The Journal of Phillip Grant - April 1

The girls are still working on their charm. Penny and Nick are rarely apart these days. It looks like she was pretty serious when she said he was the one.

"Hey Dad, can we borrow the car? I want to do some shopping with Nick."

"Shopping? Does that poor lad know what he's in for?"

"He made me swear to keep it quick and as painless as possible."

"Ok then. Don't stay out too long."

Since breaking up with James, Ronnie has been experimenting a bit.

She's decided to flirt with an old friend of hers, I think that one is Kyra Pendragon. I can never keep the Pendragon girls straight in my head. There's several of them.

So far, no one has been back for a second visit with Ronnie.  James must be hard to replace.

Corey and I decided to do some laundry. He supervised while I used the machines.

While the laundry was going, Vanessa and I made a little trip across town. We haven't been to see Vincent or the baby for too long.

Miriam is growing so fast. Just yesterday, she was a baby. Look at her now.

Isn't she just the cutest thing?

Our first and so far only grandchild. Vanessa and I keep hoping for more grandchildren. But Vincent and Kari haven't said anything about a second child and Stephen has yet to officially settle on a life partner.

So that's why Penny wanted to take Nick shopping. I see they made a pretty thorough job of getting Nick a new look. The stylist must have been very busy.

Damn, he looks a lot like his dad now. The resemblance is more obvious with that new hair cut.

Penny seems to approve of the new look quite a lot. The two of them kept that up for hours.

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So I wanted to go to China. Vanessa was offered cash to smuggle one of her books to China. Penny wants to work on her martial arts in China.

So we decided to take a family holiday to France.

No, just kidding, we were off to China.

It's always a long tiring flight, but it's always too exciting when you finally arrive to pause to rest.

I checked the notice board for adventure.

This guy was offering rewards to retrieve items from the Temple of Heaven.

If memory serves, that's going to be interesting since it's supposedly has quite extensive tunnels, labyrinths and traps underneath the main structure.

The girls went off and did some sightseeing first. First was the Forbidden City.

While Vanessa delivered the extra copy of her book.

The shopkeeper paid her an extra 1,000 Simoleons for it. That alone paid for her airfare over.

Ronnie still isn't too sure of the training dummies. She's getting better, but she's better with her books than with a physical activity.

Penny, on the other hand, is making excellent progress toward her next belt.

She's been training hard. She's preparing for her first ranked match.

Vanessa and I both warned her that ranked matches would be tougher than what she's used to. Don't get expectations too high.

I was having a great deal of success exploring the Temple of Heaven. I managed to find some places that no Grant has ever entered.

This is so worthwhile. I've been finding some great artifacts.

I found the key to the inner portion of the temple.

Only one way to get anywhere in life. Dive straight in, head first.

Especially when you need to enter a dive well.

Dripping wet with bugs all over me. Why the hell do I do this again?

Oh yes, the thrill of the treasure. That's why. I should find quite a bit of treasure. There's been no one here for centuries.