Whew, it's been a while!

We start off back at the mothership. A storm breaks out one night and one of the trees catches fire. Naturally, Martin is worried.

The next day, he decides to throw an anniversary party. As his Lifetime Aspiration was to reach his Golden Anniversary with Karen, this has now been achieved, and receives 25,000 aspiration points.

At the party, Mackenzie chats to her nephew, Kaleb (Michael's son).

Martin's natural hobby is Nature. Growing plants brings with it the risk that they get infected with bugs. You can spray the plants with (I assume) some kind of pesticide. If you spray your plants enough times....

POOF! WTF is going on??

You become a PlantSim!

This is categorically NOT what Martin wants. This must've involved some sort of sorcery, and as we all know, sorcery is BAAAAADDDD in fundieland. So he decides to phone the Gypsy Matchmaker, who, aside from offering Sims blind dates, also sells various potions to get rid of vampirism, lycanthropy (werewolves) etc. 

Martin takes a swig of Plantophic-C potion.

Phew! Back to normal. He's still left in his PlantSim outfit, so he has to go to the dresser to put normal clothes on.

He decides to hire a gardener to do the work for him, as he doesn't want to risk becoming a PlantSim again.

It's time for Mackenzie to age up!

We briefly visit Madison's family. Here's Ashlyn, dressed somewhat inappropriately for such cold weather. Still modest, though.

Baby Brynlee is left on the bathroom floor. So parenting. Much skillz. Wow.

Now we're switching to Max and his wife Lily, who have come back from their honeymoon and are ready for some hey-hey-hey.

Max brings a coworker back from work. It's Paul Walker. They're both in the Architecture career.

PREGGERS!

But what's this? The social worker? Yes! Max and Lily decided to adopt their first child. And... SHE'S NOT WHITE. Malachi was also adopted, but aside from his black hair he could easily blend in with the white Bancrofts. Max and Lily don't care, though; Jennifer is a child of God and should be treated with love. (I've decided their name theme will be "popular 80s names").

Lily is also due with the first biological child soon. Will Jennifer be the only adopted child? Or will this set a precedent?