Thank Goodness for Exit Without Saving!

I left my computer after I thought I turned off the game. Needless to say when I returned the next evening, I found that my computer hadn't "gone to sleep". Curiously I turned on the monitor and lo and behold (I always wanted to say that) the game was still running and it was on pause. The live mode was disabled.

Apparently my family died and the twins taken away. How? I have no clue. I thought they were on free will, but who knows. The tombstones were littered about the house (the parents were in the bedroom, one tombstone in the bathroom, the other tombstone in the other bedroom) and roaches were crawling about. So a bad case of the flu could have been to blame.

Thank goodness for exit without saving.

The Tiny Travel Center (aka Travel Corner) & Vacations

It's our 1st year anniversary and we're taking a short weekend trip. To celebrate I'm posting about how my simmies travel.
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Recently a few of my sims have been rolling in the simoleans. Even with expensive property taxes they have plenty of money. This is my fault. Most of them are business owners and I had all business owners sell thier lots (1x3) and purchase 3-1x1 lots for thier businesses. Of course, the construction and furnishing everything was cheaper. Then I had several of them sell off thier extra businesses and focus only on one business. Since I was beginning to not enjoy the OFB concept since so many of my sims had thier own business or had several business lots to tend. Thus, sims have tons of money. I had one commission an university building, which leaves two more families with excess funds. Well, the Warwick family told me :P that they wanted to spend thier simoleans on vacations. So I obligied and now here's a peek into vacations in my hood.

In my tiny travel center (actually it's more like a corner in the gift shop) located in the hood's administration office, I sell posters of different travel locales (in addition to the Bon Voyage posters, I also use the following posters from MTS2, I am currently creating similar vacation destinations to match).

If a sim purchases a poster, this is thier indication to me that they would like to travel to that location. The cost of the poster serves as thier deposit for the trip.

For example, if a sim buys poster #7, which is a ski vacation to Schatazweitzier Mountains (soon to be destined as a fall foliage vacation and the new Cusinaire Ridges (I'm a teacher :, all my other teachers will recognize the name) will become the winter vacation destination) , then once they get home, I book them for a vacation and allow them to stay in the ski resort. I only book the 3 day/2 night trip. It's the perfect amount of time to play in one play session and it syncs nicely with my one simday=one year aging in my hood. Of course, the sims can pretend that they were gone for longer :P

During thier vacation, I make sure they experience plenty of snow sports and snow ball fights.

Notice how tiny the terrain for Schatazweitzier Mountains is.

If a sim buys the same poster repeatedly, that serves as an indication that they would like to buy a vacation home there whenever possible.

This is what happened to the Warwicks. They went to Three Lakes (the precessor to Schatazweitzier Mountains) for thier honeymoon (http://thekentfamilyfujicourt.blogspot.com/2007/09/husband.html and http://sun-exchange-sandy-warwick.blogspot.com/2007/09/some-fotos.html). Then they took thier daughters there for a family vacation (http://thekentfamilyfujicourt.blogspot.com/2008/09/family-vacation.html and http://thekentfamilyfujicourt.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-family-vacation.html) and finally they rolled a want for buying a vacation home. They brought thier vacation home in none other than Schatazweitzier Mountains.

Some random vacation photo spam

Gypsy Clearing, home of the Glasha Clan in Schatazweitzier Mountains. This small campground is available for a small fee to sims who wish to live the life of a gypsy for a while. It's encouraged that appropiate attire and hairstyles are worn to experience the complete...experience :P




Tiny Residential Cabin, available in Schatazweitzier Mountains for a small fee of $25,653. It's located on a 1x1 lot, features one bath and one loft bedroom (with double and twin bed), tiny kitchen and living room and room outside for a small garden...if my sims decide to stay here for a long while.
Larger Cabin, available in Schatazweitzier Mountains for a modest fee of $73,096. It's located on a fairly large 2x2 lot, features three bath and four bedrooms, large kitchen and family room and large living room with fireplace. This is actually the vacation home of the Warwick family I was speaking of earlier.

Jah Sal Bazaar, downloaded from Parsimonious and renovated for my purposes. The Warwicks just returned from thier holiday here. Located in my Tiki Isles tropical vacation destination, the bazaar is my interpetation of Arabia. The small outdoor market, colorful tents that also serve as sleeping tents, bright colors and wonderful foodstuffs. To be honest, it's still a little bare. I'm experimenting with leaving the lots bare instead of filling them with crappy items/concepts. In this lot the far right lower building is empty waiting for a purpose. Same thing for the top two middle levels. I do have a restroom, a resturaunt, DJ booth and bar taking up space in the middle two sections, hot tub on the roof, random easels and chess sets, bubble blower, store that sells clothing and perfume and the camping tents.

So if you have suggestions for this lot, let me know.

Tour: Farmer's Market

Ever wonder what happens to all that natural organic produce the Grey family grows on thier farm?

It goes to The Farmer's Market, owned by the Grey family. The Farmer's market is next door to the farm, so Grex walks there everyday.

The Farmer's Market sells fresh organic produce. Grex doesn't use pesticides on his crops and until recently had been hand watering everything. Now he has a greenhouse with a sprinkler system so he can spend more time talking to the crops. Yes, he chats with the crops. He says it makes them happier and healthier.


Besides veggies and fruit, both crated and loose, the market sells fresh fish. Once a week there are fish sales called Fishy Fridays in which the loose fish is marked down for customers to buy. The market offers turkey dinners seasonally and orange blossom honey. The market is also host to the annual summer Food Expo and quarterly All Natural Cooking Contest in which participants bring dishes created from all natural organic produce and fish. There's even a popular spot to get married overlooking the boulders and silos.


Recently, Grex had the idea (to be honest, his mother-in-law told him to do it) to sell hand crafted items. Now there are handsewn potholders in the midst of fish and fruit and there are plans to add handcrafted quilts.

Grex recently promoted Jadhira from cashier to full time florist. The previous arrangement had Jadhira delivering batches of flower arrangements that she crafted in her freetime and manning the register. Now she is free to spend her working hours creating beautiful arrangements and she throws pottery, for the Herendez Gallery, in her freetime. The arrangement works a lot better now. There's a corner devoted to floral crafts inside the market and Jadhira is on hand for custom arrangements for parties and weddings, as well as general questions of 'which arrangement is best for a first date?'