A new guitar.

A new routine.

A new smile.

The twins don’t do stuff together as much as they used to since high school, but Ramona occasionally tags along with Gaby whenever she goes on a jog, just as Gaby helps with the garden every once in a while.

Today, they’re joined by Rocco, who always looked forward to these stroller rides with his mother. Whenever he gets to ride on it, he always gets whisked away to a brand new exciting place to do brand new exciting things.

The recent summer heat wave has been harsh on Ramona, who has been keeping up with the rapid change of temperature for her garden’s sake, though she ends up neglecting herself in the process.

With the new automated sprinkler system she just installed, she knows her garden is gonna be fine.

Gaby and Rocco hang out on the shallow waters to play when someone suddenly calls and walks up to them. It was Lukas, and he looks surprised upon seeing his nephew.

“Is something wrong?” Gaby looks at him quizzically.

“Not really, Rocco’s hair color just reminds me of Ramona’s weird hair color inheritance.” He smiles fondly at Rocco before playfully ruffling his hair. His nephew responds positively to the gesture by attempting to grab his hand.

Lukas then looks out for the flock of reddish-yellow hair that stands out from the sea, and he waves enthusiastically at his baby sister. “I’m gonna go visit Mom first before I go home. Is she at the house?”

Gaby giggles, which gives Lukas his turn to look at her quizzically. “Good luck trying to get home early today. Aunt Eva’s visiting Mom too.”

Eva doesn’t need a stupid mic to shake the halls with her voice.

Her visit today is less random or spontaneous than the usual; her husband Stiles has passed away last night, and though his passing was painful, Eva would rather express her grief in the most unconventional of ways.

But after a series of traveling, Eva starts to actively seek the comfort of staying with her younger sister and her sister’s family, and Miranda lets her in with open arms.

Once the sisters start to talk, they show no signs of stopping. Eva is always looking out for her nieces and nephew, and nothing pleases her more than to hear their various accomplishments in their respective fields.

An argument breaks out in front of the city hall right after graduation finishes, all pretense of formality dropped.

Miralia Maraqueza-Lott dares to call Rain Shea a @#$!! to her face after having just recently learned that the woman harassed her eldest daughter Rabina at the grocery store yesterday for supposedly hitting on her ex-boyfriend.

Her other daughter, Lily (the one in the black dress), silently wishes for a divine intervention and take her somewhere far, far away before her crush can see her.

Rabina just hopes that her mother won’t go too far and humiliate the family in public even further, but is too tired to even intervene.

Meanwhile, on the other side of city hall!

A classmate has been wishing to indirectly express their feelings to Kenton, and what better way to do it than through a sing-o-gram from his famous aunt?

Coincidentally, the classmate turns out to be Lily herself, but no one in their class knows that — yet.

After they finish gossiping and trying to figure out who the secret admirer is, Kenton lets Gaby know about all the secrets that he learned while working at the same spa that his dad used to work part-time at during high school.

Like father like son, Gaby looks on fondly as she listens to Kenton complain about the customers, his coworkers, and the cheap tactics they use to gain profit.

Eva’s stay in the Ramos household extends to a few more days.

It’s not that she can’t stand going back to the house that she shared with Stiles, but she’s having the time of her life just spending time with her sister’s family, it seems a bit pointless to go back now.

And besides, she wants to get to know her youngest niece better too while she’s at it. (She discovers that Ramona has a good voice, much like her sister)

“Give it more flair, sweetheart!” Eva pushes her on even as Ramona starts to sing uncertainly. “Everyone’s gonna need to hear you sing on your nephew’s birthday!”

Ramona thinks her singing would be unnecessary, but lets her aunt have her fun anyway, so she sings more loudly this time.

It’s a Friday night, and everyone in the Ramos family tree has been invited (or at least the ones that I’d like to invite; since inviting every single Ramos is impossible) to Rocco’s birthday.

It’s been years since the older twins have last visited their childhood home, and the last time they have gathered was for Lukas’ birthday slash graduation party. They silently hope that this won’t end with someone dying this time.

The dinner table hasn’t been brimming with this much food since Stanley passed away.

The family celebrities provide the necessary entertainment.

The grandkids still think it’s surreal to have a rock star and a hit composer jam together on a balcony, but it’s definitely happening.

At the other side of the house, Gaby tries to dissuade a party-crasher from attending her son’s birthday as Brooks gives his aunt a sympathetic look. He knows that celebrities get a lot of unnecessary attention from people sometimes; he’s sorry that she has to experience it right now, of all times.

The three older Ramos kids waste no time in settling in their childhood home.

Chelsea immediately takes over the family computer to check on her save files. She intends to continue playing it again at some point before she travels back to the military facility the next morning.

Lukas rediscovers his favorite book still tucked in beside Gaby’s notebook (the one that contains all her old songs) and promptly sits down to reread it. He actually lets his kids do whatever they want to do for once, something that only Lacey does most of the time.

Vinca looks irritated about something and doesn’t bother to hide it?

Maybe she’s pissed at her son’s inability to wait for everyone before going off to eat on his own. How rude!

The house is bustling with lots of people at this point, with a lot of them going in and going out, no one even bothers to close the door anymore.

Brooks recoils at the sight of the TV, and hopes that someone turns it off right now. Jebidiah ignores his son’s weirdly specific phobia to judge his brother-in-law of being a dork. Araceli ignores everyone to go straight to the balcony where the real action is happening.

Where’s the birthday boy though?

Here he is, ready to blow out his birthday candles with grandma’s help.

(With these much sims in the house for the first time in a while, I simply decided to sit back and watch the chaos unfold before me)

(That’s the end of the montage!)

Lukas gives the old wind chimes a fond smile as he prepares to leave his childhood house again. His youngest child lags behind, wishing that she could stay here for the night instead.

Right after doing the dishes, Rocco’s asked to sit down with Aunt Ramona to have a talk about the necessary computer restrictions (as requested by Gaby).

“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” Rocco groans.

“No, because your mother can’t wait that long kid,” Ramona groans along with him before continuing with her Dangers-of-the-Internet spiel.

(Author’s note: Finally, a proper birthday! It’s been a while since I had those.)