serious 2, Nice 7). He'd actually make a pretty good adventurer, like Freesia.



Roxanne is a very passionate sim (Neat 5, Outgoing 8, Active 9, Serious 2, Grouchy 1), and the Romance aspiration suits her well enough. She's set to become a real heartbreaker.





Liam: "Don't you want any cake, Anna?"
Anna: "Anna doesn't think it would be a good idea to *fzzt* stuff cake down her delicate circuitry."
Liam: "Oh, right. Of course. Sorry."
Anna: "Thank you for offering, though. *beep*"



Kids always flock to Freesia, no matter where she goes. She's just that interesting, I guess.





And Roxanne closed off the evening with catching her first fish. Well done, girl.


Next up: The Withergrasses make some shady deals...