Unknown legend

Round 34: February 2039 (Summer)

Audrey's last update/Jack's last update/next update

Audrey Lachance and Jack Benton are 27.
(Tate is 69, Malcolm is 29, Hope is 28, Charlie is 27 and Camilla is 26)

Narrated by Jack Benton

Receiving so much money with my trust fund a couple of years ago was overwhelming but I think I’ve spent it wisely. After buying the house and moving in, we still have a nice little nest egg of almost $25,000.

Of course, I couldn’t think of anyone other than Audrey I’d want to buy a house with, so it was a given that when I did, she’d be along for the ride.

We love it here. It’s relatively close to both of our families and we finally have everything just as we want it.

When we moved in, we had a lot of issues with things not being delivered on time and tradespeople not showing up or taking longer than expected to finish off their work. It felt like we were on the phone hassling someone about something every single day.

It was so infuriating but thank God it’s all over. Our house is done and it feels like home now.

I never imagined any home of mine would have a ballet barre installed in the bedroom but that’s exactly what we have in ours. Audrey insisted on it.

She likes to practise at odd times sometimes and this means she doesn’t have to worry about whether the studio is open. She can just dance right here at home.

Audrey and I have learnt a few things since we moved in together, one being that neither of us know how to cook. I just assumed that Audrey knew a few things but she takes after her grandmother and has no interest in it at all. Me though, I’ve been trying to learn.

Cereal for breakfast is fine on weekdays but it’d be nice to make something a little more fun and elaborate on the weekends.

I told Dad about it and he laughed a little. When we were kids, he was always trying to get us involved in the kitchen and none of us were ever into it.

He’s going to share some of his recipes with me though, so I can try out some new things. He’s excited to have one of us showing a little interest in food, at long last.

I think I still prefer going out to restaurants and letting someone else take care of the cooking though. Most of Audrey’s performances are at night, so when she has a night off, we like to make the most of it and go out somewhere.

People say there’s not much to do around Sullivan but I don’t think that’s true. There are no night clubs or fancy restaurants but there are plenty of good places to eat.

Audrey and I aren’t fancy people anyway, so we like the more laid-back vibe restaurants in the suburbs tend to have. The staff at our favourite place are so awesome and friendly.

It tends to be a lot quieter than some of the restaurants in Exeter too, which is welcome after spending your day in a busy office.

Not long after we moved in, Audrey got it in her head that our very large living room would be perfect for throwing parties.

I guess it is but that didn’t make the idea any more appealing to me.

She talked me into it though and I agreed to throw a little “just for fun” party for our friends.

We’ve had big family gatherings here before but this was the first time we’ve had a huge group of our friends over all at once.

Someone meeting Audrey for the first time would never expect a shy person like her to love socialising as much as she does but she’s in her element at parties.

She’s not so fond of situations where there are a lot of new people but if she knows everybody, she relishes it.

I usually end up hiding in the kitchen talking to one or two people and avoiding the crowd. I’m pretty confident in large groups but it’s just not what I prefer. I like talking with people one on one.

I did get a good chance to do that at the party though, which was good. Camilla and Charlie left the kids with Mum and Dad, so they were able to come.

They’re in the middle of house hunting right now, which I know can be overwhelming. They’ve looked at a few places so far though and it looks promising.

They’ve got a good amount of cash on top of Charlie’s trust fund and they’re not looking for anything enormous, so I don’t think they’ll have too much trouble finding something that suits.

It had been a while since I’d caught up with Malcolm too.

He’s pretty busy at the moment with wedding planning. He and Hope still haven’t set an exact date, which is driving her up the wall.

Her mother is apparently being a bit of a nightmare about it all, so they keep running into setbacks when Anna starts complaining about something.

I really don’t envy him having Anna as his soon-to-be mother-in-law. It made me realise how easy I got off with Audrey’s mother.

That’s a very good thing, seeing Tatiana is going to be my mother-in-law officially soon enough. I’ve asked Audrey to marry me and she said yes!

Audrey had been waiting for a proposal for the past couple of years and I know she was getting a little frustrated that I hadn’t yet brought up the topic.

Two years ago or even one year ago, I wasn’t really ready. I always knew we’d get married eventually - it was just a question of when.

Audrey was thrilled. More excited than I’ve ever seen her about anything. And naturally, I was really happy too. It feels like it’s happening at exactly the right time for us.

I would have been happy to just enjoy our engagement for a couple of months but Audrey is very keen to get started, so we’re trying to come up with a wedding date.

We’re thinking about April next year, which should give us plenty of time to plan this thing at a leisurely pace, especially seeing we won’t have to worry about finding a venue.

We'd like to hold the wedding and reception right here at home. It means it’ll definitely be available whenever we want it but it also means we’re in for a lot of work getting it ready!

Hopefully we’ve given ourselves enough time so that the planning process can be fun and exciting rather than stressful.

Notes:

• Title is from Unknown Legend by Neil Young.
• An update on my crashing problem: I turned off Data Execution Prevention, on Tanja's suggestion, and it seems to have worked. I didn't crash at all this session. When Tanja suggested it initially, I told her I'd done it but I decided to check again and oops, it turns out I hadn't! D'oh! But it's done now. Audrey and Jack went to a community lot and came home with no issues and they had all those people on their lot with nary a peep from my computer. I don't know if I was imagining it but it seemed like the game was running better in general. It's felt like it's been a bit slow to respond for the last couple of weeks but in this session, it was beautiful and smooth like it was when I first installed on this computer. So keep your fingers crossed that this continues for me!
• Jack was rolling all sorts of wants to skill up in Cooking and to learn how to make different foods. Tate is very proud. :)
• Audrey is right - the house is really good for parties! It solves the problem of what to do with this big empty space I have in the living room. I'll just leave it, because it makes for an easy flow of traffic when lots of people are around.
• And yay, Jack and Audrey are getting married! Audrey has had the marriage want locked for about as long as they've been together (which I recently realised is six years now!) Jack had it locked too but it somehow rolled away, much to my annoyance. I decided to wait it out though and see if he'd roll it again and this round, he did! When I sent him out with Audrey on their date, he fulfilled one want and up popped the marriage want again!
• Unless I change my mind, the wedding will be in April 2040, at Audrey and Jack's house. And in case anyone was wondering, this is not the quickie wedding ROS. This was just the right time for Audrey and Jack to take this step.