Find My Way Back Home

Round 6: November 2012 (Autumn)

Trent Thomas is 47, Isabella is 46, Camille is 20 and Alyssa is 12

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Narrated by Isabella

A few months ago, my sister Rosanna and her husband were called to duty and their son, Manny, moved in with us. It was hard to see Rosanna and Brett head out again but that's what they signed up for. Hopefully it'll be for a short tour and they’ll get home safely.

We don't have any extra bedrooms in this house so we had to clean out the basement to make room for Manny. There isn't a ton of space down there but enough for a teenage boy.

We let him decorate it however he wanted and he really made it his own. Trent and I wanted to make sure that he felt at home because having both your parents flown oversees must be really hard on him. We didn’t want to add any more stress.

Manny's really adjusting well with us, but I’m finding he's a really easy-going boy. It's been fun getting to know my nephew since I didn't see him much while he was growing up.

I'm learning that he's not very ambitious, which was surprising. My sister has always been very focused on school, good grades, and learning all she could, and so far, Manny doesn't seem interested in any of that. But he's still young, so he has time.

His biggest dream right now is to become a "professional party guest", whatever that is. He thinks it'd be cool to get paid for hanging out at parties all night, so that's what he wants to do. The aspirations of 13-year old boys never cease to amaze me.

Alyssa's more focused on school than Manny is but I wish she had his easy-going personality. Trent and I had to put her on punishment for a month after we found out that she beat up a girl from school. Twice!

She was only allowed out of the house for school, wasn’t allowed to use her cell phone, and was on cleaning duty for her entire punishment which she, of course, thought was harsh.

But I think it did the trick. She hasn't acted out since the summer, so hopefully we've seen the last of that kind of behavior.

I think having Manny around has tamed her a little bit. They hit it off as soon as he moved in and have been pretty inseparable since. We'll see how long that lasts.

For the past month or so, Camille has been trying to figure out what she wants to do career-wise. She's a party DJ right now but she doesn’t love it. When it’s time for her to head to work, she almost always prefers to call off instead.

She checks the paper almost every day looking for a job that might spark her interest but hasn’t found anything yet.

She's been distracted lately, though. Ever since she and Franky broke up a couple of years ago, she hasn't dated anyone steadily since.

From what I can gather, she's seeing a couple of different guys. I don't like it but there's nothing I can do about it except hope she's using protection.

I know for sure that one of the guy's name is Mathis. Camille told me that he's the cop that took her statement after our house was broken into last year.

They've been on a couple of dates so far and I guess she likes him.

The other guy's name is Clay, I think. She's only gone out with him once that I know of.

Trent and I still haven't met any of them so I guess things aren't that serious yet. We'll know for sure when she brings one of them home to meet us!

Extras:

Now that you all have been formally introduced to Manny, here's a family portrait with him included. I didn't want to post this at the beginning and confuse everyone :).

Notes:
-This is the second part of the "Distant relative moves in" ROS that Isabella rolled. The first part is here. Manny is all moved in and he really gets along with everyone in the household. I was a little worried how Alyssa would warm up to him but they became fast friends.
-Manny has his own profile now (his full name is Emmanuel) and it can be found in the Resident Directory. I made his parents too but they will be playable NPCs, so no profiles.
-It was a little cheaty but I used the money Manny's family brought in from CAS to redecorate the Thomas's home. I was really starting to hate their house and the extra money was just what I needed to revitalize it. I added Manny's room, which is in the basement, and redid the living room, dining room, kitchen and a little bit of Trent and Isabella's room. So, I redid almost the whole house lol.
-I'm still trying to figure out Camille's niche in the career world. I don't see her doing the jobs in the Slacker career that she's currently in for very long. Her LTW is to own 5 businesses, which likely won't happen, but I've been trying to figure out what type of businesses if she were to own one. Maybe I'll have her follow in her father's footsteps and throw her in culinary. Then she can own some restaurants down the line. Hmm, or maybe catering. I'll figure something out.