I’ll be too busy this weekend to play my Legacy Challenge family, so I had to get several hours worth of play in tonight. Yes, I have no life. ;-) I also read the interview with Pinstar, the creator of the Legacy Challenge, over on the official site (thanks to Heidi for pointing us to it!) and am excited that he has a “secret additional challenge” in store for us once more players have completed the initial challenge. And he’ll be creating a challenge for the University expansion pack when it comes out, too. So I’ll be pretty much glued to my computer for the next several months…

So what happened with the Shanleys tonight? Quite a bit, actually. First off, Liam grew into an adult and ended up in his dad’s old gardener garb.

While Devin and Leo were at work, I took the rest of them shopping (although Kaylynn stayed behind because she was pregnant — I didn’t know they would do that!). Bree bought some new clothes for Kaylynn and Liam bought some new threads for himself. The Shanleys are amassing quite a wardrobe — for example, the females have about 7 different pajamas to choose from in the family dresser. Oy!

Since I have a bunch of extra room on the second story, I decided to move the portraits up there and start a “Gallery of Heirs”. You can see Nia, Bree, and Devin in all their blurry glory. I should have done Devin’s as a close-up since you can’t even make out his features in that one.

Now that Liam’s an adult, he still wants to do the usual Knowledge-y things like stargaze and see ghosts, but he also had the “Have first kiss” want spin up, so I figured I’d try for it. He shouldn’t have to wait until he’s 50-something like Kiara did. Unfortunately the only adult woman he knew who wasn’t related to him was Christy Stratton. This was unfortunate because she hated him. No matter how high his relationship score got with her — and I believe it was in the 80s at one point — they never became Friends. He also tried “Charm” on her three times, and each time she told him to talk to the hands. Poor Liam! He needs to get out and meet some other girls.

Yes, it’s the attack of the killer garbage, with the accompanying horde of cockroaches! Eeek. I hate those things. I think someone must have tipped over the garbage in the middle of the night (this happened with the Blakemores, too), but I’m not sure. Has anyone else had this happen?

It made a bunch of my Sims wig out. They didn’t go into aspiration failure or anything, but they came out and stomped on the roaches, and Kaylynn even had a crying jag. She continued like that for several hours. I’d direct her to feed her new baby, and suddenly the baby would be on the floor and Kaylynn would be sobbing into her hands. This was even after the exterminator came and did his thing. She has a moderately high Neatness (6) but Liam’s is higher (8), and he didn’t cry over the vermin, so I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it’s because her cleaning skill is maxed out? I should have had Bree and Leo come outside so I could see if they cried, too.

Speaking of the new baby, there she is with her uncle Liam! Her name is Fiona, and she has brown hair and brown eyes like all of the other Shanley kids. D’oh. I was hoping we might get something different this time around.

And here Devin starts a fire while making pancakes. They hadn’t started a fire in FOREVER, so I was surprised. In fact, I think the Shanleys have had one other fire, and it was back in first generation when it was just Nia and Sheldon. Anyway, a fireman showed up and put the blaze out, so everything went back to normal.

I had Kaylynn get a job in the military since I don’t have the career reward yet, and she had a want to work in that field. Here she is coming home after being promoted to Drill Instructor. I have no idea why she looks so devious! I also got Liam a job in the Science career, since he wanted that, and he is working his way up the ladder fairly quickly (he has his Logic skill maxed out but has to work on his Cleaning almost every night).

I grew Fiona into a toddler as soon as possible, and that very evening I had Grandma Bree cook up some smart milk, don the thinking cap, and teach her granddaughter how to talk. She also started the potty training, but I had Leo finish it so he could get aspiration points. I think it’s cool that grandparents want to train their grandkids. In the meantime, Kaylynn wanted to have another baby, so I sent her and Devin to the Energizers before directing them to try for a baby. It took two tries before I heard good old rock-a-bye.

I’m a bit disappointed in Fiona’s stats — they’re almost exactly the same as Devin’s and Liam’s, except she has one more point in Nice than they do. That means she has the 1 (one!) point in Lazy (ugh!), the high Outgoing and Neatness, and the moderate Serious/Playful and Grouchy/Nice. I really hope baby #2 has something different. It’d be really NICE to have some variety!

Here are Fiona and Kaylynn dancing to the stereo — I had never seen a toddler do this, so I thought it was cute. She just sort of flailed around and banged her head about.

Then I had a run of bad chance cards. I am beginning to think I should ignore them from now on, as they’ve done more harm than good at this point. First off, Kiara lost her job as a Hall of Famer and came home in the Car of Shame. She had a Want to quit her job anyway, but since she’s a Fortune Sim, she will miss that §9,000 a week rolling in. There’s no way I’ll get to the Earn §100,000 want with her before she passes away. Then Leo lost three charisma points, which isn’t a huge deal, but it was still annoying. (UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Leo also lost §50,000 to the same chance card, which is more annoying than the loss of skill points. It wiped the family funds clean — about §14,000 — and I’m not sure what it’ll do to the family net worth.)

I saw some other little weird things tonight — Bree had a Get a Job in the Science Career want pop up and then vanish almost as quickly, so I didn’t bother with it. Devin had a want to Change into Formal, which I had never seen before, but at least it was easy to fulfill. And weirdest of all, I noticed that Kiara and Leo have a negative relationship score with each other! I don’t know how it is possible for them to have lived together for so long and have such a low score, but there it is. I’m going to try and work on it before they both pass away.

Well, that’s enough for now…hope you all have a good weekend, and Happy Simming. :-)