Good evening, dears! Maude here again. My how time flies, even when you’re a ghost! I try to check in on all of my favorite families on a regular basis to see how they’re doing, and before I know it, someone has grown up or moved out or had a baby. It’s an endless cycle, but I do enjoy watching it all. Besides, what else is there to do? Slam doors and bang pans around and try to frighten people? Perhaps I’m not a very good ghost, but I find those activities to be quite tiresome.

So here I am again, popping in to give you an update on the Dobbins family. When I peek in on them I witness mostly scenes of domestic contentment, but there are some little dark spots here and there. For example, just the other day Nick Dobbins lost his job as the head chef at Spanky’s Steakhouse.

He was positively crestfallen! And all because he wrote a cookbook that wasn’t the hot trend of the moment. Sales were poor and his reputation foundered, so they gave him the axe. Such a shame. The real tragedy of it is that he was all set to retire the next day and start receiving a hefty pension check! Since he was fired, however, he got nothing. After years of loyal service! Boy, if I were alive, I’d give that Spanky a piece of my mind! Wait, now THERE’S a thought! I wonder if he’d like to have his kitchen messed up a bit…

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Hello, all! Mt. Geneva’s gossiping ghost here with an update on the Blakemore family. Perhaps more than one update, when all is said and done! Life moves so quickly in SimNation that’s hard to keep up sometimes.

When we last left Tess and her daughter Ferris, they had just suffered a bout of horrible misfortune — burglary, fire, cockroach infestation, an empty fridge, you name it. Tess hit a real low point after that and decided to concentrate on getting a promotion at work instead of partying every night. She wanted a better life for little Ferris. And good for her, I say!

Thankfully all of her hard work paid off! Not only was Tess promoted to Sales at Happy Lawn, Inc., but she received a huge bonus check. With this extra money, she was able to buy a sparkling new dollhouse for Ferris.

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Good morning! Maude here with a tall glass of orange juice and an English muffin, watching the sun shimmer upon the waters of Lake Edelweiss. Not that I can eat or drink anymore, being a ghost and all, but it’s fun to pretend. Today we’re going to check in on the Kilmans and see what those teenagers have been up to since they moved into Gustav House. Let’s float on over, shall we?

Well, well! Joey is nowhere to be found, but here’s Tiffy. It looks like she’s talking to Jasper Cuffy, one of the rich kids in town. There he goes, boasting about his wealthy parents and all the fancy things they buy. Jasper, don’t you know that’s not the way to win friends?

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Good afternoon, my dears! Tired of all the drama yet? There is quite a lot of it to be found in Mt. Geneva, that’s for certain! But believe it or not, there are some days on which almost nothing happens except that people eat their cereal, go to work, water their plants, hug their kids, and grow a little bit older.

That’s how it has been going for the Dobbins family, anyway, since Will and Paige got married. If you remember, Paige was used to a rather more luxuriant lifestyle than Will could provide for her, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to make up for that. His eventual solution? Move back in with the parents!

A key factor in Will’s decision was the impending birth of his first child. That’s right, not long after the wedding, Paige got pregnant! Will couldn’t think of a better way for his child to grow up than to be surrounded by loving family members. Joely was overjoyed to welcome them back into the house, with one exception: Gustav House just wasn’t big enough for a family of six. So they built a new one!

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Good morning, all! It’s time for another update, but we’re going to leave the Kilman family for a time and go back to the Blakemores. “The WHO?” you ask. Well, you may recall that our resident ladykiller Nick Dobbins had an affair with Tess Blakemore awhile back, resulting in the birth of little flaxen-haired Ferris. I check back on them often to see how they’re doing, and I thought I would share a bit of their story with you. Pull up a nice overstuffed chair and get comfortable!

Tess Blakemore was poor (Nick, of course, never gave her any money to help raise Ferris) and often lived beyond her means. She loved to shop, buying more than she could afford, and indulged in hiring a maid even though her house was tiny. She didn’t want to waste time cleaning when she could be out hobnobbing with co-workers, especially those of the male persuasion (ahem).

Tess worked as an Executive Assistant at Happy Lawn, Inc. (makers of fine pink flamingos and garden gnomes) and hoped with enough shmoozing she could get promoted to Sales. Since she was rarely home, she hired a nanny to take care of Ferris. She also bought a magnificent dollhouse to keep her little girl happy, and Ferris played with it constantly. It was the only thing she had.

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Good afternoon! Maude here again with another thrilling tale. Well, perhaps not as thrilling as the last, though that was more chilling than thrilling, wasn’t it? It certainly seemed to distress some of you, for which I am truly sorry. One doesn’t like to be the bearer of bad tidings. But let me reassure you that Sid’s story is not over, and you may be seeing more of him in the future!

As for the rest of the Kilmans, well, they had a tough time at first. Spontaneous sobbing erupted at all hours of the day, and Sid was ever on their minds. Joey, growing more moody by the minute, got a job as a gofer for some shady corporation in the City, and Tiffy distracted herself by focusing on her schoolwork, finally receiving her first A+ report card.

Poor Rhonda couldn’t get used to sleeping alone, no matter how hard she tried. She often woke up crying, and seemed to be at loose ends when it came to family matters. They were quickly running out of money, even with Joey’s contribution, but Rhonda knew her job skills were almost non-existent. How would she be able to provide for her children?

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Maude here with another episode in the Kilman Family saga. I will warn you — this story is not for the faint of heart! It contains a true family tragedy, one that will haunt the Kilmans for years to come. But if you feel you can stomach it, do read on…

Last we left the Kilmans, Tiffy was struggling with school and Joey was dreaming about winning the lottery, but everyone was relatively happy. Rhonda and Sid were one of most loving couples in Mt. Geneva, and Sid was working hard to improve his family’s situation. Working so hard, in fact, that he was constantly exhausted. Yet he still found time to clean the house…

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Maude here, back from my little vacation. How I missed you all! And in celebration of our new home, I have a brand new family for you to meet. I didn’t expect to find them interesting at first — they weren’t the sort of people with whom I would have associated when I was alive, as snooty as that may sound — but within minutes I was won over by their closeness and easy camaraderie. Those things can be rare in a family with two teenagers! Goodness knows, if you had stuck my family in a tiny trailer house, we would have murdered each other in 20 seconds flat. But the Kilmans, despite their close quarters, seemed to get along splendidly…at least until tragedy struck. Isn’t that always the way?

Here’s a little family portrait:

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