You say it's your birthday, January 2035

Last year's January birthdays were kind of short but I think this year makes up for it, with a whopping 17 birthdays! 17!

First up are the 4-year-olds - there will be six new students for pre-school teacher Mrs Gray this year.

Daphne Kirby...

Felix Lane...

Joaquin Miguel, son of playable NPCs Amber Dawn and Elmer Miguel...

Keira Romilly...

Michael Gottlieb...

...and Thomas Moretti.

There are also two new students for Sullivan High School this year.

Brendan Lachance has just turned 12 and wants to join the SCIA when he's older.

Caitlin Romilly will also be starting Grade 7, though unlike Brendan, she has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up.

Anthony Moretti has just arrived on the Suffolk University campus, where he'll be taking some general classes, until he figures out what he wants to study.

Twin sister Veronica has planned on becoming a teacher for a long while, so she will be majoring in Education, with a minor in Art.

Just as the Moretti twins are beginning university, Camilla Sitko is finishing her time at Suffolk.

She is graduating with a degree in Art and a 3.8 GPA.

She has just moved into an apartment in Sullivan with boyfriend Charlie and their kids Grace and Everett. She will be working as an intern with fashion designer Olivia Nihill.

Camilla's twin sister, Lila Sitko is also graduating this year.

Lila's degree is in Economics and she earned a 3.9 GPA.

Lila has moved to an apartment in Exeter and is working as a junior executive in the corporate sector.

University was not a breeze for Sophie Gottlieb but she's finally finished!

Sophie is graduating with a 3.0 GPA and a degree in Philosophy.

Grandpa Adam Gottlieb is not quite ready to hand over the reins of his restaurant The Claudette to Sophie, so she's working the drive-through at a local fast food joint for the meantime. She will be rooming with Lila in Exeter.

Our final graduate this year is Connor Novak.

Connor earned a perfect 4.0 GPA while at university and now holds a degree in Economics.

Connor is (temporarily) living with big brother Ethan and Ethan's fiancée Maia. He hasn't been able to achieve his dream of joining the SCIA just yet but is working for a private detective agency until he can.

Meanwhile, Connor's dad, James Novak, is celebrating his 60th birthday!

Obviously, James's twin sister, Naomi Novak is also turning 60.

And grandmother of three, Zelda Benton, is also now 60.
Notes:

• Business first! So the election is now over - thanks to all 94 of you who voted! That's insane - I was expecting maybe half that amount of votes.
• The race for governor was a landslide! Zaria Royce-Nihill will be the new governor of Sullivan with 78% of the vote (74 votes in total) with the other 21% (20 votes) going to Eliot. I don't know what happened to the other 1% - some people must have cast their ballots improperly, so they didn't count. ;)
• Education Representative was very close but in the end, Tatiana Lachance took it with 51% (43 votes), while Kendal Draper just missed out with 48% (41 votes).
• Housekeeping: new play schedule and student index is up and all profiles are updated (and Sam Whitney finally has one!) I have not updated the playable NPCs page yet but hopefully I will get that done in the next couple of days.
• Phew! That's definitely my biggest pre-school class ever! I can see a lot more of Luc in Felix, now that he's older. Keira...well, I was kind of expecting that. The poor thing inherited Victoria's mouth (which I kind of screwed up when I did surgery on her when she was a kid) but as I said on her first birthday, she does turn out okay in the end! I aged her up to check.
• Caitlin, on the other hand, I could not be happier with. I adore her! Brendan is a cutie too, only I just realised he has the same hairstyle as his big brother Dominic. Oh well...maybe he idolises him. Caitlin is Family/Popularity and Brendan is Family/Knowledge.
• I've been wanting to get a bit more specific with the majors recently and I'm finally getting it started. The Maxis majors don't really fit a lot of careers but I didn't want to add any custom majors (and get yet more professors), so I'm just pretending with Veronica's major. Her real major is just Art.
• Camilla and Charlie are living in Azure Court, just across from Susannah and Sam. Lila and Sophie are living in the same apartment building Matilda and Miles used to live in (and where Dominic's girlfriend Leslie still lives) but in a much bigger apartment! I'm decorating their apartment and their favourite colours - orange and brown - work very well together, which is always nice.
• I think I said I was going to have Naomi dye her hair but I just can't change her hairstyle. I'm very attached to it (and she has some pretty insane brows going on anyway). I'm just going to think of her as kind of like Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada, except less bitchy. ;)