We are so proud of Kory who turns thirteen in just one week! We will miss his actual birthday, so we’ve been celebrating this week. Here he is at the end of a treasure hunt last Saturday where he found (in Kayla’s garden house) a new inflatable kayak.

On Tuesday Kory invited 4 friends to go to a local athletic club and spend 2 hours in their rock wall room. The six boys had the room all to themselves since they are all homeschoolers and were able to go in the morning.

Dustin, Kory, Cooper, Cody, Mark and Mike.

They had two “belayers” helping them, and if they weren’t “on belay” they were only allowed to climb up to a certain height.

Cooper has been complaining all week of sore forearms, back and neck – I think I know why!Then the boys came home and made “hobo dinners” on a campfire in our backyard. They wrapped ground beef patties, carrots, potatoes, onions, butter, salt, and pepper in a foil pouch and laid them on the coals. A short while later they were able to dig in with a cream soda and root beer toast! Kory requested an ice cream cake. With inspiration from my friends Betsy, I crushed rice square cereal with gluten free chocolate chip cookies and a few tablespoons of butter to make a crust. (Bake 15 min @ 350) Then I spread softened vanilla ice cream on top of the cooled crust and chocolate syrup on top of that. I let that layer freeze for a while and then spread chocolate ice cream with a topping of more crust crumbs and drizzled chocolate syrup on top. It was a big hit!

We’re also proud of Kory’s efforts to complete the Quest that we challenged him to on his 12th birthday. His woodworking project was a bookshelf – it needs one more coat of paint (hunter green) and he’ll be all done.

His sewing project was a pair of flannel pajama pants. He did a great job on these and wore them all winter.

And he completed a 5K race in December in 27 degree weather! I enjoyed training and running it with him and lately he’s been asking that we run another to get him ready for all of the running he’ll have to do once football starts in August.

Other things Kory completed were:
a 5 mile hike (round trip) to the summit of Mt. Toby
leading a week of family devotions – he chose the topic of prayer
played a Christmas carol at our Christmas Eve Service
NavPress Design for Discipleship Bible study guides

And read the following books:
More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris
Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris
Master Plan For Evangelism by Robert E. Coleman
The Unaborted Socrates by Peter Kreeft
The Kneeling Christian by an Unknown Christian

And yet to complete:
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges
Memorizing Apostle’s Creed
Familiarizing self with Westminster Catechism ( a little work done here)
Service Project (Had one lined up that didn’t work out)

Also, we asked the men who had met with him on his 12th birthday to follow up with one-on-one time as he turns thirteen. He’s spent time with two of these men over breakfast, hiking, and getting to be a helper at a high school base ball game. We’re so thankful for the role models he has. Kory is a great kid and blesses our family continuously with his maturity and service.