Ice Cream Social

Billy and Mariah found Jolena in the kitchen. "How was your week in South America, Jolena?" Mariah asked.

"It was fantastic," Jolena said, looking up from what she was mixing. "I learned a lot!"
"What did you learn?" Billy asked.

"I perfected my triple flip," Jolena replied. "It's good practice when you land in the pool during summer workouts, but it isn't quite the same as landing on snow."
Jolena was stirring something in the bowl.
"What are you making?" Mariah asked, eyeing the bowl.

"All that snow made me think of ice cream," Jolena answered, "so I decided to make some as soon as I got back."
"You're making ice cream?" Billy asked in surprise. I thought ice cream only came from the store!"

"We have a special ice-cream freezer," Jolena explained. "I'll show you. I'm making this with yoghurt (YO-gert)." Jolena stirred her mixture a little bit more. Then she was satisfied. "We need the ice-cream freezer now," she said. "I'm glad you're here. It takes more than one doll to carry it in from the freezer in the garage."

Billy and Mariah helped Jolena carry the ice-cream freezer container to the kitchen. It was comfortable to hold by the handle and the outside, but it was very cold on the inside. They were careful not to touch it there, because they didn't want to freeze their vinyl fingers.

Mariah held the container while Billy helped Jolena connect the paddle to the motor. They followed Jolena's instructions to help attach the motor to the container.

Jolena plugged in the ice-cream freezer and turned it on. The paddle started turning. Then she poured the ice-cream mixture into the container through the hole in the cover.

"Why do we need to use this machine?" Billy asked.
"Well, Jolena began, "a lot of this ice-cream mixture is water, and when water freezes, it makes ice crystals. If you just put the mixture into the freezer and leave it until it's frozen, you will end up with something you can't eat with a spoon or put into a cone. It will be hard, like an ice cube."
"Like a popsicle?" Mariah asked.

"Yes," Jolena said. "That's why, when you make popsicles, you pour the mixture into plastic cups and put a popsicle stick or plastic spoon into each one."
"What's an ice crystal?" Billy asked.

"We saw some on the car windows during the winter, Billy," Mariah said.
"Yes, Jolena agreed," and I saw some in Argentina last week."
Billy pretended to close his eyes and tried to remember the windows of the car during the winter. He thought about the car and how cold it was. Then he thought about how one of his human family members used a scraper on the windows. He saw this with his mind:

"So what does the ice-cream freezer do?" Billy asked, pretending to open his eyes again.
"Watch," Jolena said, as she showed the other two dolls what the ice-cream freezer was doing.

They could see the paddle going around and around. "The container is made with two layers," Jolena explained. "Between the layers is a special liquid that can freeze so it's very, very cold. That's why it was in the big freezer in the garage."

"After you put the ice-cream mixture into the container and turn on the motor," Jolena continued, "the paddle scrapes the inside of the container over and over, as the cold from the container freezes the mixture. The paddle keeps mixing the ice cream, so the ice crystals can't form."

"That's interesting," Mariah said.

Billy nodded.
The three dolls left the ice-cream freezer working and went to do some other things. From time to time, one of them would check on it.

"Hey," called Billy from the kitchen when he checked on the ice cream. "It's getting bigger!"

Jolena and Mariah came back in to see.
"It always does that," Jolena said. "I don't know why, but it grows."
"I'll bet Mandy knows why," Mariah said."

The dolls could hear from the other room when the ice-cream freezer stopped. That meant it was done. Mariah and Billy helped Jolena remove all the ice cream to freezer containers.

"Now we have to let it sit in the freezer for several hours to let it harden before we can eat it," Jolena said. "Thank you for your help!"
After the dolls carried the containers of ice cream to the freezer, they washed the countertops because they had been walking all over them. When they finished cleaning up, they went back to what they had been doing before.

When the ice cream was ready, Jolena invited the other dolls to help pretend to eat it. They sat out on the porch in the shade.

"Now maybe we can find out why the ice cream grew when it was freezing," Jolena said, as they all enjoyed their ice cream.

Billy turned to Mandy and said, "Yes, Mandy! We noticed that the ice cream grew while it was freezing. Do you know why?"

"Water grows when it freezes," Mandy said, "but that isn't the main reason the ice cream grows."

"Churning the ice cream––that means letting the paddle stir it around and around while the ice cream freezes––churning mixes the air in with the ice cream, so it grows."

"Like blowing up a balloon?" Billy asked, sliding off his perch on the back of the couch so he could pay attention to Mandy.

"Well, maybe," Mandy agreed, "if you think of thousands of tiny balloons making up the ice cream."

"That's really cool," Billy said.
"No," Mariah said. "That's really cold!"

Their mouths were really cold when they had finished pretending to eat the ice cream.

(Veronika would like to remind real children that they should not stand on the countertops, but if they ever do have to, they should not be wearing their shoes and should wash the countertops afterwards.) 

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London

Ice Crystals photo by Osman Rana (@osmanrana) on Unsplash.

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Author's page on Amazon. 

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/19832501/?claim=j3fj3mbb8kt">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Copyright © 2019, 2024 by Peggy Stuart

On the Road Part Two

Dear Holly,

I got your letter today. I’m glad the mail was fast, because we could be leaving in a few days.

It was good to hear that you and Sam are both enjoying wheelchair basketball. It sounds like you both are getting very good at making baskets.

I was just remembering that I had to explain to Pauly that when you make a basket in basketball, it isn’t the kind of basket you can carry things in. I told him that it’s when the ball goes through the hoop with a net attached and comes out the bottom. That’s how you get points.

The man who fixes cars here found the part he needs. He had it shipped here. Now he has to find a human person who can do something called welding. The Writer explained to us that the person uses some special equipment to melt metal to join one piece of metal to another, sort of like glue. When he finds someone to do it, it will only take a couple of hours to fix the car. We have already been here two weeks.

I know you enjoy watching movies with Sam. Sometimes The Writer lets us sit with them and watch movies on the TV, and there are some we can watch on the tablet. There isn’t much to do here, other than read and walk around the campground, so we enjoy watching a movie when it's cold and windy.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen "The Sound of Music." It sounds like an interesting movie. Thank you for telling me about it. I really enjoy music, now that I have my special glasses that let me hear sounds.

I know you were trying to cheer me up by bringing up that song about remembering your favorite things when you’re sad. We really aren’t sad, though. We’re really enjoying pretending to be real boys, so it’s hard to pretend to be sad at the same time.

It’s interesting to walk around the campground and look at all the trailers.

It’s warm enough inside our trailer, but it’s winter, so it’s very cold here outdoors. We found out there’s a swimming pool here, but there’s no water in it yet.

It will open on May 15th, and it will have warm water to swim in. We will be home by then, though…I hope. Right now, it's empty.

Some people live here all the time. We’ve seen some kids walking to the road. The Writer says the school bus picks them up and takes them to school. They had backpacks like ours, and I found out that they bring books home so they can do their homework, just the way we do. That made Billy and me really feel like real boys. We enjoyed watching them.

While we were watching them, and Billy was taking photos, the big trash truck came to empty the dumpsters. Dumpsters are very big trash cans. The truck driver operates the lifting arms to pick up the dumpster from the front instead of the side. We remember that our trash cans are picked up on the side of the truck. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same.

Billy took some photos of the trash truck in action. It's very different from the trash trucks in our neighborhood. It will be fun to share them with everyone when we get online again.

We wondered what it would be like to live in an RV campground all the time. The Writer and her husband have had a hard time keeping the water hoses from freezing and keeping the trailer warm enough to be comfortable for real people. It was good that they brought along a little electric heater. We have electricity from the campground.

Each campsite has a faucet for the trailer to connect to. They use a hose to connect to the faucet outdoors to get water. When it's really cold, they leave the doors open on the cabinets. That lets the heat from the living area into the cabinets. The pipes that carry water are in there, either in the back of the cabinet or under the floor, so leaving the doors open helps keep the water in the pipes from freezing.

When it's really cold, they have to let the faucets drip water. We hate to waste water, but when the water freezes, it turns into ice, and ice takes up more space than water does. It can break a pipe, and then the pipe would leak. If that happens, it would waste a lot more water and be expensive to fix.

Sometimes the water still freezes anyway in the hose outside that brings water from the campground faucet into the trailer, so they have to change it for a hose that has been indoors in the tub, where it's too warm to freeze. Then the ice inside that hose can warm up and turn back into water, and that hose will be ready to use again. It's a good thing they have two!

Billy and I wondered how people who live here all the time manage, with being cold and having the faucets stop working, because real people need to eat and drink and wash. Real people feel the cold, and they don't like it. The Writer pointed out how some of the trailers have some kind of siding around the space where the wheels are. That’s to keep the cold air and wind from moving under the trailer. It keeps the trailer warmer.

The people who live here in the winter also have big tanks for fuel to heat their trailers. They use a gas called propane (PRO-pain).

We have propane tanks, too, but just two little ones, because we only need to use it for a short time and we have to take them on the road with us. We use the propane for the stove for cooking, for the hot-water heater so we can have hot water, and for the refrigerator when we’re traveling and don't have electricity except for what's in the batteries.

Today the heater started blowing cold air. The Writer turned it off and then checked the stove. She found out there was no propane coming to it. 

Her husband went out to the propane tanks and switched the connection from one tank to the other. Then they turned the heater back on, and it started blowing out warm air again. He took out the empty tank and bought more propane from the campground. They filled it, and then he put it back in.

He got our propane tank filled right in front of the office, where there is a very big tank.

This is a campground with something called full hookups, so the refrigerator runs on electricity from the campground, and we can use the microwave, which also takes electricity.

Each campsite has a place for you to plug your trailer's power cord.

We have batteries for lights and the water pumps when we aren’t in a campground with electricity. We have to be careful not to use those things too much, though, because all the electricity is stored in the batteries, and it can be used up.

It's fun running around the campground. We found a model of an old general store and jail like in western movies. We pretended to be bad guys going to jail and got The Writer to take our picture in front of it. We look almost as big as real boys in front of the buildings.

We have internet here. It works pretty well, which is good, because sometimes we need to look something up.

We called home to let everyone know how we were doing. I told Veronika about that song, where you remember your favorite things when you’re sad, and it cheers you up. Mariah said she thought that was almost as good as a disappointment party, and a lot easier to do.

The Writer found the movie you watched with Sam and downloaded it, so we could watch it, too. We really enjoyed it, and I loved hearing the song about remembering your favorite things. The other songs were very good, too.

We will not be going to Arizona, so don’t use the address there if you write again while we’re traveling. I found out where we plan to stay when we leave here, and when we get the truck back, we will be there for a few days. I wrote it down at the bottom of this letter.

Tell Sam and the rest of the family hi from me. I hope your basketball team wins the tournament, but if you don’t, just think about your favorite things and remember there’s always next year.

Your pal, 

Emil

Cast--
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

Pauly: Götz Little Kidz Paul

Photographed on location at Silver State RV Park

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Mariah: Stories from the Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from the Doll's Storybook and soon Classic Tales Retold: Stories from the Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to St. Jude. Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author for $20 including shipping. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Image on the yellow T-shirt Mariah sometimes wears is used with permission, from Free To Be Kids, where human-size shirts with this image are available.

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/19832501/?claim=j3fj3mbb8kt">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Copyright © 2023 by Peggy Stuart