May is at the sink when she hears a bit of quiet conversation behind her. Hearing a female voice, she glances over her shoulder and sees Marci. “Look at you having your first sleepover.”, she thinks while continuing to wash her plate in a nonchalant manner.

Her grin grows as she wonders if they were trying to pull a “Marci stopped by for breakfast before heading to work” sort of thing. Busted! LOL

A/N: Zep looks as if he is surprised by a new face at the table … that or he’s waiting to see if any crumbs will fall to the floor!

After May leaves the room, Tad and Marci continue their conversation from earlier.

Marci lets Tad know she is fine with holding a small wedding with just the four of them. “Other than your family, I have acquaintances but no close friends. Been too busy working and going about my day-to-day without thinking about making or keeping friends, I guess.

When you bounce around foster homes like I did growing up, you tend not to worry about friendships as you’re never in one place long enough for it to matter. But now … I have a reason to stay settled in one place. A reason to build a home, have a family and form a few close friendships.”, Marci says while smiling at Tad with love (and hope) shining in her eyes.

Before Tad can form a proper reply, she jumps up … kisses him … and races out the door behind May. “Bye! Have a nice day! Love you!” they call out to one another.

May jumps on her scooter and enjoys the ease in which she zips down their dirt road. “No more feeling like I’m driving a boat!”, she says out loud with a laugh.

She arrives too early to grab a seat so appreciates having something to do while she waits for the doors to open.

A/N: My initial observations regarding using this mod etc. will be found at the end of this chapter

In between classes, she studies and does a bit of research. May seems more excited about the whole process than Gala Ball, her test subject, is.

Now that the plants are coming back to life, Tad spends time tending their garden.

A/N: With May in a more interactive school environment, I queued up Tad’s actions (tend garden, bathroom/shower, paint) so I could focus on her making it to classes and then doing something in between sessions. Not sure what is going on with the garden but it took him ALL day to finish (and two plants were still wilting at that point)! If this continues, I will remove all of these and plant a new garden

Ice is back home, doing homework, when he remembers the school dance is that night! sigh

He changes into his formal clothes and slips out before his dad could notice and want to take a kajillion photos (a note has been left on the table, letting Tad know he went to hang out with classmates).

He didn’t want to mention it’s a school dance in case it turns out to be a dud.

A/N: Notice anything missing? Apparently, kids living on the other side of the tracks don’t get a limo ride to the dance

Ice arrives and is the only one heading to the school building. Hmm … hopefully he isn’t being pranked.

Within a short time, other teens start to arrive. Whew!

A/N: Apparently the limo service is out of commission because all of the townie kids arrived via taxi … at least it wasn’t just Ice being left out of the experience!

Easy to notice only 6 girls and 4 guys attending the dance. With one pair in a relationship, Ice thinks this dance could prove to be interesting after all!

And …

He is immediately proven correct.

May arrives home from Uni and heads upstairs to grab a nap before doing anything else.

Ice gets rejected for a couple of dances and then one of the girls singles him out. An interesting dance indeed!

A/N: Who is Keri? Good question! Since they left the dance being romantically interested in each other, I’m glad I snapped pictures of each Sim as they arrived in case I needed to know what they looked like

This is Keri Benoit.

A few hours later …

Ice arrives home and sees the note still on the table but with a reply added from his dad. “Hope you had a nice time!”

Ice writes “I did!” and leaves a few souvenirs for his dad (and May!) to find when they come downstairs tomorrow.

“No, Zep. This might look and smell like fish but it’s made with tofu so I don’t think you would enjoy it. But … I will give you treats and attention as soon as I finish.”

This is a good stopping place.

Day 24 << TIN Steps >> Day 26

UNI mod observations:

As soon as I opened the game, I noticed May was no longer enrolled in UNI. What?! I went back to an earlier save and made her re-enroll. She has a new schedule (same days/times but different classes/locations) so I purposefully kept an eye on her to make sure she stayed enrolled.

She went to classes without a hitch. Whew! The game queued her up to go to the next class within a short time after the previous one ended so I wasn’t able to have her do much in between out of concern for the game not letting her go to the next class. Will test this the next time she has UNI!

Three classes (8-10; 12-2 and 4-6) with not much time for fun due to the above-mentioned class queuing meant May came home from school with the stressed moodlet … lasting 2 DAYS !!! Am hoping this will end before she returns to school on Friday which happens to be final exam day.

{fingers crossed} she’ll stay in Uni without my having to re-enroll again. If it is needed again, I will wait until Sunday in order to get a full week of classes. However … if during that 2nd run through she gets dropped, then I will call it a day on playing with this at-home version and simply enroll her in regular UNI because by that time Ice will have graduated from high school and I plan on his going off to college, too.

…

One more thing:

Not sure if this is usual for UNI at home or not but May appears to be the only student on campus. Other Sims come to do various activities and there is a barista but so far, no other students. Am hoping this changes so the campus feels like it is more than a mere hangout.