Tonight, the Heartsdale's leave for vacation at the Rainforest de la Oleander! It's been a really, really long time since Sai and Jeffry actually did anything in SL together (probably ever since we moved in RL together, that's been like, 5 years). And even then, I don't think we've been on an actual SL vacation.... ever. It's about time this happened! I've been wanting to go on a vacation, and when I saw Lolita Oleander post about them on her Flickr, I knew the time has come. I made the reservations with her last week, and I've been WAY excited ever since!

I spent several days trying to put together our packing photo. It was a exhausting job of trying to accumulate enough luggage, and bags. Even more exhausting was looking through my inventory, trying to see what else can I put in the photo. I had the hardest time trying to find a pose that fit my vision. In the end, I made and went through about 50 different placements/poses around this stuff, before making this one with Anypose.

It turned out so perfect, I couldn't have planned it out better. I really wish that TMP head allowed a smile, though, as it makes it look like Jeffry really despises the idea of this vacation. LOL! But it's okay, because I look excited enough for the both of us! But anyway, it's fun, silly, and perfect for us! I love it just the way it is!

I'm really going to try to take at least one photo of us a day there, because in the 5 years that we have been together in RL, we have very few SL photos of us. I really want to fill the picture frames in the house of us! All the photos in our house are super old, pre-mesh photos! THE HORROR!

So! Here's hoping for an amazing week at the Rainforest for us! I have nothing planned, because I haven't been on the sim yet - but I'm sure it will be a busy, fun week!

It's a little over halfway though the RFL Family Fun Fair, and it's occurred to me that I haven't taken as many photos as I have been wanting to! So, I decided to go around and snap a few photos today. I said in my last post that I'm treating the experience like I am at camp, and I've very happy I made that decision because, it really kind of feels that way to me! I'm enjoying so much of it, the building events (we made a pet rock, a candle, and also a bear!), the games (bumper boats, paintball, pushing each other around into lava, yay?), and starting almost every morning with a story time. It's been absolutely amazing.

One of the things I've been having the most fun with is - collecting badges. Some events, and some stores give out badges that you can link up to your lanyard. It's a fantastic idea, and it's really motivating me to do things that I did not think I would try otherwise. I would have typically looked at an event and thought, "that will make me look so stupid", and not even go to it. But, I've been making a point to myself to try everything at least once. And you know what? It's been so worth it, there hasn't been an event that I did not enjoy!


So far, I've got nothing bad to say about the Family Fun Fair, everything has been amazing, fun, and I'm still looking forward to every single day there!

The RFL Family Fun Fair started yesterday! I have been SO excited for this for weeks! Mainly because, I heard that there will be bunk rentals, and it will have fun activities like camp does. OF COURSE I needed to rent a bunk there. As soon as I was able to, I logged in and immediately ran to decorate my bunk! I had no idea what kind of bunk I wanted, and even had no idea where to purchase one. But, I improvised, and while my bunk probably isn't as cool as everyone else's, I think it turned out pretty neat! A lot of the other kids seem to be camp pros, by attending the previous Camp Hardknock, and the Playdate Cruise, but this is my first "bunk decorating experience."

I'm really loving this fair thing! I've been trying to go to as many event things as I can, and really enjoy as much of it as I can! I'm loving being just a kid, wearing weird things, and supporting the RFL charity! Today, I've worn weird glowing goggles, a laser gun, a KFC bucket container on my head, and a balloon headpiece! It's fun, and I'm really trying to make an attempt at coming out of my shell a little bit.


While I know this is not camp, I'm really trying to treat it like it is! And that's okay, because I'm having so much fun, I can't wait to see what the rest of the week will bring for me during this fair!

Hello! It's been a while (again)! I'm still around, loving the life I live in SL! The family that my mini got adopted by in my last post, are still fabulous, I love them more and more every day that goes by! When this round's Arcade opened, I hit every yard sale I could find in search of a particular item. I really, really wanted the "Best Mother" award from the Commoner gacha. I *finally* found one, and made up a little lie to get her to take a photo with me, so that I can add our picture to it. I set up a cute little scene, and it turned out sooo perfect for the award!

I ended up gifting her the Best Mother award along with the Booger's Mother's Day bears, and she really enjoyed them! It's kind of funny though, every time we get a new house, those two things are the first things she seems to rezz out. She's so much like me, it's almost crazy!

I'm loving being a child so much. I feel like, the more I run around as a child, the more it feels more "me." It's strange. But anyway, the Dragovar family are planning a camping trip, and it sounds like it's going to be so much fun! I can not wait for it! Mom and I still have to get our packing done for the trip!

As for Sai, she's still around! I really want to try to experiment with just taking random photos, not just for the fashion blog. But just for fun! I've been playing with lens flares a little bit, and am quite happy with this one.


I love how photogenic this dress is, it's absolutely gorgeous! I've been checking out quite a few events, lately, and nothing is really catching my eye. I'm in a bit of a fashion slump, I guess you can say. But, as soon as I saw this dress, I matched it with this perfect pose in my mind, and away it went! Love it!

Let us talk families today. As I mentioned in my last post, I was setting up a panel at Heritage for my mini-alt, Ennaline. Well, I've been on trial with a particular family for almost three weeks now! As soon as I met them, I knew they were absolutely fabulous, fun, and the exact family that I was looking for! They immediately brought me out of my safe zone, with me being socially awkward and all. I found myself on Skype with them, talking even on my second day of meeting them. Which is RARE for me, as I've only felt comfortable talking on Skype to people I have known for years before hand! Even more shocking, this family is a really large family, which completely surprised me - I felt so comfortable around all of them, pretty much right away. Very unlike me!

The majority of the family, are also fashion bloggers, and they even run a super-adorable family blog! It was pretty much instantly that I knew the family was my type of "people". They included me in their family photos with no hesitation, they blogged about me on their family blog, I was invited along to all the family events, we played Blade and Soul together, and I definitely was treated just as part of the family. Some days, I found it hard to believe that I was still on trial, just because of how comfortable I was with everyone.


I adore all these people, but Kaysa, in particular - my demo-mom - is truly one of the best people I've ever come across in SL. She's incredibly caring, will sit and listen to whatever issue I had, and will listen intently to even some of the stupidest life stories I tell her. She made me try things I've never tried before, like stealing eggs from dinosaurs, and even something as simple as playing mini-golf! She's completely accepting of my big, Sai, which as I understand, is a difficult thing to come by when it comes to SL families. Sai will always be a huge part of my SL, so I was s incredibly happy to have found someone who is completely okay with it! I share so much in common with her in both SL, and even RL, it is mind-boggling.


I've been hoarding all these photos to myself. I kept telling myself it was because I didn't know when the right time was, but in reality, I think the reason I didn't post them was I kept asking myself "What if she doesn't like me as much as I like her?" I would have been way too heartbroken to post about them, and then the adoption didn't work out. So, I kept them all to myself, all the while hoping she liked me too!


Then, this happened. I took photos, but none turned out as gorgeous as Kaysa's. While I was out running about being silly with Nivaya and Nikki, I get called back to my room.My room was completely filled with balloons, and I was instructed to find the "single pink" balloon. Once I did, it teleported me up to a gorgeous skybox, where she asked if I'd be her daughter, officially! She posted her gorgeous photos of the garden on the family blog - Keeping Up with the Dragovars! I was going to blog it myself here, but her's turned out so much better! I'm not even going to lie - I was so happy, I ended up crying in RL. Yep. I asked her to give me a middle name, so on Monday evening, Ennaline became:

I still live! I had a really terrible December in my RL, but now that is over. My RL is somewhat back to normal a bit. We are still trying to look for jobs in a tiny, tiny, town way up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but we are settled into our new place of residence after our emergency cross-country move.

A lot has happened. Yuna has left our family. It's very sad for us, but perhaps it's the best. That's all I think I'm going to say about it for the time being. Since then, I've been working a little bit on my alt. I've decided that I'm going to put a little work into her, maybe take off her mesh head and try to give her a cute face. Then, put up a panel at Heritage for her to find a family.

I think I have succeeded in making her cute! Don't mind the partially un-rezzed bench texture. I totally did not realize it at first. I should have went back and redid the photo, but EH. Laziness at it's finest. But anyway, I've also enrolled her in school as well as ballet classes! This blog will likely become a mix of Ennaline's life as well as Sai's life, because I really enjoy playing on both!


Also, a little bit ago, when Yuna left us, I decided to put up a panel at Heritage. Jeffry logged in with me so that I could make a pose for us and we could take an updated photo for our panel. It turned out really cute, and really adorable. I was REALLY happy with how it came out. We had the panel up for a little while... but then I suddenly wasn't sure if that's what I wanted at this point. I don't think I'm ready to try again just yet. I haven't clicked it in a few days, so I'm pretty sure that it has expired. And that's perfectly okay. We will take our time on this, when we are ready again, we'll know, right? However, I'm not sure if we will every be ready again. For now, I'm completely happy playing on my child alt!

Tomorrow, I leave for my RL vacation. My family lives in the mountains of California, and while I'll have my laptop with me, I'm not sure how reliable their internet is up there. So, the one priority I had this week, was to spend some time with my SL family. Just in case I won't get good internet during my three weeks there.

I bought us a wonderful movie a few days ago, and I'm so happy that we were able to watch it and spend time as a family together before I leave! Our movie for last night was Inside Out, one of the best movies out right now (in my opinion)!

I've sent a notecard to the wonderful designers I blog for, informing them of my three week long absence. While I don't think I'll have any problems with the internet there, and people probably won't even realize things are different, there's still that off chance that the internet is going to be weird there. Gotta cover my butt! I have a couple of blog photos for my fashiony blog that I took in advance, but those will only go so far over the three week period.

Of course, if the internet is workable up there, I'll still be around! My RL family that I'll be visiting has a full time job, so I will have to entertain myself during the days, but - I'm not sure they will be very happy with me if I'm on my computer while they are home. And, they have tons of plans to shop, travel and everything during the weekends. I'm not sure what my schedule will be like at all!

Gah! And I still have to pack. I leave in the morning tomorrow, and I have done... nothing to get ready!

During the house-to-house trick or treating, we visited a few houses that were part of actual family communities. I did not even realize that these sort of things existed! I absolutely loved the community feel of them! I say often that my family isn't big on the "role-play" aspect, like, we don't really do mealtimes, or tuck-ins... but we do things like PaleoQuest, pumpkin carving, and movie nights. But for some reason, the family sims really appealed to me. I think for a couple of hidden reasons.

First, we have decided to move halfway across the country in RL, early next year. Because of this, we need to cut un-needed expenses out of our life. The sim is the first thing that is not absolutely necessary. Second, our sim is just WAY too big. We are a small family of three, and we don't utilize it all. We had one party for Yuna's adoption, we sometimes watch a movie at our outdoor cinema, and we stand in the house to AFK. That's about it. All of these things, we can do on a smaller piece of land. Third, our house was way too big. I loved the house when I bought it, it's gorgeous, and the type of house I'd love to live in RL. However, for us, it was just too much space. But really, the cost of the sim was the main reason for the decision. 

As much as I say I'm not a "RP" type of person, I think I'm craving just a little bit more of it! I LOVE that you have to have a driver's license to drive on the family sims, you have to stop at stop lights and all that. These communities seem to have a police force, firefighters, playgrounds, and city hall. It's so much fun! I spent a good 2-3 days hopping from one sim to another, reading covenants, trying to find the perfect house.

Eventually, I found it. Well, it was mainly the plot I fell in love with! The back of the house is right on the lake, the front of the house is facing the road, so I can see people driving by and all. It has it's own fence, came with some landscaping already put down. The price is much more do-able than what we were paying for the sim (we can almost pay a whole month here with what we were paying a week for the sim), and the prim limit is SO generous. I was done putting down all the things that I wanted from the old house, and I was not even halfway though our given prim allowance. I was completely amazed!

However, I did opt to purchase my own home, and because it was an "approved house," I got to use it. It's smaller two bedroom, one bath home from Roost. I love Roost Homes, they are very beautiful, and completely customizable. I find you can tint... everything! Doors, ceilings, walls, exteriors... I love it! The Rules notecard I was given from the community manager says that if you use your own home, you are given a prim allowance that won't count against your prims, but when I check on the prim counter, my home counts against me. I'll see what happens later, when/if we ever need more prims.

Of course, it's still a work in progress, I haven't committed to an exterior paint color, and I still have some landscaping and all to do... but, I just got it yesterday! I'm still playing with things outside, but I am very happy that I was able to secure this plot, and this house! It's so perfect for us!

Happy November! I hope everyone is having a great one so far! Last night, my family and I went trick or treating! We had a ton of fun looking at everyone's decorations, and grabbing the treats that everyone set out! At first I was kind of nervous about how I had decorated. This is our first year being part of the family community, I wasn't sure what kind of "treat" we were supposed to put out, I didn't know if we weren't decorated enough, or decorated too much. I had no idea what to expect!

However, it all turned out well, and when we went to the other houses, I felt our decorations were right on track. For us, who haven't been in SL for the past few years, had no mesh things, and our first year as a family - I think it looked like we've been doing it for years. I was worrying and stressing for weeks for nothing. LOL!

We went, and I was having so many issues last night. I was having issues with my Catwa head not blinking and animating properly, things were not rezzing for me, and I was lagging so bad! I've been having internet issues, which appears to be our router. So, until we can get a new one, I really tried to handle it like a trooper! I was also extremely tired, only getting about three hours of sleep the previous night. I was exhausted!

We went as "Cops & Robber" type of theme. I was really struggling with finding a costume, because Halloween isn't one of my favorite holidays, so I didn't want to spend a fortune on something I was only going to wear for a couple hours. Also, I was having trouble finding a "themed" costume which was family appropriate. So... well, I tried.


We even got to trick or treat at some of the family community sims. I really, really love the family communities! I tried to bring it up to Jeffry, seeing if maybe we can move to one or look into it, but he prefers our sim. He says the only way he'd move to a family community, is if he owned it. Hmmm, my wheels are turning!


Our last house of the night - our home.We had SO much fun, and I'm already looking forward to Christmas! As our first year as a family, I can't wait to see what kind of family-things we can do this year! House to house looking at lights, maybe? One can hope, right?!

Last night, we took Yuna to the pumpkin patch and then we decorated our pumpkins! This was probably one of my first "real RP" experiences with our family, and we all had so much fun. When we were first adopting, one of our things was that we weren't really into RP that much. It still holds true today, we are not that big on mealtimes, tuck ins, but the RP that we do, it's so much fun, and we are always laughing like crazy! Our trip to the pumpkin patch was really our first attempt to plan an actual family event, and I was sure it was going to be a huge, epic fail somehow.

But it really wasn't! I planned this for many weeks, kept on the lookout for a fabulous pumpkin patch, made a holding pose, bought all the gacha pumpkin carving stuff we needed, and set it all out. I didn't know how the RP bits of it worked, and my wonderful friends on Plurk even really helped me better understand a lot of it!

In the end, for us and our family, it kind of came naturally! It was so much fun, and for a minimal-RP family like us, we really enjoyed it so much! The planning, the locations, the decorating, and the pumpkins, it really made for an awesome time.

I had been looking for weeks for a pumpkin patch, and really enjoyed this one that I had found. It was pretty, had pumpkins that you could pick out, and even more. You can do much more than explore the pumpkin patch, but that's all we did there.


Then we went home to carve and decorate our pumpkins. It was so worth all the anxiety I had to make it perfect! I think I made it more complicated than what it probably should have been, but I really didn't know what to expect, or anything. Next year, I'll definitely be more prepared, know what to expect, and know what will work for our family.


I saw Alicia's wonderful family on plurk actually "decorating" their pumpkin patch pumpkins. I loooooved that idea, it looked like so much fun. It also gave an actual purpose to the pumpkins we picked out! So, we copied them, and did the same! I think this really completed the event for us, and what really made it so it wasn't SO much RP. This made it perfect. It became more of a "OMG I need to add hair and shoes!" and "What is happening to daddy's eyes?!" thing. We were laughing so much last night, it was great. It probably would have been a very stiff, I-don't-know-how-to-RP thing without the silliness.

At the start of the Halloween season, people on plurk were starting to wonder if this place called Havenhollow was going to happen again this year. Me, being away from SL for so long, had not heard of this place before! When it was explained to me, it sounded like SO much fun, and I was excited to check it out!

So, we took the family exploring there! Yuna had already been to Havenhollow last year, so she was like our guide for the whole thing. We had a lot of fun! Jeffry tried to look like the Phantom of the Opera, Yuna went as Link from the Legend of Zelda, and I went as... well, I'm not really sure. SL's female costumes are so unoriginal when it comes to being family-friendly. Everything is either sexy nurse, sexy maid, or something bloody. I was not interested in any of that. So, I put on a Halloween skin applier. I don't know what I was, but I tried.

Havenhollow was fun! We had a blast roaming around, and it was actually quite creepy! I know in previous years, I've really tried to visit all the haunted places I can go. But, with Yuna as a part of our family, I feel so excited for all the RP aspects of the holidays! I know I've said it before, but well, it's fun to share the SL holidays with other people you care about. For the longest time, it's just been Jeffry and I.

Speaking of Jeffry, we went gachaing the other day. We went a little crazy! I got quite a bit of the stuff I wanted, but there was some things that he wouldn't give up on. I logged on to this.


Sculpted gift boxes in the shape of a heart. 12 prims each, no baked maps. LOL! He tried, right? Filled with all the gacha items that I gave up on! Even through the ugliness, I was excited! Yuna got gifts too, set out in her bedroom, from a couple of machines that we thought she'd like! However, she didn't want to take them from us! I was threatening to ground her and drop them on her instead when she finally accepted them!