Food of the Gods

Either Hope or Travis wanted to have another child (Travis must have been feeling a little frisky after eating that ambrosia), so I indulged them and had them try for a baby. Woohoo was made, the chimes rang out, and Russ the Gnome leaped for joy.

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Within a day, Hope had a solid baby bump.

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A bit of random weirdness: I stocked the pond at Skunk Haven so Hope and Travis could fish for fun at home if they wanted to, but apparently it was hard to find a spot on the edge of the pond where they could stand…because they would only fish from inside the house. What the heck?

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Since I was in no hurry with Travis now, I focused on his kids for a bit. They did their homework diligently and spent the rest of their time skilling. Eventually their birthday rolled along, and I wheeled out the cakes.

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Here’s Fern as a teen:

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She now had the following traits: Couch Potato, Loner, Bookworm, and Artistic. Also, when she was a child, she had the Illustrious Author LTW come up, so I nabbed it for her. All she had to do was master painting and writing, and she was well on her way with at least one of those.

Around this time, Hope gave birth to another set of twin girls. I had been hoping for a boy in the mix, just for a change of pace, but oh well! This made the third set of twin Shanley girls in a row, and all three sets had one blonde, and one brunette. Getting kind of predictable, eh?

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I named the second pair of twins Sky and Willow. You can see all four girls in the picture above, reading and doing homework.

By this point, Vi had the Visionary LTW (max Painting and Photography), so I had her venture to Egypt with her dad – that way she could get her own camera and start taking pics of cool stuff. Travis had his own Prepared Traveler reward this time, so Hope stayed home.

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On Vi’s birthday, I had chosen the Photographer’s Eye trait, to go along with Artistic, Genius, and Virtuoso. She’s artsy-fartsy to the core!

While Travis did some adventuring, Violet took pictures and collected stuff. I discovered she had a penchant for roasting lettuce over the fire, just like her mom.

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Travis received some opportunities to take pictures of floor traps and such, so I’d have Vi come along and help him out. It actually worked out well in some of the tombs to have Travis be sleeping while Vi continued onwards, clearing the way for him to come through later. It was like tag-team tomb-raiding.

In one of the tombs, while Travis was snoozing in his tent, Vi ventured farther down and ran into a mummy. Since she had no athletic or martial arts skill to speak of, I had her run away. It’s a good thing mummies don’t move too quickly.

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After her dad woke up, he went down and kicked the mummy’s ancient kiester.

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Not too bad for an old geezer, eh?

(continued on Page 4)

18 thoughts on “Food of the Gods

  1. So many nice pictures in one place! I love those green-flashing gemstones on the grass, I’ve never actually seen them before. And how do you make the gnome move? Or so I’ve heard that they can move, but nothing ever happens in my game. :/ Anyways, I really love your posts! :)

    • Hi Hannah! I’m not sure why your gnome doesn’t move…you could try kicking it, maybe? Although I think Russ moved before I kicked him. It might be a bug as I’ve heard of other people having the same issue. :-(

    • Heh, Violet does look a bit like that actress! Funny. :) Thanks for the tip re: Family-oriented Sims. I might start giving all my Sims that just to make toddler training less painful. ;)

  2. “I really miss smart milk — it takes sooo looong to train kids in TS3, and it’s more important, too, since you need to train them in all three skills if you want to pick their trait.”

    Urgh, yes! I wonder if anyone’s made a hack to speed it up.

    Love the pic of Travis hassling Zhan! Zhan looks a little worried there.

    I adore the Al Simharan house.

    • Thanks, Carla! And yeah, a hack to speed up toddler skilling would be nice! But it wouldn’t be fair to use for the challenge, I don’t think. Although what Suzicat said about Family-oriented Sims has me thinking I might have to give out that trait more often!

  3. Wow! What a very large update! But that’s okay! I enjoy every aspect of your updates. But I’m going to try to go through each page one by one … and respond to each aspect that I enjoyed the most. :O))

    Page 1:
    I kinda hope I get Ambitions tomorrow, too, but since today is a holiday, I’m thinking that isn’t going to happen … and I won’t get the game until Wednesday. *sniffles* And since Wednesdays are Aion night … I don’t know how much I’ll be able to play that day. *sniffles* I’m kinda hoping your guys don’t lose as much stuff as you think they might lose when you move them to Twinbrook. So … how do you find out what your totem animal is? And what does the frog signify? That whole trying to get ambrosia … that’s so very complicated! But it sounds like it’s worth it. I’m going to have to try to remember all of that stuff on how to get the angel fish and death fish. Sounds like a blast! I love that shot of hope in her gi. Russ amuses me greatly. *LOL*

    Page 2:
    I can’t believe that Travis was doing kung-fu in his hat. That’s like an Indiana Jones fetish. Indiana Jones liked to wear his hat pretty much everywhere as well. :O)) I’m really jealous of your decorating skillz, jenba. How long would you say you spend on decorating a house? DANG!! 12,000 simoleons just for a recipe?! Granted … it’s a pretty special recipe, but … STILL!! O__o

    Page 3:
    O__o … is Russ really like … stuck like that … floating in the air?! The magic gnomes really are freakin’ cool! Looks to me like he’s enjoying playing in the water sprinkler. *LOL* … *blinks at the whole fishing from inside the house glitch* Dang … that nose is very dominant in your family. Yup. I like that whole tag-team-tomb-raiding thing. :O) That mummy is really out of shape. You’d think a decomposed corpse would be a lot thinner than that. Maybe someone stuffed him with treasures or something. Heh!

    Page 4:
    Gawd!! That view from your Al Simhara lot is GORGEOUS!!!! Heh! A magic pharaoh gnome! I love it! That is really awesome about being able to smash the big space rocks and getting some nice gems out of them. Now … when you say that the cut gems appreciate in value … what exactly do you mean?! O__o

    Page 5:
    Yup … that nose is dominant. Are you selling all of her paintings? If not, I’d love to see what they all look like completed. Y’know … it still really annoys me that female sims are TALLER than male sims. WTF is up with that?!

    GREAT update, jenba!

    • Holy buckets, that IS a long comment, Ange! I had fun reading all of it. To answer your question about totem animals, I was just being silly, but I do really like frogs. They ARE a rockin’ totem animal, though — they represent cleansing, healing, adaptability, and creativity. Cool, eh? I have no idea how you find out what your totem animal is, though…maybe its whatever animal you are most drawn to? Maybe there’s a special ritual? Heh. I haz no clue. I just know about totem animals from playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse. ;)

      As for house decorating, I would say I spend 6-10 hours when I’m seriously decorating. I think it took me about 6 hours to do the first floor and outside landscaping of Violet’s new house. :-p I think it takes longer with TS3 because of CAST — it’s easier for me when I have some limitations to work with. But since I can make anything any color or nearly any pattern — it’s overwhelming.

      The green, glowing gems that appreciate in value are Tiberium. I think Vi found one in Egypt, and then Travis got a bunch from breaking space rocks (which you don’t even need to find first; the rocks just appear on the board breaker object!). Anyway, if you send the Tiberium away to be cut (either spire-shaped or heart-shaped), then set it on the ground (I think any surface works, actually), it will multiply after a few days. I think it continues multiplying forever, but I sold mine so Vi would have some extra starting cash. Very nice to have, though! I’m going to have to try to get some of those every generation, I think.

      And LOL at the dominant nose! Yup, they all have that Lothario nose. I kind of like it. :)

      • Woops, forgot to answer your question about the paintings…I did sell almost all of them, unfortunately. There is one hanging in her new house that you’ll see, though!

  4. If anyone could convince me to buy WA & play TS3 again, it would be you Jen. Your pictures are beautiful and I’m still learning things about WA from you that I didn’t know.

    Russ should be very afraid of Mr. Box. We know what evil mailboxes are capable of.

    Maybe now that Vi is the heiress, we’ll see some new genetics pop up in the family.

    • Aw, thanks for the nice words, Lisa! And LOL at the evil mailboxes…I did think of Mr. Box when I saw Russ cowering like that! And good call on the new genetics — some HAVE popped up!

  5. Ack! Run Russ, run! Mailboxes are ebil! *blinks* wait, thats only in Strangetown.. never mind.
    *chuckles at Russ jumping for joy* Seriously I love that silly gnome.
    Travis may be an old geezer, but that mummy is ancient! Well done Travis. show that mummy who’s boss! *chuckles again*
    I have had sims w/ the family trait autonomously teach a toddler to walk. That is a nice lil perk in TS3

    • Yeah, I gotta try one of those family-oriented Sims one of these days! That’s one of the few traits I’ve never played with (along with Snob and Evil…wouldn’t those 3 be an interesting combo?).

  6. I love the picture of Hope fishing at the pond..even if she did catch your totem animal. What a lovely shot!

    I LOL’d at the comment about catching the laptop which she batter-fried and ate for lunch. (snickers)

    I took a picture similar to the one you took of Travis getting his visa.. but mine did show three little “stamps”… so yours was bugged… weird! Who cares so much if the graphic was bugged as long as the game itself recognized he’d achieved that..right?

    I miss smart milk too.. and if you had twins tag-team teaching is the only way to go!

    Hope looks gorgeous in that Chinese outfit! And I love the Chinese vacation home.
    I don’t think Russ the Gnome is afraid of mailboxes per se… the bills that can arrive inside them.. yeah, those can be kind of scary!

    LOVE the shot of Travis giving Zhan a hard time.

    Man, you do get some gorgeous sims! Hope even makes an awesome looking Elder..and Travis is quite distinguished.

    • Thanks, Tracy! Yeah, I still don’t know what was going on with Travis’s visa, but his travel journal did say he was at level 3, and he did achieve his LTW, so I guess it was just a graphics glitch. :-p

  7. Yay, Shanley update! I’ve been looking forward to this all week. Life turned out pretty good for Hope after all that trouble of finding a man, lol. The kids are cute as can be. Man, you sure are good at achieving LTWs. And you make it look so effortless! I feel so rushed and anxious when I’m playing through my legacy, but you make it look so easy! Loved this update, all of the traveling, and all the new kids. Can’t wait to see the next one.

    Oh, and you have inspired me to start my own WLC. Now that Ambitions is out, I’ve created the new hood and plopped down a sim to try out the new jobs. Might as well make a challenge out of it since I’m trying for the new LTWs anyway!

  8. Oh, how cool that you’re doing a WLC now! I hope it won’t make you anxious like your legacy does…I think I’ve made it look easy because I’ve picked really easy LTWs so far, heh. Something like Perfect Garden or Professional Author will probably be tough, at least for me. And some of the new ones with Ambitions sound insane! 100 top scores in Architectural Design?? I’ll be lucky if I get ONE! :) Anyway, best of luck with your WLC!!