Last we left the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family, they were living it up in the Garage Apartment in Riverview. Third generation heiress/torch-holder Violet had married Benedict Driscoll and given birth to two babies, Gibson and Georgia. Everyone was skilling away like the good little Sims they are, when I just up and decided to move them all to Twinbrook, the new Ambitions town.
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Hooray, Ambitions is here! I’ve gotten everything installed properly (even added HELS to the mix), put all my custom content back in (in the new location), and updated my Twallan mods (Story Progression and SuperComputer for now). I’m sure I’ll see some weird glitches and bugs as I proceed — and it’s possible I already have — but everything seems to be running smoothly for now. So, moving right along with the Shanleys, my Wishful Living Challenge family!

In the last update, third generation heiress Violet Shanley was in the process of moving out of Skunk Haven and into her own abode. Here’s where I ran into a little trouble. According to the rules of the challenge, the third gen heir has a spending limit of §39,999 for the home — that’s for the lot itself, not any decorating or upgrading they do afterwards. Well, at the time I moved Vi out, there were NO houses that cost under §39,999, not even an ugly little shack.

I consulted with my Simming friends who created and tested the challenge, and one of them suggested I merge two families with the same name (reuniting them, in a sense), thus freeing up a house for Violet. I looked around Riverview and saw that a Newbie family was living in the Garage Apartment (near the Broke trailer park), and elderly Barry Newbie was still on the McDermott Farm. So the younger Newbies moved in with Uncle Barry to take care of him in his old age, and Vi moved into the Garage Apartment at 17 Lost Willow Road.

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I’d like to get caught up with this family before I get too involved in Ambitions (which I hope to pick up tomorrow!), so I apologize if this update seems a bit rushed. I will probably end up moving the challenge to Twinbrook (the new city in the EP) when Gen 4 ages up to Young Adult, so the Shanleys and my attempt at the Wishful Living Challenge can continue even as I explore the new stuff!

In the last update, Generation 2 heiress Hope Shanley had finally married her best friend, Travis, and popped out twins, Fern and Violet. Travis’s LTW was to be a Seasoned Traveler, and since he was already an elder, I had a limited amount of time in which to fulfill this wish. Thankfully Sims do not age while they’re on vacation, so that gave me a little bit of breathing room.

Since toddlers cannot travel, Hope and Travis left them behind with a babysitter and zoomed off to France. Hope already had the Prepared Traveler lifetime reward, which meant they could stay three days longer than usual. Despite that, the first trip went by so quickly, and I was so focused, that I didn’t even take any pictures. Woops!

Here’s one from their second trip to France:

Since time was of the essence in trying to complete Travis’s LTW, I concentrated on fulfilling promises so he could eventually purchase the Midlife Crisis reward for Travis. This meant I could change his traits – I got rid of Unflirty and Can’t Stand Art and added Adventurous and Brave. Travis was now a true explorer!
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Last we left my Wishful Living Challenge family, Hope Shanley was living on her own in a house called Skunk Haven and searching for a decent spouse. Her mother Zuzu had just passed away, and Hope had traveled to China in order to regroup and revitalize, which is exactly what she did.

The spouse-search was put on hold while she had a good time, got over her mourning period, and made some moolah. She even found a Mysterious Mr. Gnome while fishing one evening. I named him Russ.
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I’m still going strong with the Wishful Living Challenge and having a total blast. However, my actual progression with the challenge has been fairly slow. This is not due to lack of playtime, as I’ve been playing nearly every chance I get (even staying up until 2 AM on work nights, because I’m an idiot), but due to various unexpected difficulties, mostly self-imposed. I’m just way too picky when it comes to my Sims.

Last we left Hope Shanley, I was trying to find her a suitable marriage partner and not having much success (because of aforementioned picky-ness). Well, that was only the beginning of the trouble I was to have getting my poor Gen 2 heiress knocked up.

But first…a little side trip to Egypt! Hope received a random opportunity from the military, which is odd because she’s in the culinary career track. But World Adventures wants everyone to travel as much as possible, so Hope was tapped to learn a game called Senet in Egypt and report back to military headquarters in Riverview.

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I hadn’t planned on blogging this, because I thought it might be another thing I start and never finish, but I’ve actually made it to the YA stage of 2nd generation (my first time ever with a Sims 3 family!) and am still going strong with it. Plus one of my Simming friends asked to see pics, and I thought I might as well just post them here. So, introducing the umpteenth project I’ve undertaken in TS3, the Wishful Living Challenge!

This is my founder, Zuzu Shanley. The name may be familiar to those of you who followed my very first Legacy Challenge for TS2 way back in 2004-2005. She was the first daughter of the 4th generation heiress, Fiona, and her husband Robi, and the twin sister of the 5th generation heir, Patrick. This was during the “have 10 babies” madness, so she ended up being shipped off to Uncle Liam’s house to make room for more kids. I always liked her and almost wrote some stories about her a few years back — even had her grow up to an adult and moved into a house — but it never got off the ground.
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