Adventures of Anna and Ally Volume 1

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Contents

Chapter 1 Moving Day................................1Chapter 2 Grandmommy's New Pet......................7Chapter 3 Swimming at Mamaw's.......................15Chapter 4 The Airplane Ride.........................21Chapter 5 Springtime in Georgia.....................31Chapter 6 The Frog Catcher..........................41Chapter 7 The Best Cousins Ever.....................49

Chapter One

Anna sat on the front porch gazing at the morning fog rising over the Smoky Mountains. From the swing on the porch, only mountains were visible past the fields and across the country road, which led to the steep drive to their large brick home. Anna watched anxiously as the moving truck appeared on the horizon and steadily climbed the steep driveway. The truck's engine labored as it climbed the hill leaving a cloud of dust behind it.

Anna could hear Ally inside the house singing as she looked for her doll inside a box. Mommy let Ally put on her princess dress on her last day in her room. Ally, who had just turned two, pretended she was a princess in her very own castle, with her doll being an imaginary princess right along with her.

Two men jumped from the moving truck and waved hello to Anna. Anna recognized them as Bert and Max. Bert was Mommy's cousin from Georgia who had offered to help them move all the boxes and some of the furniture to their home in Georgia. Anna walked along the top of the brick wall leading to the house. She stood and watched as Bert and Max lifted the heavy door on the back of the truck. Bert and Max were always laughing; they had been friends forever. Anna loved all of Mommy's cousins and she loved Max too!

Mommy is sweet and kind to everyone. She is always busy with our family. She reads to us, cooks for us, cleans for us and buys groceries for our kitchen. She reads us Bible stories at night. Mommy prays with us every morning and listens to our prayers each night.

Mommy has been very busy lately putting everything in boxes and organizing everything for this move. Mommy boxed up all our books, toys, games, videos, cds, shoes, clothes, dishes, pots and pans, towels, crayons, and coloring books. Yes, everything we owned was in a box!

Bert and Max came in the back door and gave all of us a hug. Bert picked up Ally and swung her around while Max reached for Anna and in one swift movement sat her on his broad shoulders so that her arms could reach the light fixture on the kitchen ceiling. When Ally reached her arms toward the ceiling, Bert lifted her up with one strong, muscled arm so that Ally touched the ceiling too. The girls squealed with delight!

Daddy hustled down the stairs and said hello to Max and Bert. He wanted to show them everything left upstairs in the bedrooms. While the adults were still talking about the boxes, Anna and Ally went to the little corner closet that Grandmommy had painted for them. Anna admired the beautiful little girl in the swing and traced the flowers with her index finger as if she were memorizing it in her mind. Anna loved her playroom as any five-year-old girl would. Designed especially for her, it was perfect!

Ally sang her rainbow song as she bounced in front of the brightly colored rainbow and sat under its arch. Anna closed the door and sat down with Ally thinking of all the wonderful times she had spent in this treasured corner closet of her playroom. Anna had imagined here, dreamed here, and pretended so many times that she was the girl in that garden swing with the parade of bunnies, turtles and frogs surrounding her in a magical land of make believe.

What a wonderful place to dream, a private garden in Anna's playroom just for her. Anna's heart felt so sentimental when she thought of leaving this treasured spot but she knew her imagination would be with her wherever she moved.

Mommy drove the Jeep and Daddy rode in the truck with Bert and Max. It was a long, long drive. Anna and Ally fell asleep in their car seats in the back seat while Mommy sang with the radio and her recorded music. It was dark when we finally got to Mamaw and Papaw's house. All of our family spent the night because we didn't have any beds set up in our new house yet. Anna and Ally played with the toys that Mamaw kept at her house.

Mamaw was actually our great grandmother. Yes, everyone agreed that Mamaw was great in every way! She laughed and was always happy when we were there! Mamaw cooked us any thing we wanted and always kept special treats for us in her kitchen. Mamaw did not care if we ate those treats on the couch or even in the bedroom. In fact, anything was always all right with Mamaw. She never got upset about anything we ever did. When Ally wanted to sleep in her tee shirt instead of her pajamas, Mamaw said it was fine, so we all slept in our tee shirts!

When we got to Mamaw's house, Anna and Ally decided that the move to Georgia was going to be a good thing! Yes, they would miss their corner playroom and those beautiful mountains and the swing on the front porch. They would certainly miss those cool stairs going up to their bedrooms but here, in Georgia, they would be close to all their family—Grandmommy and Pops, Uncle Brad, GranMom and GranDad, Mommy's cousins: Ben, Bert, Bret and Alisabeth, aunts, uncles and cousins but best of all, Mamaw and Papaw! Mamaw and Papaw even had a swimming pool! Yes, this move to Georgia was going to be a very good thing after all!

Chapter Two

Once upon a time, Grandmommy and Pops had a long talk about pets. Grandmommy made it very clear to Pops that she wanted a puppy. She had a fish aquarium with a few fish that she let us feed, but she wanted a puppy. When she went to get the mail, she said, "If I had a puppy, he could walk with me." When we visited at Grandmommy's house, we wanted to know what kind of puppy Grandmommy would get. Anna and Ally asked, "Will it be a Labrador retriever? Will it be a sheep dog? Or would it be a bulldog?"

Grandmommy was Mommy's mother. She was over the moon that we had moved back to Georgia. She thought she would get to see us every single day now that we were back in Georgia. And we did see her a lot, but not every day. She loved it when we visited. She loved it when we could spend the night. Grandmommy put a Murphy bed in the guest bedroom so we could fold it up in the wall and have more room to play, then, pull the bed down when we were ready to go to sleep. Mommy would never let us stay overnight on Anna's school nights. We couldn't stay on Saturday nights because we always had to wash our hair for church on Sundays, but sometimes on Friday nights we could stay up a little later and spend the night with Grandmommy.

At Christmas, Grandmommy and Uncle Brad had given Pops a kitten. Grandmommy thought the kitten was female and named it "Noel" because it was a Christmas gift. In January, Pops took Noel to the veterinarian for its shots and Dr. Rogers said it was not a girl but a boy kitten so Pops laughed at Grandmommy and changed his name to Leon. Leon is Noel spelled backwards. Pops is funny. He says funny things like if 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts, it would be a Merry Christmas!

Leon had grown into a rather large Siamese cat. He was certainly not the little lovable kitten that Grandmommy and Uncle Brad had given Pops at Christmas! In fact, Leon had an attitude and he did not even like...