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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Good morning, all! Have I got news for you! I was floating around the manor when who should show up at my doorstep but my own dearly departed uncle Walt. Why, I hadn’t seen him since he died of old age a few years back! He used to farm the lands east of Berthiaume Manor (he grew the most wonderful sweet corn) and never had children, so his land went up for sale after his passing.

Well, he stopped by to tell me someone had finally bought his property. And what’s more, they’re going to build a college on it! That was exciting news, to be sure. Now the young folk won’t have to go to the big city for their education. They can stay right here in the beautiful hills and meadows of Mt. Geneva.

It’s too bad the college wasn’t built already when Will Dobbins came of age — he would have enjoyed furthering his education. Perhaps then he could have started his political career as a Lobbyist instead of a lowly campaign worker. But he seemed to work his way up to Lobbyist pretty quickly without a degree.

He also worked on getting Paige to fall in love with him, but it wasn’t easy, especially on his limited budget. He knew she was impressed by extravagance, so he scrimped and saved to buy a luxurious hot tub. Then he invited Paige and several of his friends over for a party. With people making merry all around, Will shmoozed Paige as much as he could, but it still wasn’t enough.

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Hello, dear readers, and welcome back to my little corner of SimNation. This is Maude Berthiaume, Mt. Geneva’s spectral scribe, with the continuing story of the Dobbins family. You’d think they were the only family in Mt. Geneva given how much I focus on them, wouldn’t you? Well, they certainly are one of my favorites to watch, but Mt. Geneva is booming, and I’d love to tell you all about some of its new inhabitants. All in good time! For now let’s see how Will Dobbins is doing now that he’s out on his own.

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Hello dears, it’s Maude here, with a little thing I like to call “catching up with the Dobbinses”. You see, while Nick Dobbins was busy womanizing half of Mt. Geneva, and Joely Dobbins was busy running the household, their two sons Will and Rory were growing up fast, and I could hardly keep up! I had started roaming around town peeking in on some of the other new families, so I wasn’t spending as much time with the Dobbins family.

When I did look in, I saw scenes of domestic comfort. Nick became a chef at Spanky’s Steakhouse and must have eaten everything in their icebox, because he developed quite a little pot belly. Between grilling steaks and paying clandestine visits to Tess Blakemore, he helped Joely raise their two precocious boys.

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