Welcome to Maria Rodriguez Elementary

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.





Amberle woke early on Sunday to find she was absolutely terrified! The kids would be there tomorrow. Was she prepared?


She had a brilliant idea. She would invite the kids over on Sunday for a few hours to calm her nerves and to meet the children.



Currently, there are six children enrolled- Gabe and Richard III Mellon, Aaron Stratton, Glenda and Maxen Stratton, and Kate Stratton.







It worked well. The next day, the kids were prepared. They come in at 8am sharp. One child feeds the animals in the morning.














The gerbil's name is Pepper, by the way.


After doing their chores, the children sit down to a lecture for an hour, generally from 9am to 10am.



Then they break for group work. Since there are exactly six children, they break off in groups of two.



For the first day, Gabe and Richard worked on fertilizing the Garden using the compost. (An important lesson in ecology and nature-- Amberle's specialty.)

Each child got to plant one plant each.

Here is Glenda and her Partner, Kate planting their tomato seed. Each morning, one child waters the plant and another child tends the plants. Because weeding takes so long, the child doing this chore misses Amberle's lecture to the class, so they get a one on one session with Amberle imparting her knowledge.


This time after the lecture ends until lunch is skilling time. The children study out of the library various skills (the first being cooking-- Amberle was very adamant that they get enough skill points to bake a good muffin.)


Once the children are done with their skilling (usually by meeting some pre-set goal), they are free to do what they would like.



Here Kate and Gabe collect bugs.

Glenda reads one of the many hobby magazines laying about.



Everyone has lunch around 11:30 or so. Depending on when Amberle is done fixing one of her simple and healthy lunches. This is a great time for the kids to hang out and bond with each other.


After lunch, it's free time. Here, Richard practices on the piano as the boys practice dancing. The girls practice painting.



The funnest part about this set is that I can pretend to have Amberle give lectures. That's thanks to Rose_maman at TSR and her AbelVille Elementary School Items. The items of this set are simply beautiful, and there is one item, a craft basket which you see off to the right of Amberle's lecture picture that allows it to look like Amberle's teaching the class. Meanwhile, without having to turn off free will, the kids will have a seat and stay there when I tell them to, so while Amberle is lecturing, they're chatting and building friendships. Thank you, Rosie!

And I call the students in using Simlogical's meeting controller.

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Moving day or OMG I BUILT A HOUSE

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.



Right after their return from vacation, the family packed and moved to their new home. ^___^


This home was specially designed for Aurora and her family. Aurora has always felt a very deep connection to Takemizu Village as her great-grandfather Pao Mellon's family came from there. So she had her house designed around the ideas of family and harmony.



The front yard is simplistic and yet, with the beautiful sound of the bamboo fountain, peaceful.



Here is the front porch. That door there leads to the tea room, which Aurora had placed in the front yard so she could easily welcome guests into her mini-retreat.



Here is the front entrance. (We see Ethan walking in for the first time, examining all their new items.)


Here is the kitchen. The only way to get to the kitchen is to go through the dining room.


Here is the dining room.



Here is the study. There is a picture of Angie and Isaac, Aurora's parents at her wedding.



The picture in the far right corner is also from Aurora and Ash's wedding. They paid a professional photographer to take plenty of pictures after all.


Here's a close up of the pictures on the piano. They're from the recent vacation. That first picture is my favorite. Here is the full size, which I admit to setting up. ^____^



Here is the living room with more pics of the kids, of course.


Here is the master bedroom with another picture from the wedding. Ash and Aurora are just that romantic.


Here is a shot of the master bathroom. This shot doesn't do it enough justice. There are some really lovely meshes with some wonderful recolors.




The kitchen, the dining room, the bedroom and bathroom, and a large portion of the living room are all meshes by -Maylin- and all the darker recolors with cherry accents are by Loverat.

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Family vacation

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.




From right to left: Ethan, Katherine, Aurora, Ily, Ash

Aurora has been planning this for a long time. She always thought a family vacation would be a great idea, but she refused to take the entire family until everyone was old enough to go along.

Family dinner time

The family has had a great time. Ethan will be leaving for college soon, so this was a nice hurah for the entire family.

Everyone spent time enjoying their pursuits. Ethan has a strict work our regiment that he sticks to so that he'll be prepared for soccer when he gets back. Ily works on her art in the evening and her dancing in the morning.


Meanwhile their dear little sister Kate made her own fun.


And they got lots of sight seeing done.



The family will be moving into a new house soon.

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Welcome back home

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.





Ann enjoys showing off the things she learns on her trips away. Here she is telling the Dragon Legend to her family. (Alec had already heard it a few times by then, but he must really love the way Ann glows when she shows off).

A dinner was also held to say goodbye to Green who headed off to college.



Alec headed back to work. It seems he's lost all interest in the job. He found out upon his return that his manager, Melissa Fancy, had recently passed while he was on vacation due to a mishap with a cow plant.

It wasn't enough Alec's first day back was greeted with this news, Armando Cox also quit. (Alec doesn't know that Armando has another "job" lined up with Mr. Big's syndicate.




Amberle also stopped by to visit with Ann and her family and to thank them once again for their support getting her school started.

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Ann and the Ninja

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.





The time came again for Ann to go on one of her mostly business trips for a book deal her agent had brokered. The assignment is to write a travel guide for Takemizu Village. Ann takes these assignments very seriously-- as serious as Ann can with her playful streak.

Since her last trip with Green went so well, Ann invited her hubby this time to come along.

The trip has given them the chance to be like two children. They even went out on a date to the restaurant at the Flaming Dragons hotel.


In between their time spent visiting various sites, they have spent plenty of time at home watching TV between Ann's writing and note taking sessions.

But as Ann's vacation time was winding down, she realized she still hadn't managed to catch the supposed Ninja.

From one of the tourists, Ann had received a tip that she might catch the ninja early in the morning at the Pagoda park and market. (Apparently, the ninja is quite fond of shopping and likes to surprise the cashiers when he makes a purchase of one of their plastic souvenirs.) So Ann headed out on foot, alone, to see if she could catch a glimpse of him at the very least.



Under the guise of bird watching, Ann kept an eye out for him. She waited for hours for that puff of smoke that would announce his arrival. All the while she kept an eye on her watch. Alec would wake soon and wonder where she was. She had left no note as she hadn't wanted him to follow her.

Suddenly, there he was, across the street. Ann ran over to him before he could teleport away. At the sight of her, his eyes narrowed, but he did not disappear.

She stepped forward and bowed deeply.

He did not return the bow. Instead he simply asked, "Which came first, the ninja or the sword?"

Ann had to think for a moment, but she knew if she waited too long, it would count as a wrong answer. Other "tourists" had told her as much.



Ann guessed. "The sword." Her voice was clear and strong.

The ninja simply nodded, his eyes appearing to glimmer in the sunlight. Was he smiling? He leaned over and whispered in her ear the secret to teleporting.



Ann was now among the ranks of the few who knew the secret. Wouldn't that make an interesting addition to her next fictional book?

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I love twins

These events take place before Tierra De Legado.



Briena reading to the twins

I really do. They're certainly a handful, but they are also a blessing in my sim hood.

I have had three sets of twins in the neighborhood. But the youngest set aged up yesterday.

The family gathered in the kitchen of their home (which is too small now that I think about it).


It's interesting to see how genetics play out. Glenda has the eye color of the founder and the narrow eyes of the founder's husband, Pao Mellon. Her lips may even be something left from the founder.











Meanwhile, poor Maxen got the Stratton nose which looks so good on the ladies and horrid on the men. Everything else on him may come from his mother.

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