Grampy's Bweet Potato Casserole

Hi Sofie,

Have you ever been wide awake when you were supposed to be sleeping?

That's how Grampy was last night. Actually it was very early this morning, and he could not sleep at all!

So he went downstairs to the kitchen and scooped out the giant sweet potatoes he had baked last night. He mashed them up and put some unusual stuff in them, like a blurp of maple syrup.

(Blurp is a word I just made up by mixing slurp and burp. Do you like to make up words, too?)

This morning, I found Grampy cutting up beets into little squillars (square pillars, of course) and poking them into the dish of sweet potatoes.





He put it in the oven on 350º for about an hour.

Poor Grampy! When it was time to go have Thanksgiving dinner with the Marchands, he was too hoozy (hot + woozy) to go. (It was not something contagious he had, just some medicine that makes him hoozy for a few days.)

So Sonnie and I took Grampy's bweet potato casserole to share with Pam, Ed, Kerrie, Lars, Dean, Amy, Robert, and Bender. Bender sat, shook hands, twirled left and right, and rolled over for his food.

We were happy that Amy and Robert did not leave Bender home! He gave us excellent clues under the table while we played Pictionary.

Someday Bender will meet Grampy and show him a few more tricks!

Love,
Grammy & Grampy

Stop the Clock!

Dear Sofie,

Before this year ends, I must stop the clock to tell you about October. It was such a busy month, that I never got time to tell you about it. And now, November is nearly gone, too.

Today is Thanksgiving, a very good day to tell you about Sonnie and Alvin. Our friend, Connie Grosch, a photographer and reporter at the Providence Journal wrote this story about them. It was published November 3, 2008, and the title was "Love Stories: Sonnie Kpangbai and Alvin Johnson."

We will put the whole story here, because someday you will be old enough to read it just the way Connie wrote it:

Sonnie Kpangbai and Alvin Johnson have been separated for 8 of the 10 years they’ve known each other, living 4,400 miles apart — Sonnie in Providence, Alvin in Monrovia, Liberia — with limited possibilities for travel.

Sonnie and Alvin met in Liberia during the country’s 14 years of civil war. “The war turned the country upside down,” says Sonnie. She lived with family in Monrovia, the capital, where a lot of displaced people ended up during the war.

“I was 12 when I was separated from my mother,” says Sonnie, now 31. “I had to make every decision on my own. I got involved with youth activities at my church and school. I knew exactly what I wanted.”

Alvin and his mother and sister moved into her neighborhood in Monrovia. “I opened a lemonade stand a block away from his house so that I could know him better. Everyone in the neighborhood had such high regard for Alvin. He was a nice gentleman. It was said of him: ‘Alvin is one of the quiet men. He doesn’t get himself into debt. He doesn’t have too many girlfriends.’

“He was the Mr. Right so I went after him. From my lemonade stand, I would see him coming and going. He would ask me about my business, acting like he was interested in that.”

Alvin was in his second year at the University of Liberia in Monrovia. “I had been struggling to find somebody who would really meet my tastes,” says Alvin.

“He had a long list,” says Sonnie, laughing.

Then Sonnie left Liberia. She went to New York, working with an international summer youth program for the YMCA. She told Alvin, “If it is meant to be, it will be, and if not we will go our separate ways.”

Sonnie stayed in the United States longer than anticipated. She went from New York to Springfield, Mo., then back to New York before settling in Providence. For an entire year, the two did not talk or e-mail. “Another phase of the war had started and there was no way to communicate. But I had made a commitment to him.”

In Liberia, Alvin worked for the Central Bank of Liberia as a researcher in economics. “When I started working at the bank they all wanted to see me in a relationship — married. I lived with my mother. I would say: ‘I have a fiancée in America but she won’t be there forever. She will finish her school and then come back home.’

“Whenever I was feeling bad, thinking why am I doing this? This is crazy. I need to get my life going. Whenever these feelings came — sometimes even while I’m thinking them — my phone rings and it’s Sonnie. I would realize how glued I was to her.”

Alvin came to visit Sonnie in 2005. Still with the bank, he was sent to the United States for a six-week training program. “Our relationship had happened on the phone and by e-mail, so there was some skepticism on my part. We had been apart so long.

“When I came here, people were all coming to meet me because they didn’t believe I really existed.”

“All along I talked about Alvin, but ‘Where is Alvin?’ they always asked. And ‘Alvin lives in Liberia and you haven’t seen him in five years?’ Nobody wants to believe me!”

Sonnie and Alvin didn’t plan to get married now. “We thought we would plan a wedding when I finished school and got a job, but then he got this vacation.”

“To get from Liberia to here is not so easy,” says Alvin.

The Mathewson Street United Methodist Church has become a big part of Sonnie’s life in Providence. A group of women there — Sonnie calls them her wedding crew — joined forces to plan a big wedding for the couple. “We were going to have a very simple wedding. We couldn’t afford anything more and didn’t need anything more. I’m not going to have a big wedding when I have tuition to pay!” Sonnie has worked three jobs at times to save money for her tuition, first at the Community College of Rhode Island, and now at Rhode Island College, where she’s majoring in education.

“But five very strong committed women met at my house and from that meeting on they all knew what they were going to do.”

About 200 guests, including friends and professors from school, were invited to the ceremony Oct. 25. A potluck dinner was served in the church’s fellowship hall. Alvin, 36, hoped to stay in the United States for two weeks. “Everyone’s coming to meet Alvin to make sure he is real!”

“My professors say, ‘We hope you’re not taking Sonnie away.’ ”

“Everyone tells me: you can marry her but you can’t carry her! This is not an obstacle. We get married, she finishes school, then we talk more.

“Of course it makes me sad to go back but those are the conditions right now and I accept that. It makes me feel good to go home a married man. Somehow we will make our way. God would not have us get married only to be separated forever.”

Postscript: Alvin was forced to leave three days after the wedding. His grandfather died in Liberia Oct. 19, and his mother died the day after his wedding. He hopes to return to see Sonnie graduate from RIC in May.

cgrosch@projo.com

Sonnie took this picture of Connie visiting them. (You may not be able to see it from there, but if you click on this picture, you will discover that Sonnie has several pictures of you right there on her mantle!)



Sonnie and Alvin's wedding had dancing.



And a bird who played bells.



And a gorilla named Koko who played the organ.



(Auntie Kerrie and Uncle Lars giggled!)



It was a very happy day!



Sonnie and Alvin have an adopted daughter named Serena who lives in Liberia. She is 10 years old. We hope she and Alvin will come to Providence in time for Sonnie's graduation from college in May!

Love,
Grammy & Grampy

A long, long, long time ago ...

Dear Sofie,

You will never guess what Grampy found between our doors this morning. It was a huge birthday card, so big that it could not fit through our mail slot. That's why we did not find it until Grampy opened the front door today.

It was big enough to hold a whole orchestra playing the theme from Star Wars!

When Grampy opened it, I heard it all the way upstairs!

"That sounds like a birthday card!" I called down to him.

But Grampy didn't hear me, because he was laughing too hard.

Do you know what he told me? "Sofie put those wild animal stickers in just the right places. And her handwriting is already better than mine!"



Thanks to you, Mommy and Daddy for that happy surprise.

Love,
Grammy & Grampy

President Obama!

Dear Sofie,

Our country has just made history electing a remarkable leader as president, and you are the first person we are thinking of. We believe this means your future will be affected in many good ways.

We will soon hear the acceptance speech of President-elect Barack Obama. (His two little girls are staying up very late tonight!) We have so often been moved by his wisdom and his capacity to unite people.

Someday we think you will be a good leader, too!

Love,
Grammy and Grampy