Moving Home Part 3

April Bertino is 44; Carl Bertino is 43; Danni is 16; Pauline is 15; Conner is 10; Claire is 7.

November 2025

Previous update here.


It had taken several years, a lot of discussion, and a frightening mortgage...

but Carl and April Bertino had finally found the house of their dreams.

It had everything they'd been looking for: five bedrooms, a large and open dining and living area...



... a small study for when they wanted more privacy...



... and a large basement with its own bathroom, for Carl's dance students.



The master bedroom was huge compared to their previous one.



Despite knowing that she'd be leaving for college in little over a year, Dani had picked the biggest  of the children's bedrooms, and spent the most time decorating it.



She was still working after school at Cyd Roseland's pet shop.



She didn't talk much about the actual work, but she couldn't stop talking about how Cyd's wife would drop in every evening, and how 'adorable' the couple were, now that Mrs Roseland was pregnant again.



Pauline had been fine to take the smallest bedroom, provided she also have use of the workshop in the other half of the basement.



April and Carl were fine with that - no one else in the family was really interested in it anyway. So Pauline spent hours down there working with her electronics and gadgets.



It certainly wasn't time wasted - for a school science project, she had built an electronic vacuum cleaner that could somehow detect dirt and spills, and deal with them automatically.



With four kids in the house, the device went to very good use, and Pauline was now looking at ways to adapt it to clean up wet messes as well as dry ones.

Once she had the workshop, Pauline had shown little interest in decorating her bedroom. Dani had finally nagged her into a trip to the mall, and Pauline had to admit she was liked the results, even if she did spend little time in the room.

Despite the huge differences in their personalities, the girls were still good friends. And there was one thing, at least, that they both enjoyed.



After the move, April and Carl had finally given in to Conner's repeated requests for a pet.



The tank of fish wasn't quite the puppy or kitten he'd been aiming for, but they told him he had to prove he could care for these little creatures, before they could trust him with a larger one.

As much as he seemed to enjoy the fish now, Conner had initially  been upset.   It wasn't like he was a little kid any more... he was ten now! Practically grown up...



... although not too grown up to still enjoy the little toy robot Pauline had made for him years ago.

At seven, Clare was feeling pretty grown up too, although she still enjoyed her daily ballet workout with her dad.



She had endless energy, always showing off...



... always on the move.



She never seemed to sleep enough, although when she did, it seemed like nothing could wake her.



It must have been enough for her,though,  as she was also doing very well in school.



Along with the move that summer, April had made some minor alterations to the cafe.



The business had done very well over the summer, largely because of April's reputation as a chef.



She'd entered a couple of high-profile cooking contests in the past few months...



... an experience she found nerve-wracking, no matter how good she knew she was.



Even when Carl was working, the kids would come to cheer her on...



... and it was always a huge relief when the judging was over...



... especially when she won!

When he wasn't teaching his students, Carl spent a lot of time in the study. He maintained a successful dance blog, and he'd been toying with the idea of writing a book based on his posts there.



April had come from a very 'literary' family, and while the connections and inside knowledge could be useful should he decide to go ahead with it, he was also aware that his wife's family background made him all the more nervous about the whole thing. Some days the book idea felt like the most important thing in the world, other days he just preferred to spend his time with his dancing...

...  and his wife and family...







There was so much to be done, he wasn't sure that he wanted to commit to another big project.



The new place had a big yard, and they'd finally given in and hired a gardener for a few hours a week to help keep it in order.



Like most dreams, dream houses often weren't completely what you'd expected when they become reality... another reason to be a bit cautious about the book idea.  But all in all, they were happy they'd made the move.

---

So, I'm back... more on that in another post. Will stick to the update here, since the time between updates is only relevant when the next one comes out :)

I never meant to do a third moving house post... but it became necessary when April and Carl's household developed a glitch, probably related to my accidently breaking my hood. April was stuck at the cafe and I could not get her back home. I couldn't load the house or the cafe, and the solution involved a bit of teleporting and messing around with hacks. I had to re-make the cafe by exporting a new copy from a backup, and I could have done the same to their house, but I never really liked it anyway... so on to a new home. And it was hard to find one in their price range with enough bedrooms and a space for the dance studio, but we eventually got there.

Nothing much happened when I played them, so this is as much lot tour as anything else. Carl kept rolling a want to write a novel, then it would as quickly roll away, two or three times a sim-day. Indecision, much? :) So that came into the story. And if you're wondering why I never mentioned the older girls' boyfriends... in the three sim-days I played them, they never rolled a single want for them! Although they're not part of my usual play schedule, I'm going to play the boyfriends' household and see if they are still rolling wants for the girls. They're still going steady with high relationship values, but it looks like their feelings may have just quietly died out even so...