Chapter 51: Celebrate the Way Our Ancestors Did

Guests start arriving for Weylin and Jillyan's birthday party.

Jilly goes first.

She grows into the image of her mother at that age.

Weylin's turn is next.

His brothers Ryan and Fergus favor their mother, but Weylin takes after Shadow.

In just a few days, Jace will be graduating, and he's still planning to start his family right away. He gets Kirsten alone in the kitchen to propose to her.

Delaney is still having a hard time accepting that her son is almost an adult, let alone dealing with the fact that he's now engaged, too.

"I love Jace more than anything," Kirsten assures her future mother-in-law, "We're going to be very happy together."

Delaney doesn't doubt that, she just can't help but feel her son is too young to take on the responsibility of marriage and children. Then again, she has two kids of her own and still doesn't feel like she's ready to be a parent. "I'm happy for both of you," she finally says, knowing the she needs to keep whatever doubts she has to herself, and support her son's choice, or else end up estranged from him like she is from her own father.

Now that there are no more babies or toddlers in the house, the nursery is no longer needed, so the room is converted to a bedroom for Jillyan.  An extra bed is put in Jace's room for Weylin, as there are no more spare rooms in the house. When Jace graduates and moves out, Weylin will have the room to himself.

Random party snapshots:

Aurora takes her last chance to snuggle her nephew before he ages up.

Elliot and Claire's daughter, Corrine. Claire did show up to the party but left early. She agd up to elder later that night.

Elliot and Cassidy.

Iola's younger brother, Max Hawksquill. He's a doctor, like his father.

Laurie Horner, Jesse and Cassidy's daughter. She looks just like Cass.

Danica, Elliot and Claire's other daughter.

Jack actually was at the party, but just didn't make it into any pics except this one.

Shadow and Cass. Shadow goes around hugging everyone all the time.

End random party shots.

The day after the birthday party is Love Day, so the kids have no school. Jack spends some quality time with Jilly after breakfast.

She must have learned this trick from her mother.

The whole town comes out to the festival for Love Day.

The Brannon children arrive only to discover that the promised egg hunt has failed to appear, and there aren't many other interesting activities for kids. Kissing booths (yuck!), dance floor,  playground equipment that's not even as good as the playground right next to the park...

Love Day is a day for lovers, not surprisingly. Jace dances with his fiancee.

Jack dances with Delaney.

Hey, Kyle.

Shadow and Iola drink a toast on the new hot air balloon attraction.

"You aren't afraid?" Shadow asks gently, knowing how easily his wife is frightened.

"We're not very high off the ground," Iola answers, "I'm a little nervous, but I'll be okay."

"You know why we call the vernal equinox 'Love Day'?" Shadow asks.

"Because in ancient times, it was a fertility festival," Iola answers, "And you like to celebrate the way our ancestors did," she adds with a smile.

Iola came prepared for this, and stands to draw a blanket over them for privacy.

And the couple have their Love Day celebration.

There's so little for the kids to do, Jilly and Fergus end up doing schoolwork together.

"We should go somewhere else," Jilly sighs.

To the Le Cirque park, where there's always something to do.

Now this is fun!

Souvenir of the day.

When she's not playing with the boys, Jillyan is in her room painting. She's very intent on improving her talent as an artist.

"I'm casting a fireball spell," Fergus announces, "Watch out for friendly fire!" A little behind the times, the Brannons just got their first game console.

Ryan gets up from the game suddenly as the family remembers it's his birthday.

Ryan becomes a teen, pretty much a male version of his mother.

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So, no real drama this chapter, just birthday chaos and a holiday. I know I promised to get into what Cole/Rory Bowman has been up to since he left the criminal operation in Delaney's hands, and I will get to that. It requires some set building and stuff, and I'm still hammering out the details. But it will come. And of course we'll hear from MorcuCorp again. But for these few days, the Brannons just got to celebrate without a bunch of drama.

I did set up the warehouse into a rebel hangout/coffeeshop, but I haven't gotten around to taking Delaney there yet for pictures. It seems we can't buy that lot type, though.

My festival grounds are totally broken. When the spring festival started, there was almost nothing there; no stalls, no dance floor, no decor, no eggs. I wasn't up to redecorating it myself, so I bulldozed it and replaced it with a fresh copy, and swapped the broom riding thing with the hot air balloon. There were still no eggs though. At least not on Love day. Some spawned the next day, but all off lot, so when the kids tried to collect them, they reset.

Jace did roll a wish to propose to Kirsten, and I finally let him do it at the birthday party. His birthday is coming up very soon.

All the boys this generation have brown or green as their favorite colors, Jilly has Hot Pink. I'm kind of tired of brown, green and hot pink, lol.

Some out takes:

Bunny gnome gazes longingly at picture of shirtless Jack. So dreamy!

Jack plays with Arawn.

Smustlin' Kyle.