Round 1- Saenz

Elsa, Declan and Georgina move to Autumn Shore for a fresh start after Elsa found herself a single mother for the second time. She vowed to raise her children without the help of anyone, least of all a man.

With Declan old enough to entertain himself for a while, Elsa gets to work teaching 1-year-old Georgina basic skills.

Of course, children are expensive and Elsa knew that for her kids to stand a chance, she would need to get a job even if it meant leaving them in the care of a nanny for a few hours each day.

Declan left for his first day of school and did well. He was joining the 'little class' with Gary Mason and Joanne Walker at newly built Autumn Shore Primary School. Due to Autumn Shore being such a small town, there was only two schools- a primary school and a high school. The headmaster of Autumn Shore Primary had explained to Elsa how the education system works in Autumn Shore. Declan would attend the local primary school until he was twelve. During his primary years he would be in two classes, suitably named 'the little class' and 'the big class'. The little class consisted of kindergarten to year three (the five to eight year olds) and the big class was years four to six (the nine to eleven year olds). Declan would then go on to Autumn Shore High School and complete years seven to twelve (twelve to seventeen year olds). Declan was then out of compulsory education but had the option to attend a university- he would have to travel elsewhere for this education though.

Determined for her children to do well, Elsa helps Declan with his homework.

Elsa found being a single parent was rewarding but very hard. She almost never had any spare time to herself. If she wasn't working, she was with Declan or Georgina, often multi-tasking with other household jobs at the same time.

Declan often made matters worse by doing things like splashing in filthy puddles just as the school bus was pulling up. He wasn't a bad kid, he just had bags of energy.

Declan brought Joanne Walker home from school one day. There weren't many kids Declan's age in the town so Elsa was thrilled her son had started making friends with the few children that resided in Autumn Shore.

Declan found a love for science so Elsa bought him an ant habitat to keep him occupied whilst she was busy answering to Georgina's demands.

Georgina celebrated her birthday. Although slightly less demanding, she still insisted on having her mother's attention whenever possible. Elsa decided she had to get that out of her. She wanted her children to stand on their own two feet instead of relying on everyone- her in particular!

Notes: The Saenz family seem to be the poorest family in Autumn Shore at the moment. Not sure it'll last though as Elsa had promotion after promotion this round. I've already stated playing their second round and they're slightly better off financially. And I mean slightly... I based the schools on our local primary school (there's about 30 kids in the whole school). Our primary school has 2 classes- the little class (primary 1-3 or 5-7 year olds) and the big class (primary 4-7 or 8-11 year olds). I tweaked the education system a little as we have primary 1-7 and then secondary 1-6 and I decided I wanted kindergarten/years/college instead of the nursery/primary/secondary/college.