Thank you, everyone for an amazing year.

H

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 60 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 130 posts.

The busiest day of the year was August 11th with 230 views. The most popular post that day was The Beginning.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were forums.boolprop.com, thecharmlegacy.wordpress.com, tipix7.wordpress.com, theseraphinelegacy.wordpress.com, and kendricks.sims3legacy.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for kendrick legacy, the kendrick legacy, will you marry me, sims 3 kendrick legacy, and money tree.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

The Beginning August 2009
11 comments

Succubus Legacy August 2009
2 comments

Who’s Who June 2009

Chapter 3 Interlude #1: Megan July 2009
10 comments

Chapter 6.6: In which everyone is happy but Anne-Marie. January 2010
6 comments

Thank you for reading this story, especially if you started out reading it when it was brand new.  I appreciate your comments and your interest.  The Sims 3 and the community of writers and readers has re-kindled my desire to be a writer.  For that I will always be grateful.

Anyway, if you want to stick with me, please check out The Twinbrook Fields.

Thanks again for all the fun times with the Kendricks.

H

I find the genetic system in Sims 3 fascinating.  I wish I understood how they coded it so that certain traits become dominant and recessive.  Two places in the legacy had me putting my Sims into the Sim Bin and then reloading them to the game…one was when I destroyed Susanne’s house.  The second was when the game glitched so badly that I had to move the family off the Legacy Lot and purge Jabari who was causing the glitch.  I don’t know if those two incidents changed the genetics that much, though.  I do know that it messed with the family tree.  But anyway, here are some of the things I observed about my Sims over the course of 10 generations.

P.S.  I plan on doing an “Out Takes” soon.  I have hundreds of screenshots to go through, though, so it’s taking me some time to put together.

H

Generation One

Margie Kendrick Married Jebidiah Wilson.  She had very full and pursed lips, light blue eyes and blond streaked hair.  Jeb’s hair was red and his lips were thin and wide.  He had green eyes.  Margie’s nose was thin and narrow.  Jeb’s was much wider.

Generation Two

Isaac Kendrick had Jeb’s red hair.  I gave it black tips because he was a rock star.  His mouth looks like a cross between his parents’ and his eyes were a striking almost teal green.  I also thought his nose were a blend of Margie’s and Jeb’s.  He definitely had Jeb’s ears.  He married Shalonda Chung who had a thin, wide mouth, Asian tilted eyes and a very tiny nose.  Her eyes were gray.

Generation Three

Deanna Kendrick’s eyes were a good blend of her parents’ but they were the same color as Shalanda’s.  She seems to have gotten Margie’s mouth and Shalonda’s tiny nose.  I think she’s one of the prettiest Kendricks, but she didn’t survive the culling process at TS3.  She married Hugo who had light brown eyes and sandy blond hair.  He also had darker skin.  His nose is pretty normal looking, not tiny and not huge.

Generation Four

Duncan Kendrick ended up with his mother’s light gray eyes.  His hair was sort of a mix between both of his parents’.  His mouth looks a lot like Hugo’s or Shalanda’s.  He seems to have a sort of smashed version of Jeb’s nose and Shalonda’s tilted eyes.  He did not inherit Hugo’s darker skin.  Stacia Kendrick, his wife, also had darker skin.  She had light goldish brown hair.  Her nose was not as thin or small as Shalonda’s, but it was much smaller than Margie’s.  Her eyes were the same hazel brown/green as Hugo’s.  She has a sort of heart-shaped face that seems to be pretty standard in service Sims, which she was one.  Her mouth is fuller than Shalonda’s but not as much as Deanna’s or Margie’s.

Generation Five

Susanne Kendrick had her mother’s skin, mouth and nose.  However, she got Shalonda’s dark hair again and her tilted light blue eyes.  I always liked Susanne’s look.  She married Jabari with his pale skin, wide mouth, big nose and brown eyes.  His hair was a strawberry blond.  Jabari’s genetics became quite pronounced in their children.

Generation Six

Avery Kendrick obviously favors her dad in coloring, but she has Susanne’s mouth, nose and eyes.  She married another service Sim, Raphael, who has the male version of Stacia’s face.  His eyes were a pretty dark blue.  (Around this time I felt that all my Sims were looking like the Face 1 version of a Sim.  I started adding new CAS Sims to the game to give more variety to the town.)

Generation Seven

Avery and Raphael had kids with every color of hair from Shalonda’s black to Jabari’s red.  Raymond, their youngest, ended up looking almost exactly like his father.  The only difference between Raymond and Raphael was that Ray got Shalonda’s tilty eyes that were the color of Jabari’s brown ones.  Those eyes were on a lot of Kendricks.  Genevieve was a CAS made Sim that I created to give some diversity to the Kendricks’ looks.  Her hair is more of a strawberry blond and her eyes were moss green.  She has an oddly shaped nose and mouth that I hoped would be carried on.

Generation Eight

I was happy with how Raymond’s genes mixed with Genevieve’s.  Irene got Genevieve’s nose but the brown eyes of her father and Jabari.  Her mouth was a throwback to Stacia, though.  Again, I wanted to mix up genetics, so I had Irene marry a French Sim, Gustave.  I liked his deep brown eyes and his square face.  He also had a wide mouth with a thick lower lip that sort of pouted.  I liked his deep-set eyes.

Generation Nine

I wasn’t disappointed in Gustave’s mix into the Kendricks.  His French eyes and square face were very strong.  Henri looked like a blond version of Gustave.  His eyes were the lighter brown of Irene’s, though.  Henri married a Chinese girl, Ziyi, who had a completely different look.  I didn’t know how her genes would impact their children.  She has light gray eyes and a very strangely shaped mouth and a squished little nose.

Generation Ten

You can see that both Gustaven’s French genetics and Ziyi’s Chinese genetics influenced the last generation quite a bit.  Shan looks the most Chinese and Jian is a lot like Henri.  Both Lian and Ai-Li look more French and Mei-Li looks very Asian even though she’s blond.  Mei-Li’s mouth is also the same as Ziyi’s but the other kids have mouths more similar to Gustave.  I’m not sure where Lian got such a full lower lip.  Her upper lip is like Ziyi’s.  I like how Shan’s nose looks identical to Ziyi’s except larger since he’s a male.  He and Jian both have Gustave’s cheek bones, though.  None of them seem to have gotten Ziyi’s smaller and rounder head.

It’s hard to believe that all of these Sims were the product of Margie Kendrick.  I’m not sure I see much of her in the last group.  Actually, Margie’s influence seems to have dissipated by Deanna.  In my opinion Shalonda’s genetics were by far the strongest.

What do you think?

It is my first day in the past.  It’s amazing how different Riverview now is compared to my time.  There are no aliens walking around town with their laser pistols and stun batons.  There are a lot more people.  Large families like mine are the norm.  Best of all, there is no plague.

I didn’t know how my past-family would receive me, but they seem to have opened their home to me readily enough.  In my time they would have been much more suspicious.  How would they know if I was some sort of alien in disguise?

My parents, Henri and Ziyi Kendrick, remember what it was like in the future.  They listened to me tell of how bad it had gotten since they returned to their own time.  The accepted that I was was on a mission and were not in the least disturbed that I existed.  They are so innocent!  I don’t think I would have been as accepting of an old lady claiming to be your daughter.  Why should they believe that my people used their DNA to create a person who could go back in time?

But they did.  They actually feel sorry for me because I was raised in quarantine and isolation so that I wouldn’t be contaminated by the horrible plague that the aliens brought to our world.  I had no family, no friends, no people to interact with.  That’s why it is so strange for me to be among this large family now.  It exhausts me.

I’ve always known my purpose for being.  I was to be sent to the past to learn the medical techniques lost in my time.  I was then supposed to return to the future to help what remains of humanity there.  I was supposed to be the savior of the world.  Knowing that you have a higher purpose makes the loneliness easier to tolerate.

Time Log, Entry 2:

My family wants to know how an old lady like me can actually be their child.  It is a legitimate question.  It’s hard to explain the nuances of time travel to these people who inadvertently stumbled upon it.  I have to explain that in order to not affect the time continuum, I had to “die” in the present before I could go back to the past.  The scientists in my world couldn’t cure our plague, but they had developed a procedure that would allow me to age in reverse once I got to the past.

That took a lot of explaining.  Ziyi wanted to know if I would become a baby.  I said no.  I was supposed to return to the future once I had achieved the highest level of their medical science.  I was to bring back the medicines we had lost.  But, in order to go back to the future and not cause a time paradox, I had to have “died” in the future.  I would actually return one day after my first death.  I would be a younger version of my old self.  But I couldn’t go back to a time where I actually existed before.

It was a confusing explanation that my mother barely understood.

Luckily she allowed me to change the topic to cooking and art, two things I was very interested in.  I had never cooked anything in the future because I wasn’t allowed to go outside of my quarantined house.  I had to eat replicated food.  Fresh food was a novelty.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my mother enjoyed art as much as I did.  Art was the only outlet I really had growing up.

My mother said I could learn to cook in this time, so I immediately decided to try.  The first successful meal I ever made was a plate of Autumn Salad.  I marveled at the fresh ingredients grown in my father’s garden.  I was very pleased with myself.

To prepare myself for entering the medical career field, my father took to playing chess with me.  I had never played against a live player before.  It changed the game a bit.  My father was an unpredictable player, not at all like an AI.

I did not neglect my art in this time.  My family wanted to know more about my world, so I sketched out what Riverview looked like in my time.  It was a dismal picture.  They had a hard time believing that things got so bad.  My parents remembered the alien invasion from their trip to the future.   They hadn’t realized that the aliens would be so destructive.

Time Log, Entry 3:

It took me awhile to start interacting with my “siblings”.  It was hard for me to relate to them because they were so young.  Eventually, though, they coaxed me into playing games with them and I realized that it wasn’t so hard to talk to them and we even shared some interests.

I did prefer to spend time with my parents, though.  Having parents was something that I had always wanted.  My mom and dad taught me martial arts.  I liked learning this fighting style.  I would be able to go back to the future capable of defending myself.  I was grateful.

My father worked as a paranormal hunter, which is probably why he was so able to accept my time-traveling stories.  He was also a part-time inventor.  He told me that as soon as he retired, he was planning to become a full-time inventor.

Waiting until he was an elder might help him as an inventor anyway.  He had a minor accident with one of his inventions the other day.  I was worried about him, but he said it was nothing.  A little smoke and fire and nothing more.  I didn’t completely believe him, but as nothing really happened, I didn’t say anything.

Time Log, Entry 4:

It was the birthday of my two oldest siblings.  It was also my transition day as well.  I didn’t know how my family would react to my becoming younger instead of older.

Jian grew up so healthy and strong!  I was used to the wasted flesh of the people I saw on vids in my own time.  I was surprised.  He decided to enter the science career path because of his interest in fishing and gardening.  Lian was also a surprise to me as she got older.  She looked nothing like me or my mother.  She became a private investigator.  She was so brave!  As for me, my parents were surprised that I became younger even though I had warned them.  My mom kept it together the most only remarking that my hair was not black like hers.  It’s more brown.

Now that I was younger, I got my job in the medical field.  I also had to learn how to interact and talk to people other than my family.  I am not ashamed to say that I did a lot of practicing in front of my mirror.

It was good to be starting on my medical career.  I worried a lot about my mission.  Sometimes it would keep me up at night.  I just hoped that I would be successful.

Time Log, Entry 5:

I am progressing nicely in my career.  Now I am holding clinics around town to help vaccinate the citizens of Riverview.  Vaccinating the elderly is especially important.

I even vaccinated my father who became an elder.  He was true to his word, retiring from ghost hunting and becoming a professional inventor.

My sister Lian was doing very well in her job as an investigator, and my brother Jian was enjoying his work at the Science Facility.  They both wished, however, that they had time to meet someone to become romantic with.  This was a wish that I didn’t understand.  I had never aspired to having a relationship of that nature with someone.

Ai-Li, one of my triplet siblings, recently entered a romantic relationship with a boy, Laurence Heere.

Jian found out that his friend from high school, Sofia Paige, worked at the consignment shop where our dad sells his inventions.  He went over there to meet her.  He had hopes that she might see him as more than a friend.  Unfortunately this backfired as she was in another relationship.

Time Log, Entry 6:

My younger siblings’ birthday party was a pool party.  This was the first time that I had ever entered water.  I am very athletic, so I learned to swim quite rapidly.  My father taught me.  This is another thing I have learned from my parents.

My other sister, Mei-Li, started dating her long-time friend, Roberto Deal, after the party.  She finally was able to convince him that they were meant to be now that they were adults.

And Jian met another girl at the party, Lori Bercier, who ended up being perfect for him.  They spent all of their time together.  He was definitely romantically interested in her by the end of the party.  Ai-Li was older than her boyfriend, Laurence, so while they remained “together” they couldn’t really date until he aged up.  I am not sure exactly what the nuances are in romantic entanglements, but I knew that Ai-Li couldn’t wait for Laurence’s birthday.

Time Log, Entry 7

My father has invented a mining machine.  It is exceptionally loud.  I am trying to make Dad understand that now that I am a Resident at the hospital, I need to get sleep whenever I can.  He often gets absorbed in his mining and forgets that I’ve just worked a double shift and am on again in only 4 hours.  It’s frustrating.

It has been decided by my parents that Lian will become head of the household now that both of them are considering retirement.  Lian is thrilled, of course.  Unfortunately that puts a lot of pressure on  her to find a mate.  She doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry, preferring instead to focus on her job.  It is an exciting job.  I like hearing stories about the stakeouts she conducts in the park and the interesting things she overhears.

Maybe it would have been better to pick Jian as the heir.  His relationship with Lorie Bercier has advanced quite rapidly.  He’s talking about moving out and maybe getting married.

Dad could have allowed Ai-Li to be heir as well.  Laurence finally became a full adult and he and Ai-Li elected to elope.  Laurence moved in with us until both he and Ai-Li can afford to move out.  She is a school teacher and he is a lowly podium polisher at the courthouse.

Mei-Li and Roberto are still going steady, but show no signs of getting married.  Mei-Li is focused on her career at the theatre and Roberto doesn’t seem to want to stop working for the local grocery store.  I guess he’s now the manager.  Shan, my youngest brother, is now in the military.  Recently he and Jian decided to move into my uncle Sammy and Ian’s old house which is just behind ours.

They had an open house party.  Jian invited our cousins Fatima and Fabiola.  He also invited Lorie.  We were all surprised when he proposed to her right at the party.

She accepted, of course.  We were all very happy for them.  Lian, his twin, wished him well before we all left.  My parents were thrilled.  Now that two of their children were married, all they could talk about were grandchildren.

Time Log, Entry 8

Both Lian and I are advancing in our jobs.  I am now a full doctor and am frequently asked to conduct medical seminars outside of the hospital.  I’ve had to learn to over-come my shyness and speak in public.  Lian is still conducting stakeouts.  She also works closely with the police.

With our parents aging up, both Lian and I are concerned that they may need to relax a little more.  I know Dad has always wanted to go back to Egypt.  He said something about mummies that I didn’t understand.  Lian would love to see our folks take a little trip abroad.  She’s getting really tired of their veiled hints for her to settle down.

Lian’s problem is that the men she meets are usually clients.  For example, she met one of Ai-Li’s co-workers who wanted to see what his girlfriend was up to.  He actually gave her permission to break into his house!

After some snooping, she found out that this man’s girlfriend was Lorie Bercier, Jian’s fiancé!  No wonder the guy was suspicious.  Lorie was engaged to someone else and playing both men.  Lian confronted her outside the fish hatchery and they had a very public fight.  That same day Lorie broke up with Jian.  Lian went back to her client to tell him what was going on.  He also broke up with Lorie.

After the Lorie incident, Lian met another male client named Garth Montoya.  She told me that when she first say him all she could think about was babies.  Then she found out that he was a pretty funny guy.  She liked his sense of humor and really hoped that he was single.  Turned out that he suspected a co-worker of hacking into his files and wanted Lian to check it out.  He was in fact, very single.  Once she finished his case, she was hoping to ask him out.

Time Log, Entry 9

Lian and Mei-li both have been getting quite intimate with their boyfriends.  I caught Mei-Li’s boyfriend flirting with the maid, though, so I don’t really like him.  When I told Mei-Li about it, she didn’t seem to mind.  She said they had an open relationship…nothing too serious.

Lian, on the other hand, was very serious about Garth.  As with everything else in her life, Lian had to be unconventional and ask Garth to marry her.  He didn’t seem to mind the role reversal.  For a police officer, he seemed pretty open-minded about Lian’s independent nature.

They didn’t get married right away.  Lian was working on a big case involving the Bistro.  She wanted to finish it up before the wedding.  Unfortunately, staking out the Bistro had some unwanted consequences.

Lian wanted to look good at her wedding, so she had to work off the weight she had gained.  She did this by jogging around town.Jian also helped.  Lian was embarrassed about her weight gain.  Dad offered to train her, but she preferred Jian’s help.

Time Log, Entry 10

Something terrible and unexpected has happened.  My mother passed away.  She was working on her computer when she had a heart attack.

Everyone was upset, but no one more so than Dad.  In fact, he was so upset that he just gave up on life.  Now I have lost both of my parents.  I had always wanted to know my parents and now they are both gone.  I suppose it is sort of a good thing.  I was almost done with my mission.  I would have had to leave them soon anyway.  Now my leaving won’t be as sad.

Lian is the head of the household now.  I’m sure Dad has made the right decision in choosing her.  She will get married to Garth and have several children.  When I go back to the future I will look up what happened to her and the rest of my family.

Since we were the only ones home, Lian and I were the first to mourn our parents.  Mei-Li came home after we called her.  She was extremely upset.

The next day we held a funeral.  It was also my last transition day.  I would become a young adult.  I would have to leave right after the funeral.

Our dad was survived by all of his siblings.  Aunt Chantelle, his twin sister, was devastated by his loss.  She came to the funeral with her daughters, Fatima and Fabiola.  She and Uncle Zaki had gotten a divorce.  Robert was there alone because Aunt Lakesha had passed away.  Both Abigail and Gerard were there but not their son, my cousin Stefan.

Time Log, Final Entry

I left as soon as the final guest departed.  The funeral was a good place to not only say good bye to my parents but also my siblings.  I wished them all well.

I found out when I returned to the future that Garth and Lian had gotten married.  It was a much less formal affair than they had originally planned.  Mei-Li and Roberto never married.  They moved in together and both pursued their careers and their casual relationship.  Shan, my youngest brother, never married.  Jian, my oldest brother, eventually married Lorie Bercier, the woman who had cheated on him.  I would have liked to know what made them reconcile, but that is lost to history.

Unfortunately there are no Kendricks living in my time.  I discovered that they had died out just before the alien invasion.  That’s the reason Dad’s time machine was able to travel to my time…no living decedents existed.  I feel badly that I am once again without family, but I will always have the memory of my parents.  They loved me, took me in and cared for me.  They taught me what I needed to know.  I will miss them every day.

But, knowing them was worth it.  I am saving lives in my time.  I was able to accomplish exactly what I hoped for with my medical knowledge from the past.  Scientists and doctors are now using what I found out to cure the plague.  We hope to have ended it in what’s left of my life-time.

Anyway, I have played the Sims quite often this week in an effort to finish up my story.  BUT I don’ t think I will finish it this week like I thought I’d be able to do.  I’m glitching pretty badly like I was awhile back.  I am getting Error 12′s almost every other save.  God forbid I do anything in CAS because it’s almost a guaranteed Error 12.  So, slowly but surely I’m wrapping things up.

Lian searches for "clues" in the garbage.

I changed my mind about who the “heir” for Gen. 10 would be…I was going to pick Mei-Li, but then decided to give it to Lian.  If I could get my game to play through to the point where I wanted to “end” things, I’d be very thankful.  So far I’ve played through the triplet adult birthdays twice, the boyfriend/marriage scenario’s for most of the kids at least 3 times, Ziyi and Henri becoming elders twice, and Jodie’s promotions and aging twice.  I just need Jodie to hit the top of the medical career and then it’s over.

BTW, I’m going to move the triplets to Twinbrook for The Twinbrook Fields.  Would you like me to put them on the Exchange as a household?

H

I have played ahead enough to have aged all of generation 10 up to young adults.  You can find them all on the Exchange at my Studio.

Ai-Li Kendrick

Mei-Li Kendrick

Shan Kendrick

Lian Kendrick

Jian Kendrick

Thank you all for being such awesome support as I’ve been writing this legacy.  I hope that the Fields will also be as enjoyable as the Kendricks to read about.

H

My son Jian and I have a lot in common.  We are both a bit of a dare devil.  However, where I pour a lot of my energy into inventing and hunting for ghosts, Jian focuses a lot on fishing.  Of course I had to teach him how to work out so that he’d have the stamina and energy to catch the big fishes.

Jian and his little brother Shan spend a lot of time together.  Shan really admires Jian.  Shan enjoys being outdoors so he’s the perfect companion to take fishing in the park.

Of course Jian doesn’t spend all of his time fishing.  He has discovered girls, too.  The other day he brought him Grace Paige’s daughter, Sofia.  I wonder if she is afflicted with some of her mother’s evil temperament.  She seemed decent enough, but I didn’t really get a lot of time to talk to her.  Right after Jian got home from school, I had to take off for work.

Lian has started spending more time with her cousins, Fabiola and Fatima.  She says they do homework together and just hang out.  I know that they can’t be getting into too much mischief.  Zaki is their high school science teacher after all.

One of the best things about my job is that I often get to hang out with my clients after I have finished banishing the spirits that plague them.  I like helping out my family members especially.  I enjoyed a really relaxing evening with Gerard the other day after I got rid of an angry caveman ghost.  Gerard and Abigail are doing well.  Stefan was recently married to Rebecca O’Shea and has moved out of the house.  Abigail’s sister Laura still lives with them and is single.  Abigail miscarried the baby they were expecting a few years ago and they have had no more children since.

Another great thing about my job is that I get to spend a lot of time on my hobbies as I only work at night and not for very long most nights.  I recently invented a mechanical gnome and a time machine!

Of course I couldn’t wait to try it out!  What I didn’t know was that my wife would follow me.  I also didn’t know what I would find in my travels.  We traveled to the future.  Our memory of the trip is a little cloudy.  I vaguely recall meeting aliens and something about not being able to get back to our time…but we did get back so I’m not sure about that part.  Ziyi and I hadn’t aged at all while we were gone and, like I said, our memory of the time is jumbled up.  I do know that we both sort of fell out of the time machine in disarray with lasers shooting at us.  We vowed never to use the machine again!

Luckily nothing happened to us in the future that jeopardized our family in the present.  Life continued on as it had before.

Jian wasn’t the only one who had been hanging around with friends from school.  Mei-Li brought Laurence Heere over several times.  Apparently his mother used to hang around with my older brothers (Summer Read who married Saul Heere).  Also, Ai-Li has gone over a few times to Leland Bercier’s house.  He’s an interesting kid who always seems to be dressed formally.

Shan never seems to go to anyone’s house, but he often ends up playing with Laurence even though Mei-Li was the one who brought Laurence home.  Both boys really enjoy being outside, so the sprinkler is a favorite of theirs.

The triplets occupy themselves with other activities as well.  Both Shan and Mei-Li like to play with the blocks in their playrooms.  I’m happy to see this because maybe one of them will find an interest in invention like I did.  Ai-Li has taken to setting up Chantelle’s old bake sale table.  I’ve seen her sell to my cousin Chanda (Sammy’s daughter) and her uncle Robert (who is now working at the stadium as a coach).

Because all of the kids enjoy being outside so much, when the triplets were ready to become teens, we decided to throw them a pool party.  It had been awhile since the pool was used for a party.  Ever since Granddad died there, Mom refused to use it.  It was about time to put Granddad’s ghost to rest and let the pool be used again.

I noticed that Jian spent most of the party talking to Sofia Paige instead of swimming and playing Gnubb.  I wasn’t paying that close attention.  I thought the girl was ok, but Ziyi said that something was wrong with her.  Ziyi, who didn’t know Grace Paige, Sofia’s mother, hadn’t known that Grace was evil.  I just hoped that Jian would watch his back around Sofia.  Grace had never done anything really wrong…but no one had been comfortable around her.  I remember Mom being really glad when Robert stopped hanging around with Grace.

Jian wasn’t the only one not playing in the pool during the party.  Lian was also talking with a classmate, a boy named Collin Holme.  I didn’t get a chance to talk to him at all, so I don’t know if he’s hiding any evil traits.  They didn’t seem to be as flirty as Jian was with Sofia.

The party was an epic success at the end of which all of our children were teenagers.  Ziyi was extremely happy (not that she looks it here).  She had achieved one of her life-time goals of raising five teenagers.

I think Ziyi was also proud that at least one of the teens had wanted to embrace the Chinese culture.  Shan adopted a similar style of casual outfit as Ziyi wore herself.  He also asked to learn martial arts.  I was a bit put off by Shan’s long hair, but I remembered Sensei Weng had had very long hair which he had kept braided.  Ai-Li, I thought, looked almost exactly like her older sister, Lian.  Both girls had dark hair and the French facial features inherited from my father, Gustave.  Ai-Li developed into a dramatic teen who reminded me a lot of my mother.  Mei-Li, on the other hand, seemed to be a perfect blend of my features and Ziyi’s.  I’m afraid, though, that she’s a little flighty and might have too much of an interest in boys.

At first I didn’t think anything about the girls and potential boys.  Even Lian’s interaction with Collin Holme didn’t end up to be anything significant.  Mostly the girls just hung out together or with Fabiola or Fatima or both.

Then all the kids (ok Mei-Li mostly) decided to throw a party after school.  It was a school night, but Mei-Li figured that it would be ok to party if they all did their homework…which they did before the guests showed up.

Pretty much Mei-Li invited the whole school to the party at the Juice Bar.  There were a number of people there quite a few of whom were boys.  Ai-Li spent time talking to Quincy Lum and Mei-Li was surprised to see Leland Bercier had aged up.  Lian spent time talking to Collin Holme, who was now dating her 3rd cousin, Hollie Kendrick (Quinn Kendrick’s son) and to Joseu Bercier (Leland’s older brother).

Later on Lian and Ai-Li played foosball with Josue and Mathew Olivera.  Mathew was dating Fatima, but he hardly spent any time with her at the party.  Lian wondered if something was up.

While eating the hotdogs that she had cooked for the party, Lian broached the subject of Mathew with her cousin.  Fatima just denied that anything was up.  She said that they’d only had one date together…going to the movies.  Lian wasn’t convinced that something wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t pry.  A lot of people thought of Fatima and Fabiola as losers because their dad was a teacher at the school, but they were Lian’s cousins and she liked them.

The party continued for some time.  Eventually Lian and Jian got tired and said that everyone should go home.  The triplets and several others didn’t want to leave.  Mei-Li, the party animal, told her older brother and sister not to worry.  They’d be back before curfew, but they still had time to make it.  Ai-Li was too busy dancing with Leland Bercier to really notice the time.  She may have forced her siblings to leave if she’d been aware.  She was neurotic about getting caught.

Unfortunately, the triplets did miss curfew.  They were met outside of the juice bar by a police officer who escorted them home.  Ziyi was quite unhappy that she had to meet her kids at our door and talk to the police about them.  She berated each of them in turn for their behavior.  Shan was told that he should have been a more protective brother, keeping  his sisters from doing the wrong thing.  Ai-Li got the dreaded “disappointed in you” lecture.

But it was Mei-Li who got the brunt of Ziyi’s displeasure.  We all knew that she was the most dominant of all of our children.  Also we knew that she liked to party and have fun.  She’d always been like that.  Besides, Lian and Jian had told us that Mei-Li was the one who said they still had time to make curfew.  All of the triplets, Ziyi decided, would be restricted to home on school nights.  They would not be allowed to go to other people’s houses.  On the weekends they could go out during the day, but only to pre-approved locations, and they’d have to be back by curfew from now on.  As punishments go, it wasn’t that strict, but it did make our point.  If the kids had let their grades slip, we might have been more severe, but Mei-Li had been right about getting their homework done before the party.

Of course, that night we had a little more to worry about than our wayward triplets.  We were visited by a being from the future.

Jodie Kendrick—our daughter.

Go to Chapter 9.9: In which Jodie goes back to the future.

With new triplets in the house, I’m afraid that Ziyi and I totally neglected the older children.  Luckily as twins, Lian and Jian pretty much entertained each other and gave us no fuss.

School also kept the older kids occupied.  They were both good students.  They’d come home and get right to their homework without any nagging from us.  Lian also took up painting and Jian learned how to fish. 

And of course both kids played chess.  I was quite proud of them both.  And I was thankful for them because if they weren’t so self sufficient, we could never have managed the triplets.

The toddler years were particularly hard on both of us.  I don’t think Ziyi or myself got a full night’s sleep.  It always seemed like we were on an assembly line with the kids.  While we had one of the toddlers, the other two were left to play together or on their own.

It’s not as if the triplets were particularly demanding, but it just never seemed like they were on the same schedule.  Having them in the room right next to ours was a blessing and a curse.  Their needs were always met, but Ziyi and I never seemed to leave the third floor unless we were so hungry we had to go downstairs to eat.

Ai-Li was such a happy baby.  She was sweet and bubbly and loved playing with the homemade toys that I had built (I wasn’t able to invent more with the triplets.  I really missed my inventor’s table!)  Mei-Li was also a sweet girl.  She enjoyed playing with the peg box and the xylophone, but she seemed to be particularly gifted with the xylophone…I think she may become a musician.  Shan, my little dude, was not as bubbly as his sisters, but he was extremely focused.  It took him a little longer to learn everything, but once he got it, he was very good at it.

It took a long time…or at least it felt like a long time, but we did manage to teach the triplets everything they needed to know.  Once they were potty trained and were able to walk around, Ziyi and I were freed up to do some of the things we had missed out on.

I went back to work.  I had taken a small paternity leave so that Ziyi wasn’t alone with the kids all the time.  I was excited to get back to work.  One of my first jobs was for my old girlfriend, Bree.  She was living with her brother and his wife.  Apparently she had never married, but she was still in the music business.

I also got a promotion and a new and improved Banisher!  My first opportunity to use it was at Chantelle’s house.  My nieces, Fabiola and Fatima, had become lovely teenaged girls.  I was sorry that I had missed their birthday.  Chantelle and the girls had called on me to banish some angry ghosts that were haunting their house.

Seeing my nieces as teenagers, I was reminded that my own children would soon be celebrating birthdays.  Of course we had to throw them a party.

Before Lian and Jian’s birthday, the triplets finally aged up to children.  Ziyi in particular was excited for their birthday.  She was going stir crazy in the house.  She had had to take an extended maternity leave and was itching to go back to work or at least to leave the house and go somewhere!

Mei-Li, Ai-Li, and Shan aged up well.  I was so proud especially considering how hard it was to make sure they knew everything they needed to know.  Oddly, both Ai-Li and Shan looked a lot like Ziyi.  Even Mei-Li had her facial features though she had my blond hair.  Both Lian and Jian looked exactly like my dad.  It was interesting to me that the French genetics were more prominent than the Chinese in our children.  Shan became lucky, Ai-Li a little neurotic, and Mei-Li a bit of a party animal on their birthday.

After their birthday, we decided a little remodel was in order for the bedrooms and playrooms.  Lian moved upstairs with her sisters.  We re-did the third floor to be the girls’ sanctuary.  What used to be my grandma and granddad’s studio and then the triplets’ nursery became the girls’ playroom.  The adjoining room was their bedroom.  On the second floor, Shan moved into the room with Jian.  We repainted so that it fit both boys’ favorite colors.  The room that used to be the twins’ nursery and my uncle Sammy’s room became the boys’ playroom.  Ziyi and I moved down to the basement next to the gym in the room that used to be my mom and dad’s.  We converted Chantelle’s old room into a studio for Ziyi to work on her designs.

It was a good arrangement.  I think it forced the kids to interact with each other.  I liked it that they all got along well with each other.

Since we were free of toddler training and caring for infants, I decided that we all needed to go out and bond as a family.  We all headed out to Plumbpuddle park.  Jian already knew how to fish, but they other kids didn’t, so we spent some time catching fish in the pond so they could learn.  Shan really enjoyed doing this.  He really loves being outdoors.

My sister and her family joined us in the park that day as well.  While the kids played on the playground, we challenged them to a chess tournament.  Ziyi won, of course, but it wasn’t really about winning and losing.  We were just enjoying the day together.

It was a great family outing.  I grilled hotdogs for all of us to eat.  The triplets really enjoyed them and I was grateful that they could all eat at the same time!

All of the kids played for hours on the playground.  The slide and the play tower were particular favorites.

The following day, the kids went off to school together.  It was the twins’ last day in elementary school and the triplets’ first day.  Ziyi and I were left blessedly alone for the first time in a long time.  Ziyi finally got to do martial arts and I took care of my father’s garden…something that had been left alone for too long.  I wasn’t proud of how much I had let die while I was concentrating on the kids.  There were absolutely none of my mother’s grapes left.

When everyone got home from school, we had a small party for the twins.  Since it was a school night, not many of their friends could show up.  But that didn’t seem to matter.

As teens it is really evident how much of my dad both twins have in them.  There is almost nothing that says that they are half Chinese.  Lian becamea beautiful girl who is a lot like my sister was at her age…a perfectionist.  Jian is a handsome boy who must have really been influenced by our fishing excursion—He’s decided that he want to be an angler and have the perfect aquarium.

So now we have two teenagers in our house and three children.  Ziyi and I are finally able to do the things we enjoyed doing before we had kids…though Ziyi has mentioned that another baby would be nice. I feel like we need to give the kids we have as much attention as possible.  I want to get to know all of my kids.  I don’t know what I’d do if we had ANOTHER set of multiples!

←Go to Chapter 9.7: In which teens take over.

The wonderful thing about children is that they can take your mind off of those things that are troubling you at least for a little bit.  Little Jian and Lian were balms for our saddened hearts after Mom passed away.  I was surprised that Jian grew to have my light colored hair when Lian’s was so dark.  I figured that Ziyi’s coloring would be more dominant than my own.  He also had blue-green eyes that harkened back to older generations of Kendricks (Ziyi’s eyes were grey).  My own eyes were brown like my mother’s and my Granddad Raymond’s and little Lian’s eyes were the same.

I spent a lot of time inventing toys after Mom died.  It gave me enormous pleasure when the twins played with them.  They just loved the toy cow that mooed and the robot doll who’s feet and arms moved.  They also had a toy while and a toy dog.  I even built them some interesting widgets—a floating duck and a rotating airplane display.  I was very proud of the little homemade touches that I had added to their room.

Soon after Mom died, I got a promotion.  I was pretty excited by my new uniform and my super extreme new ghost hunting glasses.  I just wish I had been able to show them to Mom.  Ziyi appreciated them, though.  She liked it when I got home from work.  She said I looked very daring and brave in my new gear.

Throwing a funeral for Mom was one of the worst things I’ve had to do.  Even surrounded by all of your family, grief is difficult to dispel.  Dad was practically inconsolable.  He spent a lot of time with Uncle Ian.  Both of them couldn’t stop crying about mom.  I think it would be really hard to lose my twin.  It made me really glad that Chantelle still lived pretty close by and that we were still best friends.  At Mom’s funeral I tried to console my sister, but she was pretty angry.  I did the best I could and then left the rest up to my brother in law, Zaki.

Once all of the guests had left, Dad and I both went upstairs to check on the kids.  Ziyi was tired and not feeling well, so she just headed up to bed.  As I said before, having the kids around really helped assuage our grief.  At least when I was teaching them how to talk or walk or potty training them, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that my mother was gone.

I mean, look at them!  Who can be sad when you see them having such fun every day?  Look at their happy little faces.  I can’t help but be proud of how sweet and smart they are.  They both have such wonder about everything they do.

And now, Ziyi is expecting another child.  We couldn’t be happier unless Mom was here to see it.  But at least she was able to fulfill the wish of having 5 grandchildren before she died.  This baby would make grandchild number six.

Speaking of grandchildren, I responded to a disturbance at my brother Gerard’s house the other night.  Imagine my surprise at running into my nephew, Stefan.  He had grown into a teenager.  I had been so distracted with my grief that I had missed it.  I’m not sure who he favors, Abigail or Gerard.  Actually, the only family features he seems to have is Mom’s nose and Dad’s hair color.

Dad’s taken over the little nectarary that Mom had built next to the house.  He said she wouldn’t have wanted it to be unused.  He also spends a lot of time with Ziyi watching TV or playing chess.  He rarely gardens anymore, leaving that chore up to me.  He also refuses to cook, which means that Ziyi has taken over.  I miss Mom’s cooking tremendously.

Eventually Ziyi went into labor again and we headed off to the hospital.  I tried not to panic too much, but I’m afraid I couldn’t help it.  I hadn’t been there the last time this happened, so I made sure I double and triple checked everything we needed to do.  But nothing I had done could have really prepared me for what ended up happening.

Triplets.  Two girls and a boy.  We named our son, Shan and the two girls were Ai-li and Mei-li.  Shan is disciplined and loves the outdoors.  Ai-li is good and easily impressed.  Mei-li is friendly and a virtuoso.  We couldn’t have been more blessed.  I just wasn’t sure how we were going to manage everything.  To make things easier, we cleared out Granddad’s old studio and made it into a nursery next to our bedroom.  This would mean we’d hear if the triplets needed anything.

It was hard.  We had two toddlers and three infants.  We did our best not to neglect any of them.  Ziyi and I were often exhausted.  I even started taking naps, which is something I normally would never do, but with all of the kids, I still had to go to work at night.  Ziyi got maternity leave but I didn’t.  Dad tried to help us with all of the kids.  He was having a hard time going up and down the stairs, though.  With both nursery’s upstairs, this made it more difficult for him to aid us.

We really shouldn’t have been surprised that Dad followed mom into death so quickly.  He was never the same without her.  One day he had gone out fishing alone because he said he was going stir crazy.  When he came home, he took one step inside the door and then collapsed.  Ziyi was making dinner and she rushed in to find the Grim Reaper already taking him.  I was upstairs feeding the triplets.

Not that I could have done anything to help Dad, but I will always regret not being with him at the end.  I was just glad that he was now with Mom in a better place.

Once again I found myself with the unpleasant duty of summoning all of the family for a funeral.  But in the midst of all of our grief, I couldn’t help but be somewhat comforted that life was going on.  Lakesha, Robert’s wife, was finally pregnant.  Abigail, Gerard’s wife had also just found out she was expecting.  And Ziyi and I had triplets upstairs next to our room.  Mom and Dad would have been really pleased with how fruitful and growing their family was.

In addition, Chantelle’s daughters were getting older.  I was surprised at how much little Fatima (pink jacket) and Fabiola (yellow shirt) had grown.  And even though it was a somber occasion, Ziyi and I tried to give it some levity.  It was also the twins’ birthday.  Lian and Jian would soon join their cousins at the elementary school.

Go to Chapter 9.6: In which Generation 10 grows up.

It’s been pretty extreme around here lately.  Obviously my first children have been born.  Ziyi and I were lucky enough to have both a boy and girl, twins like my mom and Uncle Ian.  Meet Jian (Jee-on–sort of the Chinese equivalent to John or Sean) and Lian (Lee-an).  Jian is excitable and a light sleeper.  Lian is perceptive and artistic.

As you may remember, starting my family was delayed a little because my sister Chantelle had twin girls and our house was filled up to the rafters.  Everyone doted on my nieces, but as much as I loved them, I couldn’t wait until Chantelle and Zaki, her husband, finally moved into their own place.

Right after their twins became toddlers, Zaki got a promotion at work.  They finally decided they could afford to move out on their own.  I think they could have moved sooner, but they wanted a really nice house.  The one they moved into is right by Lost Willow Park.  It’s a good location and close to our house so I can see Chantelle often and our kids can be best friends.

Ziyi and I did a lot to care for Chantelle’s girls.  We both viewed it as practice for our own kids.  We probably hogged the twins, but Chantelle and Zaki didn’t seem to mind that much.  The other person we practiced on was my nephew, Stefan, Gerard’s son.  Stefan came over for cake and presents when the twins aged up.  We had him spend the night so we could learn how to deal with older kids.

In addition to practicing with my nieces and nephew, Ziyi was learning to cook.  Mom was supervising, so most of Ziyi’s attempts were successful.

I hate to admit it, but we were a bit obsessed with babies.  It probably didn’t help Ziyi get to know people in the community that easily when she was always trying to hold their children.  People began to look at her a little oddly whenever she came by.  The problem was that all around us we saw children or women who were pregnant.  We went to the park and ran into my mom’s cousin, Melisa Kendrick and her brother, Quinn.  Melisa had just found out she was pregnant and Quinn spent the whole time talking to me about teaching his son how to ride his bike.

Until Chantelle moved out, we did everything we could to distract ourselves from the issue of children.  I worked out incessantly.  Ziyi would join me sometimes or she would practice martial arts in the yard.

Ziyi also decided to get a job.  She liked fashion and designing, so she took a position at the Salon.  One of her first clients was my cousin, Trevor Kendrick.  Uncle Sammy had let Trevor’s hair grow too long and Trevor hated having to put it in a ponytail all the time.  Ziyi cut it off and restyled it for him.

Another one of her clients was Uncle Ian’s daughter.  Unlike Sammy’s two girls, she was graced with good looks and Ian’s hair color.  Ziyi gave her a makeover so that she could attend a dance at the high school.

My favorite part of Ziyi having a job was when she got home.  Unless I was on a job myself, we would sit on the couch and cuddle or make out like teenagers.  Then we’d go upstairs.  Even though we were desperate to have a baby, we didn’t treat sex like it was an obligation.  We knew we’d have children eventually.  With Chantelle and Zaki gone, we just stopped using contraceptives.

The first time Ziyi had morning sickness, we were ecstatic!  We were going to have a baby!  We didn’t tell anyone at first.  We wanted to keep it just between us.

Then we told Mom and Dad, who were both thrilled.  They hoped we would have multiples which would fulfill their mutual desire to have more than 5 grandchildren.  I figured multiples were a good possibility since Mom was a twin and so was I.   Twins run in our family.

My life couldn’t have been going any better.  I was given more responsibility at work.  Instead of just banishing spirits, now I was able to scan for real ghosts and then convince them to move on.  I met some interesting ghosts like this extremely evil medieval ghost.  He didn’t want to move on so I was forced to banish him.

I also met this cave woman ghost.  That was extreme, let me tell you!  She had trouble understanding me, but eventually I was able to convey that she needed to go on to her final resting place.

Things were going well in my hobby, too.  I was getting better at detonating scrap heaps and then using my harvester to collect the scrap.  I was busy building toys for my little boys or little girls—Ziyi had gone to the doctor and it was confirmed that we were indeed having twins.

Ziyi spent a lot of her pregnancy hanging out with my mom and sister, Chantelle.  Sometimes they’d meet Gerard and Abigail in the park for a little game of chess.  In fact, Ziyi and my parents were in the park when Ziyi went into labor.  I was at work.  Something odd was going on at the Military Base and I had been called in to investigate.

Ziyi was really angry with me that I couldn’t get away from work to take her to the hospital.  I was being held up by a quarrelsome ghost of an old general.  He was pretty powerful and had locked all of the doors.  Until I was able to settle his spirit, I was trapped in the Base.  Luckily Dad was able to take Ziyi to the hospital and stay with her.  She yelled at me afterwards and made me promise that I would be present if we had any more kids together.  But she couldn’t stay mad at me.  We had made two of the most beautiful babies!

Pretty soon it was time for the twin’s first birthday.  We invited the whole family.  Ziyi and Chantelle had become good friends while Ziyi was pregnant.  I had predicted they would bond instead of disliking each other and I was right.

After talking about the twins for several minutes, Ziyi and Chantelle went up to get them for the party.

Chantelle passed Jian on to me.  I took him to the cake and blew out the candle for him.  Mom, Dad, Ziyi and everyone else cheered.

And then tragedy struck!  Thank goodness Jian is still too young to understand what happened that night.  He might have been scarred for life!

Before she could see her youngest grandchildren become toddlers, Mom passed away.  The Grim Reaper came to take her soul.

I was devastated.  We were all devastated.  Mom was GONE!  After all of the guests had left our house and Mom’s spirit had departed, I finally took my daughter down to her cake.

But we were no longer celebrating.  It was with heavy hearts that we continued the party, choking down a slice of cake to honor my mother who would have wanted us to give the kids the best party we could.

Rest In Peace, Irene Kendrick, mother and grandmother.  You lived a full life and achieved your fondest wish to become a Celebrity Chef.  You were survived by your brothers, husband, children and grand children, who will miss you.