Camp I Can – Behind The Scenes

If you haven’t read the last chapter of Camp I Can Time For Goodbyes, you will want to check that out first HERE

12 little girls
1 camp counsellor
1 handyman

Sounds easy doesn’t it?  I know you are saying something along the lines of “heck N0!” Well for me, I was really in my element.  As a teacher in RL, and a sim player who loves to play large families, this really was easy peasy.  I found the hardest thing to be, catching all the great moments before they were gone!  All the sims, kids and adults alike were such characters, even Jade, who carries the shy trait.  She was shy for maybe, hmmmmm……. the first day but after that she warmed to all the girls fairly quickly.

Cloverdale

Camp I Can All Girls Skills Camp is currently located in Cloverdale, which is a CC free custom world found at My Sim Realty.  It’s basically an empty world, although some sims are generated as needed.  There are no houses in the world.

Kids Can Series

This is a mod from Mod the Sims which allows children to do some of the things the adults can do.  Its a fabulous mod!  You will find it Here

Violet Friend

Violet is a sim I borrowed from SweetPoyzin, who is writing her own legacy story. Interesting fact- Violet is actually half imaginary friend and by clicking on her you have the option to turn her back into a toy!  However I never tried it.  I’m  quite attached to Violet so I was thrilled when we were able to combine our stories and Sweet had faith in my ability to write Violet’s voice.

If you aren’t already reading SweetPoyzin’s story, you will find it HERE!  GO CHECK IT OUT!

Oh BTW, Violet gave me quite the scare when after swimming in the pond, she got out and proceeded to drown in the grass.  I was all the way across the camp when I heard it!  I had to quit without saving to recover her!

Jilly Capra

Jilly was an important part of the story, but you may have noticed that we didn’t see her as much as we did Violet.  The reason?  Well, while Jade and Violet’s story is currently happening………….

We are actually seeing Jilly’s past.  Jilly comes from a family with a twin brother Leo, who is an accomplished and famous musician.   Jilly herself naturally gravitated towards the drums and I found her there on day one within the first hour of playing.  The drums are located in the music building in it’s own room.  (I just didn’t want to hear them all the time!  LOL)  If I didn’t know where Jilly was, I would always find her there.

Jilly played the guitar quite well.  Leo’s story is currently still running HERE. Find out what happened to sweet Jilly!  I just loved Jilly and was incredibly devastated when we lost her. It’s been a while since I heard her voice and I thank RosemaryMarie for having confidence I could write her character well!

If you aren’t already reading this story, you are surely missing out on a totally GREAT read!  GO CHECK IT OUT!

Fun fact:  RO is an actual published author!

The Girls

Brianna Valencia -12 years old

Not a great picture of her unfortunately.
I believe she is actually a decedent of my Wilson/Watson legacy that I just altered for the camp.  She is wearing a NewSea hair

 

 

Annette Jackson-11 years old

We didn’t really hear or see too much of Annette as she wasn’t a very active sim.  I tried to get her busy doing things but mostly she was just that quiet sim you always see in the background.

 

 

Layla Ursine -10 years old

Layla is a very confident sim, if a sim can appear confident at all.  She is one of my favourite children I ever made.  She just always has this happy face.  With a minor bit of tweaking, and some added CC, this is Layla as a teen:

 

 

 

 

 

Reisa Lutz -10 years old

Reisa was another quiet sim in the group.  She was quite content to be behind one of the musical instruments and sometimes I got yelled at when it was time to go on field trips.  “I was finally getting it!  Leave me alone!” I imagined her saying that all the time.

 

 

 

Bren Nesbitt -10 years old

Bren is a decendent of my Watson family. I’m not happy with her face because she always has this stern look on her face!

 

 

 

Taryn Ichtaca- 8 years old

Adopted daughter of Rubisel Ichtaca in IP
She is First Nations decent
One of my favourite families to play. I have redone Rubisel to my liking and I pair him with another one of my fav sims.  

 

 

 

Jia Su – 8 years old

I made Jia so Jade could have another Chinese child to connect with but Jia was never to be found around camp. She never stayed in one place long enough.  If I did see her with anyone at all, it was usually Erin.

 

 

 

Ti Voxi – 8 years old

Ti was made by my RL best friend who is obsessed with aliens.  She is currently writing an an alien story through Sims 4 which you can find HERE.  Ti actually has the genius trait and no artistic traits at all.  So she enjoyed the chess table and reading. Exchange download HERE

 

Erin Jensen- 6 years old

With the rising obesity and hormonal issues for children, I felt it was important to include this aspect in the story.  Erin was a sweet little girl who was forever active.  Running, running everywhere. I seriously don’t think the girl ever sat down!  She got along with everyone, unless they tried to do the kitchen clean up after she had already started. Then look out!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Locke Huntley

I wish I could see your faces when I tell you this next thing. But Locke….is actually Ian Bell!  LOL  Yes I took the original Ian from the CAS library, changed his skin colour, his eye colour, gave him hair, better eyebrows, a beard and very very very minorly tweaked his face. (The nose!) But not really anything at all.  I thought it was cute having him there looking out for Jade! I played the camp for three days before it became very clear that Quinn just couldn’t do everything on her own.  So I created a handyman for the camp.

 

Quinn Archer 

I had the hardest time picking the right sim to play the counselor.  I actually chose two others and put them in the camp for a few days, before finally deciding on her.  She worked in the camp, building up her art skills before I actually put the girls in the camp. Quinn is up on my profile at TSR and you can find her HERE

Camp I Can The Name

At this time I want to acknowledge that there is actually a RL camp called Camp I Can.  It’s a camp designed for children with autism and looks like an awesome program for children!

https://www.autismsocietysandiego.org/camp-i-can.html

However, I was not aware of this camp until just yesterday when I stumbled upon it accidentally.  The name Camp I Can for my story, was formulated over Facebook messenging between SweetPoyzin, RosemaryMarie and myself after we made a list of words and then camp names.  We must have discussed over 200 names from this word list. We had almost settled on Camp U, which was SweetPoyzin’s suggestion but she and I felt it wasn’t quite right.  Camp I Can came from Camp U.

Thank you!

Thank you very much for reading along with Jade’s camp adventures.  Jade is going to be heir and I have two possible scenarios in mind for how she is going to continue the line of succession.  So while it may seem that sending her to camp is breaking the Midnight Sun Challenge rules, it does set up what we happen to Jade later on and so was necessary for the story.  I’m leaving you with a few photos that didn’t make the cut.

Not sure what she was crying about.  But she came in here to do it so I left her be.

I don’t think there are any stairs left Annette!

Miss Quinn running on air!

“Do you mind?  This is a private conversation!”

I really wanted to use this.  Brianna painted this picture and it would have been perfect to talk about her the damaging effects of her absent parents.  But I am writing blog chapters not a book, so I left it out!