A Doll's Life For Me 100th Blog Post Celebration! (T.E.A. with Anna and Elsa)

Hey, everyone. It's the human. You can call me She, too. (I have a real name... but this is the internet and that's how they find you.) And this month marks one year since I found out about the Code of Dolls, and that the dolls I've been collecting and harboring in my bedroom have been alive since... like, forever.

Coincidentally enough, that's not the only thing we have to celebrate. Apparently, this is A Doll's Life For Me's 100th blog post! As you can probably guess, Elsa is super excited and she basically begged me to do a collaboration with her. I thought about it, and eventually, I agreed. So, allow us to introduce the first T.E.A., a new series on the blog written by me, She. T.E.A. stands for Travel, Exploration, and Adventure, and it will essentially consist of me taking a couple dolls out somewhere for a special day. I plan to do plenty more of these T.E.A. posts in the future, but for the first one, I just had to do something with Elsa, the one who started it all. 

But first, this is Noni, who belongs to Treesa, one of the followers of this blog. Treesa, if you're reading this, I wanted to say thank you for the lovely card you made for Steve and Elsa's wedding. 

Alright, now let's get into the T.E.A.!

***

I took a deep breath of humid forest air. A short distance away, a muddy creek cut through the middle of the park, and the splashing sound it made over rocks and debris created a sense of both serenity and excitement within me. It gave me great nostalgia, even though I didn't always live here. My family moved to the area whenever I was a little girl- too young to remember the place in which I previously "belonged"- yet old enough to appreciate natural landscapes like these. And fortunately for us, the park was only about five minutes away.

That's right, us. I wasn't alone. I didn't always live this way- but now I had an entire family of dolls too look after, including taking them out every once in a while. Dolls are like dogs in that way.

I shimmied the drawstring back from my shoulders and lowered it gently to the ground. With one last check around me, I made my announcement. 

"Okay, girls. The coast is clear."

Four small, plastic hands parted the mouth of the bag and two heads popped out. I allowed the both of them to step out from the back and into this new world.

"Thank goodness," Anna said. "It was getting hot in there."

Elsa blinked and shielded her eyes from the high noon sun. "What is this place?"

"The park," I replied. "It's a secret part though. People hardly come down here."

"Except for you," Anna said, smiling. "This is nice. Plenty of large rocks to hide behind, just in case. Hey, do you think these are rock trolls?"

I tried to act casual. Definitely not, I wanted to say. But I never liked to say anything certain unless it was proven to be so. In a world of sentient dolls, even some with magic powers, rock trolls seemed almost ordinary. 

"I would hope not. They wouldn't be too happy. Toddlers like to crawl all over these stones."

"Well, if rock trolls can deal with Kristoff and Sven for years and years, certainly they could deal with a toddlers for a couple of minutes." Said Elsa.

"Woah, what's that?" Anna gasped, darting from the rocks suddenly to peer over another at the creek. It was like she had never seen water before, and it wasn't even good water at that.

"We can get closer if you like," I suggested. "But we'll have to go down a different path. A safer one. I'm not having either of you fall into the water."

"Good point," Anna agreed. "I don't think that would be good for us. Especially Elsa."

"Why me?"

"Who wears a gown and cape to the park?"

Elsa sneered at her playfully. "Hey, it wasn't hot enough yet to change clothes!"

Anna rolled her eyes in the same joking manner. "Well, whatever. Where's the other path, She?"

"I'll take you there in a minute. But why don't we get some pictures in the meantime?"

Neither of them argued, so me, my camera, and my amateur photography skills went about, snapping photos of whatever the dolls did.

Anna apparently has a thing for flowers.

And Elsa apparently has a thing for hiding from her sister. (No surprise there.)

Elsa is so pale that it whites out a spot of my camera.

Anna got a nice picture with the creek behind her...

... and by a tree. I think Elsa was more concerned with keeping the dirt off her dress.

After a while of wandering, a I got a prickle of heat on my neck told me that I'd forgotten to wear sunscreen today. There was absolutely no was going to let that happen, so I called it quits and brought the girls over to the separate trail, one that lead to the bank of the creek, if you were clever enough. All you had to do was retain balance, wear sturdy shoes, slide down a hill without falling forward into the water, avoid biting bugs, dodge all the mud and poison ivy... and yeah. Simple stuff, really.

I set my backpack on the ground and let Anna and Elsa out again. They immediately ran to the shore, as close to the water as they could get. I folded my legs and sat in the dirt, trying to get my eye level to their's. The horizon stretched out for miles... what with focal point of a distant, shining bridge. I remember when that bridge was built, too, and thought nothing of it. It was nice, even a little lonely, to be seeing it with new eyes.

"Can we go there?" Anna whispered.

"What, there?" I asked, happy for the distraction. 

Anna guided my hand upwards to point at this pathetic scrap of land that had failed to connect to the mainland due to spring flooding. It was an island, I guess, or at least to them, and islands are always exciting.

"Please?" Elsa pleaded. "It'll be perfect for our Mini Review."

Ah, I'd almost forgotten. We weren't just here for getting pictures and fresh air. It was time for Elsa's part in our blog post collaboration, and that meant the Mini Review.

Recently, I put up a list for the dolls in my room, as a place they can make requests for something they would wish to have. If I can find the item and afford it (certain miniatures are hard to come by, surprisingly), I will buy it for them. Just last week, Elsa and Anna wanted me to "surprise them" with a miniature beach toy to review, and I'd found just the thing. A tiny plastic pail with six other sand toys. Unfortunately, creeks aren't very sandy...

But it was worth a shot to make my girls happy. There was a tree root that made a makeshift bridge across the creek, and fortunately so, for my shoes' sake. I stepped onto solid ground and looked around. The island couldn't be any more than ten feet long on all sides, but my presumption was correct. It was exciting over here.

Elsa sat down by my bag and drew out the mini beach set and snapped a picture. It was cute, but this was no longer my place. I decided to step back and search the water for crawdads. 

Elsa made haste with ripping the plastic netting off the pail and setting up the beach toys in an artistic way across the dingy, "sandy" dirt on the island. She started scraping around with the tools, and I could tell it was frustrating business because she kept exhaling loudly through her nose. 

"Um... Elsa? You got mud on your cape." Anna pointed out quietly.

"What? I did not!" Elsa cried. She lifted up the right side of her cape and begin brushing it off. "I did. This isn't working very well."

Even if their eyes were only painted on, I could see the disappointment within them. I wasn't about to give up, though. Giving up isn't my thing.

"We should go elsewhere." I said.

"Like where?"

"Back home. I have an idea." 

I was getting ready to put them back into my bag and cross over the creek again when Anna squealed and pointed at the water. White pieces of mollusk shells shone out amongst the pebbles.

"Look, shells!"

"Yep. They're everywhere." 

"We should take some home, then. For Moana."

A knot of guilt tightened in my stomach. I'd completely forgotten about my ocean-loving lady. If she found out I took Anna and Elsa to a special island with water all around, I would never hear the end of it. Unless... unless we took her a shell. She'd like that. Maybe I could be forgiven then.

"Sure. But we're going to take only one."

I leaned forward and plucked a handful of shells from the water so that the girls could choose their favorite.

"How's this one?" Anna asked, holding up an empty clam-shell.

"That's two."

"It's two stuck together. Making it one." Elsa replied cleverly.

"Alright, alright, fine," I smiled. "Get in the bag. I'm taking you home."

Elsa and Anna obviously didn't care to ride in the bag in the car, so I allowed them to climb into the passenger's seat. I can't imagine what any outsider would think if they peeked into the window of my car, but they both looked relaxed and happy, and I cared little what anyone else thought. As long as they weren't breaking the Code of Dolls again, the only issue I had at the moment was trying to figure out how they were going to conduct the Mini Review without sand. Brown sugar was the same color and texture as sand, right?

I turned on the car and slipped on my sunglasses. Yeah. That could definitely work.

***

Hi, guys! It's Elsa again. Isn't it exciting that She agreed to write for me? I can't believe I convinced her to do that. I mean, we all knew She was a writer (especially Loki) but She never seemed like the type to go outside of poetry. Maybe She would be willing to write more blog posts in the future. And considering that this is the first part of a new series, I would guess that would be so!

Anyways, She set up a wonderful Mini Reviews station for us as soon as we got home from the park. This included a picnic blanket and a baking pan full of brown sugar to imitate a beach. It worked pretty well, if you don't mind how sticky brown sugar can be. Now let's get on with the review!

First, the pail. It was a cheery yellow color, and there were a bunch of star decals on the blue handle. She bought the mini beach set from a store called Five Below for one dollar... can you believe that? She also said that there were about four variations of the beach set. You could get one with orange, or red, or more blue. But I believe we got the prettiest one.

We measured the amount of "sand" that the beach pail can hold, and it was exactly two cups. There are no holes at the bottom of the pail, either, so there's no fear of anything falling through.

Next, the shovel. The scoop was flat and straight, not like a digging shovel that our humans use to plant flowers in the yard. That didn't mean this shovel couldn't dig, though. We used it to fill the pail, and it was able to get into every corner of the rectangular baking pan.

The shovel can actually hold a lot, too. Nothing pours out the sides unless you tilt it, and the "sand" is easily made into a pile and still able to be supported by the shovel.

We also had a circle scoop, though I would not recommend it for digging. This tool might work better on an actual beach, where the sand is deeper and heavier, but here, we had to use the shovel to fill the scoop. 

But, unlike the shovel, you can pack sand into the scoop and turn it over to make a neat little dome. Perfect for making sandcastles (or sand igloos)!

The sand sifter was probably the worst of the tools. Well, I don't want to say it was the worst, but it was definitely intended for a beach and not a baking pan full of brown sugar. Sure, it kept the big clumps of sugar out from the rest, but even the small granules of the sugar were too dense to get through the sifter's holes.

But you can also make shapes using the sifter tool, so if that's your thing, you probably don't have any complaints here.

The rake tool... is, well... a rake. It has three prongs, like a trident, and you can change the depth of the lines you make based on how hard you press down. We tried writing She's name in the sand with it, but I believe it would work better if you had a larger space.

Now for the fun part! The mini beach set came with two animal shaping tools: a crab and a fish. 

They actually hold the shape pretty well and look very much like the stencil when you press them into the "sand". I could make these and be entertained by it all day.

T.E.A. time with She ended with our Mini Review, and She was making peach iced tea during that time. We were able to enjoy the drink together, along with some squares of dark chocolate. We talked naturally, as if the doll-human divide didn't exist at all. It was quite nice. I remembered thinking the humans to be such curious creatures. What did they do all day when they weren't at home? Why did they have such strict schedules? Why did She collect dolls in the first place? Were all humans this understanding? Why did the Code of Dolls have to exist at all?

Then again, She was probably wondering the same things about us dolls. What did we do all day when the humans were gone? Why and how are most dolls alive? How do dolls fall in love and get married? Why do some have magic powers?

Why did the Code of Dolls have to exist at all?

Maybe with time, as She continued to participate in the blog and write her own series, that the differences between humans and dolls would become less and less important.

One could only hope.

Celebrating our 100th blog post,

She the human and Queen Elsa of Arendelle