Old Photographs and For Now Forts

 11.30.2025

Today, while talking to Kate I stumbled upon her old blog from when we taught there... oh so long ago (before our teaching in Iowa, before our home, before our kids). Kate and I started to laugh about the past, and then Eli came up to us. 

"What are you laughing about?"

So Kate had Eli read about a time she taught in Korea where her teaching materials focused on a young girl with ice cream cones on her shirt. We had a good laugh. 

The thing is... we walked away, and Eli kept reading. 

I love that he was learning about our former lives. I imagine he marveled at the moment. I know I did.

I hope he learns writing is a safe place for him to process. 

-Also, today the kids had a "snowball fight" at Bernard's. Really Eli kept sliding down a hill and Leo... well got into aggressive tossing of powder (?). It was a riot. We came home, and they built a fort in the living room. Totally unprompted. They cuddled together while listening to a podcast. 

It was so sweet. 

Kate's a creator. Tonight, even while sick, she bent over and brushed paint upon blank shirts. We're celebrating the closure of an entertaining chapter of our lives. The series FINALE of LOST. Tomorrow we will smile with Dharma wine, and be clad in our Dharma gear. It's a party of sorts to be spent with two close friends. So here soon approaches the end. Thank you LOST. You've been quite kind to us.

Memories of day one

One month down. A month in Korea and here are my day one thoughts: Anticipation builds as we descend upon Korea. Thoughts flood: What will our jobs be like? How about our apartment? Will we have community like we did in Ames? Will our lives continually be chapters like this, leaving and coming home, then leaving again, continually making new homes? Will we be lost here? How do we find a church? Woah look at all those lights. I wish we could have seen the sun set from up here. da daa da daa da daa it goes on and on. At times the anxiety turns into exhaustion till the mind goes blank. Let's grab our bags and go find someone holding up our name. I've always seen this but never experienced it. You know, you get off the plane and silent watchers hold a big piece of white paper with a name on it. It's cool to finally be in that club. We spot our names. ok. You're Kate's coworker. cool. mine? oh she can't make it. she has children back home she needs to get to. that's ok. What? we're the only foreign teacher in our school. huh? we'll probably be lonely because people are intimidated to talk english. really so our school is really poor and some students might not know the alphabet. I go from analyzing the scarlet letter to the alphabet. wow. will we ever fin our place? oh you want us to pay for the taxi? oh my what is that? yuck. mold. what have we gotten ourselves into.

To remember: A list of joy

Yes yes, I still have not said anything about Korea. I will get to that. Don't worry. But for now... Iowa Things I want to remember: Mom and Ricky visiting. The Two Year Old Birthday Bash with jumping castle and all. Ricky talking politics. Robert loving on his girls. Mom and Ricky's enormous generosity. The generosity of my past coworkers. (past...gosh that makes me sad). Food and Bev on Batista's porch. Jeff being called the most luke warm conservative Sam had ever seen. Jeff and Olde Main. (Wow. Port Barrel Pilsner) Batista's laugh. the carpool. The Iowa State Fair with Steven and Kim. Glorious sucker punch me in the gut food. Rain, oh how it rained. Running blind in the rain. Minneapolis with Adam and Kara. Dancing with people far too young in the same vicinity. Old Mexican man dancing up on Kara. Trivia Night. Kara's coworkers. Solidarity... always Stopping by to see Alison. Fruit salad. Alison's set up blind date. How she tells a story. How Kate feels around her. Goodbye to great grandma Our goodbye party with friends: The distance they traveled. Steve dropping his rap on Josh McCabe. Mikael on a motorcycle. Bonfire. Wedding Fireworks. Steve prepping the grill. Burgers. --sleep Goodbyes. Goodbyes. Goodbyes.

Farewells pt. 1

Emotions. They are weird and can creep a guy out. I went into this thing (moving across the world) with avoidance behavior. It is much easier to distract yourself with a checklist of duties than it is to consider goodbye. I found myslef working in the basement tyring to fix the flood problem, rather than soaking in my time with the Schmidts. What are you doing with your your stuff for a year? Yes, we are storing it at Kate's folks home in their basement. Wait, didn't you just say flood. Yes Flood. That fickle endless seeping in and " you're never gonna git rid o' me" freaking flood. More than half of our belongings are stacked there and the other half was waiting in the garage. However it couldn't be moved until that putrid water was tossed out. That was my job. The water sucker upper. So hours upon hours and gallons upon gallons were spent there. The whole time I'm just concentrating on doing the job, while in the back of my mind is "you're really leaving. This is going to be hard. You're going to miss out on too much" But truly it was just back there somewhere waiting to gush up and show itself whenever it felt convenient. Now see I longed to see all the friends and family I could, but I never new which time would truly be goodbye. We couldn't have plane tickets until we had our visas so our goodbye's felt iffy. There were plenty of "goodbye maybes" and "don't worry we'll be back" (even though we are beginning to hate all the driving). People we didn't get to say truly bye to: Dad, Halls, Halls, my old co-workers, our church, Webbs, and more. Goodbye wasn't real until the end. Kate and I just kept getting kicked in the face. Out of nowhere sorrow would rush over us. It didn't totally hit me with my family. It did, but we Engelkes can hide pretty well. But there is a deep love and concern that needs to be acknowledged. My brother, who I see rarely, came and visited us two days in a row. TWO DAYS IN A ROW!! Not only that, but we had a really good farewell party. Pat hosted and it was splendid. Jen, Greg and Holly, Joe and Rosie, Lisa brought her little ones, Conner, Grandpa, Grandma, Jon, April and the girls. Our family has been seeing each other more than twice a year and it's been really nice. Honestly when I was younger, I felt awkward around my family. Mainly because I felt we were like strangers. But now, now it is incredible. Olivia and Aliyah really bring people together too. When we visit those girls, everyone is happy. So much joy comes about simply because of them. I'm a bit sad I won't get to see all these faces for a while. Our connection to April has become so strong. Our thougts continually resonate. Who knew me getting married would increase my friendship with my sister? She is a tremendous blessing to us. We will miss her dearly. I will say more on farewells later. There are the grandmas I must write about as well as our little going away shindig. And yes I know I haven't blogged about Korea. I will get on this. Future Thoughts: encouragement God in all this night one day one our jobs

Tennessee smiles greet these eager dreams

Yuppers. Momma and Black Daddy are here! We love seeing them play with the girls. These girls have brought so much delight to our life, and it's about time they got to have their grandma in their life. Seeing mom light up while playing with the girls makes me wonder what our parents were like with us when we were babes. Did they act goofy and make funny sounds? How'd they dress us? Were people over all the time to play and help out? How often did they read to us? How often did they teach us to walk? How often, How often, How often...? Life was a lot of sitting. When we got antsy, we went shopping or eating. I tend to get antsy while shopping, so it doesn't really help. So I tell you, the amount of meat I ate could feed a starving lion for weeks. ok ok, maybe not that much meat, but you get the idea. and UGH it was soo good. Like we don't get his everyday in Iowa good. (although Kate is from an Angus farm, so maybe I do) But the barbeque. oh the barbeque. That's what we did. we grilled and grilled and grilled. So yes, we love Ricky. Not solely for his food cooking abilities (but they are a nice touch). But the energy, the incoherent thought patterns, the orange soda too early for anyone, the hooping, the "I just got to get this done, I can't take it anymore" attitude, the "your mom has changed my life" man that he is. He's a blessing and a great addition to the family. Yes this week was about Penny and Ricky. Or was it? It was about those baby Byrds.

blessings have dripped and fears will cease

my scrambled brain fights fears of forgetting, "inadequacy", antsiness, and flat out laziness. life will be recorded. it must. i must seek this life as well. this abundant heaven breaking in life. fears consist of: imperfection of words (can they be perfect?) forgetting summer not acquiring a teaching job moving the cost of moving: friends, family, possessions, stuff... Summer has already contained numerous blessings: weddings, nieces, dancing, dinners, foot washing, meals and meals, pitchers and pints, cloves, smiles, family, omaha, zoos, fixed gears, allison, a space trilogy, dollar slices, chillin, oscar, cuddles, the cafe, grillin, tropical snow, a batting cage, freckles, coffee, the wii, peterson pits, CAthey, both Halls, of course the Cox's, amazing parents, car alignment, outdoor music on main, buzzed bike riding (i hope there's more. don't tell Kate's folks..shhhh...), and obviously this list will go on and on. may it not stop here. my brain has been helped. but i don't quite believe it when i feel my foot racing here.