Wednesday, October 21, 2009

New Blog

Ok so I'm getting antsy lol......I've started the new blog, but the entries will be slow at first. I'm playing through what I call a "developmental round" right now, so I will begin by telling each family's story. I didn't want to start with sims who had no skills and didn't know anyone in the hood. I hope that everyone who followed this blog will follow the new one....and hopefully this will be the LAST FREAKING TIME I have to start over!!!! LaQuest Beach can be found here. I hope you guys enjoy it!!! See ya over at the new blog!!!

Friday, October 16, 2009

LaQuest Beach

So here's my new labor of love, LaQuest Beach. It's on an island in the middle of the water. I have Sim State University attached to it but I also have a community college located in the city portion, LaQuest Beach Community College or LBCC. There is a bad area of town located on the left and the bottom portion serves as the suburbs. It has plenty of space for beach lots and I love this map!!!!!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

News, Well kinda........

I think I know what happened to my hood and I wanted to share this with anyone who plays on a laptop. When I shut down my game, it's usually because I'm going to bed or about to leave or something. So I always shut my laptop lid once I shut down the sims. I think I put my laptop in sleep mode before the game had completely shut down. Usually when I see my desktop I figure it's done saving the information but apparently that is not the case. So the files didn't save completely which is why it's not as big as it should have been. I apparently did this more than once which is why my back up and the one that was on my laptop were different sizes....it was a long time coming. So now I make sure that the game has completely finished shutting down before I put it in sleep mode......I check my facebook or do something to give it time to do what it has to do...........this means boo for Crystal Bay as that ship has sailed but at least I know what caused it.......on a happier note, LaQuest Beach is coming along wonderfully and I think I've over done it but I don't care! I used a medium size terrain so I actually have a housing area and a downtown area on the map with no need to use the sub-hoods. I won't have the Count or Countess since I'm not using the downtown area, but I don't really play with the supernatural creatures anyway......I haven't given up on trying to at least salvage the character files......if I can get them I will just add my Crystal Bay folks to LaQuest Beach........

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Decisions

I don't think I'm going to be able to save my Crystal Bay characters.......I was near tears last night when I couldn't get them to pull up correctly in SimPE.......Cassie and Carla and Angelo were all about to start their college careers.......and Tina had finally had the baby she wanted even though Sam wasn't too happy about it......I started building a new hood called LaQuest Beach, but I really want to know what cause my hood file for Crystal Bay to become corrupt before I get attached to a new group of characters........I don't know if I'm going to blog about LaQuest Beach seeing as how it seems as soon as I get started good, disaster strikes! I'm going to do some more research but it seems that Crystal Bay is pretty much defunct. I think I'm going to get LaQuest Beach set up to my liking and create some sims and maybe just play for a while before blogging about it......but I will still be reading your blogs and commenting and I still want to do SimSational Quarterly if you guys are still interested. I'm sure I'll start blogging again because I love telling the stories.....but I need a break to start again and work out whatever caused Crystal Bay to bomb before I begin a new blog......I'm not going anywhere, I'll still be reading and commenting and I will be back!!!!! I'm already thinking of ideas for the next issue of SimSational Quarterly and I will still make posts to this blog with info on that and with info on LaQuest Beach when I begin blogging about it........thanks to all of you who took the time to read about Crystal Bay and I hope you will want to read about LaQuest Beach too......

Jen

Monday, October 12, 2009

Sooooooo......

My neighborhood file is corrupted. That's why the game doesn't recognize it and neither does SimPe. The size had been cut down to only 96 bytes which is nothing at all! I have no idea how this happened as I haven't installed any new cc or done anything differently. So where do I go from here? Since I can't access the neighborhood in SimPE, I can't extract my characters and just recreate Crystal Bay. I get attached to my sims and their personalities and I just don't think I could remake them either. It wouldn't truly be them.....so what do I do? Create another hood? I don't know if I even want to do that......this is the second hood I've lost!!!! And this time it was on a new laptop! I fear I'm cursed!!!! I still have the urge to sim, but I don't know how to proceed. Make a new hood? Play with a maxis hood? I just don't know.......any advice?

Friday, October 9, 2009

SimSational Quarterly - Issue 1

Sooooooooo, it's finally here! I just want to thank everyone who sent in stuff for this issue! I had a lot of fun putting it together and I hope it meets your expectations! I would love to continue doing this if people want to do it again......if I can't get my freaking hood up and running I may not have anything to contribute, but I really would love to this again. So let me know what you guys think!!!! And thanks once again!!! Without further ado, I give you, SimSational Quarterly:

HELP!!!

I don't know why I keep having such bad freaking luck! For some reason, my neighborhood will not load.....I don't know what's wrong, maybe someone can help me. I played last night, got up this morning and went into the game and Crystal Bay just won't load. It doesn't even appear in the neighborhood chooser.......When I look in the game files it's there. But even SimPE won't load it up. I don't know what could have happened.....even my back-up won't play......if any of you have any ideas on how I can save my hood please tell me! I can't start over again......I just can't! I'm so connected to my sims! I was going to play my uni for the first time today and now I can't! I hope this is something I can fix somehow.......

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Spring 2025 Birthdays

Leary
Sam and Tina Leary are 31

Early one spring morning, Tina Leary goes into labor and Sam Leary makes the bed. "Oh for sims sake Sam, I'm having the baby! Forget about the damn bed!"
Sam seems to awake from his sleepy daze and realizes that Tina is in fact giving birth before his eyes. "I don't know what I'm suppose to do.....I think I'm having a heart attack! There's a pain in chest!" Sam yells. "You're in pain? Why you lousy son of a......."
And so little Celeste Leary was born into a world of tension and terrible cursing. She has the same pale skin and red hair as both her parents. She also got her dad's brown eyes. Good luck little one, I think you're going to need it!

Frader
Nickoli is 28, Amanda is 26, Layla and Lauren are 1

The Frader twins have grown into two of the cutest toddlers I've ever seen! They are in some serious competition with Taylor Peterson for cutest toddler in Crystal Bay. Nickoli here is holding little Layla Frader. He's going to be in for some trouble when these cuties are teens!
Amanda is holding Lauren Frader. They both are adorable with their mother's freckled skin! You just want to pinch their little cheeks, right?

Here's a solo shot of Layla testing out the tastiness of her her xylophone stick. She's just too cute!
Solo of Lauren Frader crawling around their three bedroom loft apartment. I can't really tell who they look like. The skins makes me automatically think of Amanda but maybe Nick will show up more when they're kids.
So how cute is this really? I mean my goodness, you just want to jump into the game and scoop them up! Look out for more cuteness from the Frader household, they both have wants for another baby.......hopefully this time it will be a boy so we can save the Frader name!
Happy Birthday Celeste, Layla, and Lauren!!!


*I am REALLY hoping for a boy this time! I want to perserve the Frader name for at least one more generation. But I guess one of the twins could be so head strong she makes her husband take her last name.....hmmmmm....we'll have to see how they develop as they get older......Too Cute!!!!

Before She Leaves

Round 3 - Spring 2025

Tyson and Ann Marie are 37, Cassie is 18, TJ is 12

Mini-Update

The Carmichaels can feel the time winding down. Cassie will be heading off to college the fall of this year and they will all miss her. So they have decided to spend as much time together as a family as they can before the big day arrives. No one is more excited than Cassie about her impending freedom. She can't wait to get out of her parent's house!
So the head down to Crystal Bay Island to enjoy a day at the CBI Center. Ann Marie can't believe her baby girl is going to college. She just doesn't know what to do with herself! She's actually been thinking of maybe having another baby. She discussed it with Tyson and from the way he freaked out, he doesn't share her desire for another child. TJ has been on cloud nine every since the winter ball. He's never really thought much about girls, but Arlena McGaw is a pretty cute girl......
And she seems to be stalking him! Arlena is everywhere now it seems. But TJ doesn't mind. He's still getting into the hang of this whole girl thing. No one really paid him much attention before now and now he has too much of it! He hasn't talked much to Jocelyn much lately and he feels bad. She told him she thought he would for get about her when he went to junior high and he promised he wouldn't.......but he's just been so busy.........
Tyson knows Ann Marie is pretty ticked because he doesn't share her crazy notion to just pop out another baby. They barely made it through with Cassie and now TJ was also a teen! Besides, they were almost 40 years old! It doesn't make since to just start over now.......
You would think that Cassie had had enough of hopping into hottubs with guys after the whole Payton scandal, but this time her parents are near so she knows to behave herself. She really likes Donte, but at the same time she's still very excited about going to school. He's just too young for her. She let him know that she only wants to be friends and encourages him to date other people. No need pining away for her, she's going after the big fish now!!!
And so the Carmichaels sit down for one of the last meals they will have together as a family before Cassie goes off to college to pursue her education.......well, her education and lots of cute boys!!!!

*I love Laura's skeleton stretching figures! It's so much more realistic and all of my teens don't have to be the same height when they are no where near the same ages! So big thanks to Laura!
*Cassie and a few others will be my first residents to go to Crystal Bay University and I can't wait!!! I'm probably much more excited about it than they are!!!

This is just a really random pic that I caught as the Carmichaels were eating. Yes, this is a grown man having dinner with a teenager and having a conversation about getting married! She looks just as grossed out as I felt when I saw this! Cradle robber!!!!

Monday, October 5, 2009

I'm Still Alive!!!!

So it's SUCH a bad idea to wait until the last minute to write a research paper! Ugh, anywho I'm done with it! Finally! So after I complete my take home test for my OTHER class, I'm going to play catch up with all the great blogs I've been missing out on because I've been reading about a cult named Isis lol.....then I will try to post some new stuff from Crystal Bay.....

Let me say I am so happy with the participation I got for the SimSational Monthly issue! I hope to also get that put together and out either this weekend or first thing next week! Thank you guys for taking the time out to create ads and business articles. The ones I recieved are excellent and I think this is going to come together very nicely indeed! I still have to come up with a cover for it but that shouldn't take much time at all. Thank you guys again for your participation and if you all are up for it I would love to do this again. This issue will cover October, November, and December since it's now quarterly and not monthly. So the next issue would be January, February, and March.......so if you're interested let me know and let me know of any ideas you might have for the next issue......you guys rock!!!!! :)