It is confirmed, my Cage family has somehow been cursed.
I started back playing the family, saved it and sent Marcus to China for an opportunity. He didn't show up. No problem, I had saved it, right? Well, when I clicked to get out, out of habit I say yes to save town. That overrode my last save of just before he left, so now I have to go to an earlier save, which had bee over an hour and half back. A lot had happened in that time.
I have tried other families sending them to China and they make it there fine, it is just the Cage family for some reason can't go back to China. Which I guess will remove some of the LTW that require traveling to China *sigh*
I think it is connected to the sink hole in front of the house in MF. They had no problem in going to China before it happened. The after they came back it was quite often someone would sink into the ground there and just disappear. Resetsim worked to get them back most of the time. One time Brigit didn't come back with the reset, but when the school bus came to pick them up for school, off she went and came home, whole.
I'm keeping this family and going to continue them but am seriously thinking of buying a timer and doing another family where every 15 or 30 minutes I will be reminded to save.
And I want to do one where if I do use the Midas Touch it is very limited. Same with such items as life fruit and the Fountain of Youth. Such as if I use it when they become Elder and it takes them back to YA, then I think I can use the Instant age to take them to Adult, not sure so need to check it out.
I'm adjusting to the normal lifespan. I have always played on a much longer lifespan, YA, Adults and Elders had 45 days, teens had 25, children had 20 and toddlers had 9, one day for each book.