Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Winner

Round 4: January 2011 (Winter)
next update / last update
Carlos Rodriguez is 46, Sofia is 43 and Angel is 6.
Narrated by Carlos

I've been working at the fire company for a few years, and working there has been pretty good so far.

Most of my days are spent just hanging around the station until there's a call.

There's not much else to do so I usually pass the time by working out or hanging out with the other fire fighters.

With such long hours though, some days really drag on. I don't like just sitting around so sometimes it's a real struggle to stay awake.

But often enough, someone forgets about their TV dinner in the oven and we're called. That’s when I remember how much I love the job. Saving lives and homes is what keeps me coming to work.

On our days off, I often invite some of the other fire fighters over to our place to hang out.

The guys are a lot younger than I am but they seem to enjoy coming over.

But sometimes the 20-ish year age gap is hard to ignore and they either don't get or can't stand my humor.

Work is going great for Sofia, too. The salon is doing very well and with all the money coming in, we've been able to pay off a little of the loan. We have a way to go but at least we're making a dent.

Even though Angel did very well in kindergarten, he's finding first grade a little more challenging. He could barely believe it when he brought home his first report card and discovered he got a C-.

He was so heartbroken and upset about it the whole week. No, a C- isn’t great but it’s still acceptable in our book. As long as he’s not about to fail, he has plenty of time to get his grade up.

So to get him out of his funk, we decided to take him ice skating.

At first we thought it was a bad idea because he was on his butt more than he was on his feet. But he kept getting up and trying again.

After a while, Angel was skating faster and even spinning. It seemed to take his mind off his "bad" grade, which is what we hoped for.

It got his mind off of school a little too much, though, because he asked to go back skating pretty much every day.

I reminded him that if he wants to get that A+, then he'll have to work on that first.

So every day after school, we spent extra time going over his homework.

And he made sure he read the entire book for all of his reading assignments.

The extra work paid off and Angel was able to pull his grade up to a B- by the end of the month! It's not the A+ he wanted, but he has time to work on that.

We're so proud of his effort and I make sure he knows it every day.

Angel tries so hard to be like Joel, who got straight A's all through elementary and high school, but he has plenty of time to strive for that. He too young to put that much pressure on himself.

He is doing better with making friends now, too. A few times this month, at least one of his little classmates gets off the bus with him.

I can tell he still feels shy sometimes when they're not outside playing. He gets so quiet while the other kid yammers away.

But so far, the kids he's been bringing home have been all been nice to him. It's going to be hard for him to get over his shyness but at least he'll have a few friends to help him through it.

Extras:
If I start to assign traits to my sims soon, I will most likely give Sofia the "clumsy" trait. I seem to catch her falling down more than my other sims LOL.

Here are some random snaps I took of Angel and Sofia playing in the snow. I know the next theme at N99 is snow/winter related, so I took these in preparation. Lucky you! You get a sneak peek ;).


I think I love the snowball fight animations LOL.

Notes:
-The fire station is from MTS and I placed it in Summit Heights (downtown). I'm thinking I may move the Rodriguezes again, but to Summit Heights this time since both Sofia and Carlos work there. I can get them a smaller, cheaper place because they could really use the break. When Joel gets out of college, he and Davina will either find a small place for themselves right away or move in with her parents until they can afford something.
-When I first starting playing this house, Angel got a D and that's what the pics of him getting off the bus are of. But then I lost power and it didn't save. When I loaded the house again, he came home with a C- instead, which he was still sad about, so I wrote it in anyway.
-Taking Angel ice skating was not only to satisfy wants but to also figure out the harder harder grades hack lol. Angel's very active and serious and I wasn't sure which skill points he had to build in order to raise his grade. I thought I had to build the body skill but it wasn't working. I read a little more and since his interests are high in paranormal and school, he'll have to focus on logic to raise it, not body like I thought.
-Sofia's salon is now up to rank 4. I think when it gets up to level 5 or 6, I'll let her hire another stylist. So far though, she doesn't get a ton of customers at once, so we'll see.
-Sofia and Carlos must be tired of the snow because they both rolled the want to go on an island vacation. Carlos had the generic "go on vacation" want locked from probably 2 rounds ago but just this session, rolled up the specific one. Hopefully they'll have enough extra money for me to take them in another round or 2.

10 comments:

  1. Oh, those are some great snow pics! You got a couple of animations I've never seen before. I'll have to watch closer.

    I loved the scenes at the fire station with Carlos and his coworker. I love that they had a fire at the fire station!

    That's adorable but a little sad that Angel is so focused on school. I'm glad his parents took him ice skating and had him do something fun for a while instead.

    As for harder harder grades, wasn't there something to do with their One True Hobby as well? Because I know body skill points were what got Josh's grades up finally, and his OTH is Sports (or maybe Fitness, can't remember). So it's got to do with interests as well? I have to go and read up on that hack again, clearly!

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  2. Thanks for reading and commenting, Carla!

    I never paid much attention to the snowball fight animations until just now. Angel and Sofia were getting each other good with the snowballs LOL.

    I really liked staging the fire station pics. It's a really nice building and I like how it looks in the hood and from the inside looking out. The fire wasn't at the fire station, though. I staged that shot at one of my NPCs' homes. The fireman is a clone of Carlos, so when there's ever a fire in any of my households, it really does look like Carlos came and saved the day.

    Yea I think Angel might be a little workaholic/over-achiever when he gets a little older. He's pretty serious and very shy so he'll probably want to hit the books over going out and socializing. I hope his fun-loving parents can encourage him to come out of his shell (they're both popularity and mid to high outgoing).

    And as for harder harder grades, I don't remember reading that it had to do with the OTH, but with Angel, it would have worked (he's a science sim). The creator said that for kids, they broke the interests down into 4 categories (which of course, they didn't say what the breakdown was) and the 4 core skills would correspond to the 4 categories of the interests. Check out comment #24 in the thread to see if you can make any sense of it lol. http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,3091.0.html

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  3. I love the fire station, very nice. I keep wondering if I should put one in my hood and your lot looks amazing. I could see Sofia as being clumsy :)

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  4. Thank you, Starr. I'm really liking the fire station myself and I'm glad I put it in. At first I wasn't going to but it really added to the update.

    And yes, Sofia is pretty clumsy. Looking at the pics from this update again, there's another pic of her on the ground in the background of Carlos and Angel skating. I might have to work her clumsiness into the story more lol.

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  5. Angel really needs to calm down a little! He's too young to be so stressed about grades lol. The winter theme pics are so cute :). I love the fire station as well. I have a police station in LaQuest but I haven't written into the story yet.

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  6. LOL, Mizzgin. I agree that Angel needs to focus on being a kid first. I'd love to be a care free 6 year old again. Having someone make my meals, clean up my mess, pick out my clothes... those were the days lol ;)

    I downloaded that police station by the same creator but I haven't placed it down, yet. I have to find a place for it. But I'm not too worried about placing it down yet because I haven't had the need for it. I can't wait to use it, though. It looks really nice.

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  7. Angel is adorable! I hope he can relax a little about his grades, though it's good that he cares! Definitely wouldn't want a kid who was lazy and unmotivated. Angel couldn't get any cuter looking so shy on the living room floor! What a cutie!

    Loved the family shots of them all ice skating, and poor Sofia in that falling picture. Ouch!

    Fire station looks great! Loved the picture of him putting the fire out.

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  8. Thanks for reading and commenting, Maisie! Doesn't Angel look so adorable looking down at his hands?! I almost missed that shot because I never really pay attention when sims are hanging out.

    Glad you enjoyed the update and pics! :)

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  9. This really is a sweet family, they are all so pretty :)

    I'm glad Angel got his grades up.

    I like it when they all went ice skating, and adore those pictures in the snow!

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  10. Sorry for the delay! Thanks for reading and commenting, Tanja. I'm glad you like this family cuz they've really grown on me since Angel came along. Those pics in the snow were fun to take. I'm going to be taking many more winter shots from now on.

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