saveourpeeps | The Thatcher Family: Week Three

Before we find out what's happening with Lance Thatcher in Week 3, here's a quick update of what happened last week, which was actually about SIX months ago (I never realized just how long it had been until I checked it just now, just like with the last update): not much happened for the two bachelors after the other roommate, Cody Longshore's sister, Alana, moved out. Both men, Cody and Lance, were involved with their neighbor Mariella Royal, and neither seemed to mind that Mariella was with both of them. During Mariella's week, after Cody and Lance's week ended, Cody moved in with Mariella, even though Lance already had a son with Mariella. Since then, Lance's relationship with Mariella has basically ended, although he does his best to stay close to his son and visits them often. So, now Lance is completely on his own at the beginning of Week 3...

Lance begins his week with a *mysterious* phone call. Just who is he calling?

Yep, I decided that Lance was too alone and deserved to have an adorable little kid to care for, since his only son is next door and he doesn't see him all the time. Unfortunately, Lance was about $1,000 below what he needed to adopt. I guess Lance's week will be filled with scrounging around for money...

After painting and selling the fish he caught, Lance finally had enough to adopt a child. He quickly rushed over to the phone to make the call, eager to fill the house with the sound of people again, rather than just him.

After deciding to give a young girl a new home, Lance retired to the bathtub to enjoy the last day alone before she showed up. Even though Lance was anxious to have company, he would miss being able to do whatever he wanted when he wanted to.

The next morning, Lance welcomed his new daughter, Karla, into his home. Karla didn't look like she could possibly be his biological daughter, except for her hair, but Lance couldn't care less.

Karla settled into her new home very easily. Lance did everything he could to make her happy, getting her new clothes and a haircut and buying a lemonade stand just because she wanted one. Her first customor was Lance himself, but he knew that neighbors would soon be flooding their home to get some delicious lemonade.

Karla even joined Lance in his favorite hobby of fishing, enjoying herself right away.

After a day to settle in, though, Karla had to go to school with the rest of the school-age population, which was currently at four. Though Karla was sad to go away from her new father for even a few hours, she was excited to make some friends her own age.

While Karla was at school, Lance didn't have anything better to do other than fish. With all the time he spends at the pond, he'll be able to get a job in Oceanography in no time.

He stopped fishing long enough to greet his old roommate and friend, Cody, when he stopped by. Even though they were both in love with Mariella and both have children with her (Cody currently has a son with her as well), the men remained friends and their friendship hasn't suffered too much even though they live in different houses now.

At this point, I couldn't remember if Clayton had unlocked townies, but I thought he maybe had, and I decided Karla needed a mother as well. So, when this lovely lady, Tammy Oates, walked by, I decided she would be a perfect match for the still-partially-lonely Lance.

She eventually came in to 'hang out' with Lance, while Karla got to know her 'Uncle Cody' over a thrilling game of Don't Wake the Llama. It was a beautiful family picture, even though the 'family' consisted of a father and his adopted daughter, a former roommate who wasn't related to the family at all, and a random townie who just might become something more in Lance's life. Other than that, it was a regular family picture.

At about 2 in the morning, Tammy and Cody finally had to go home. Lance definitely doesn't have to worry about being alone anymore.

Then, despite the fact that it was way past her bedtime (or maybe because Lance figured it was a lost cause at that point), Lance and Karla had their own game of Don't Wake the Llama.

Even though she didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, by her second day of school Karla was already doing amazing. Karla had Lance to thank, of course, for giving her great homework advice the day before, in between his adorable flirting with Tammy.

Lance called Tammy and invited her over, but while he was waiting for her to show up, Clayton randomly showed up to start poking him. I don't know why - I'm pretty sure he wasn't on the telescope, which has caused some issues with Clayton in the past. Maybe he randomly decided that he wanted to annoy his neighbor.

Luckily Clayton left before Tammy showed up, so he didn't ruin any adorableness between Tammy and Lance.

Things moved quickly for the adorable couple, which was slightly creepy because I think this used to be Alana's bed, not to mention used by Mariella and Cody, but it's the only double bed in the house, so...

Soon after, Lance asked Tammy to move in with him, and she quickly agreed. Karla didn't even bother to pay attention to the woman who would probably end up being her mother, much more interested in her reading.

Karla finally brought a child home with her from school. Arthur Porter (I actually wrote it down, so I could tell the twins apart, since I don't think I've been doing a good job of it while at their house) made the big journey from two houses away to get closer to their new neighbor.

Just as Lance had predicted earlier, Karla soon had plenty of customers at her lemonade stand, no longer relying on Lance to buy them all.

Karla's business success was soon overshadowed, though, when Tammy popped after another game of Don't Wake the Llama. I was going to have them only have children if one of them had the want, but I decided to do one Try for Baby, and if it didn't work, I wasn't going to bother unless one of them wanted it. Apparently it did work, though, so hopefully we'll have our first natural redhead, unlike the Porter's Brooke, who's a bottle redhead (shh, don't tell, her mother wants to pretend one of the kids inherited her hair color).

At this point, the family picture was slightly less odd, thanks to Tammy's status as pregnant girlfriend instead of random townie. It wasn't any less adorable, though.

In the last few hours of the week, Lance finally got a Gold Badge in Fishing, which means he'll be able to start looking for an Oceanography job when Week 4 starts for the Thatcher family, I believe. Until then, that's all for the family!

Up next is the Royal-Longshore family. I'm still playing it, so I don't know how long it'll take, but I don't think it'll be as long as the difference between this update and the previous week for the family - it'll probably be about the time between this update and the update for the Bentley family, which was about two weeks. Of course, it's spring break now, so it could be sooner.
I also played around with the coloring on this update, if you didn't notice (although, in places, it wasn't too subtle). I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it up, since it didn't affect all of the pictures, so some looked a lot different from others - we'll just have to wait and see...