'tis the Season

The car park is full, the mall is packed, people are everywhere, carols are being played over the loudspeakers, Santa hats can be seen in the distance, ribbons, bows, papers and boxes are scattered around the bedroom floor....

CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

My favourite time of the year for sure! I just love the spirit, the atmosphere and the mood of it all!!! I'm doing my last bits of Christmas shopping today and then I'm all done for the big day!! THREE DAYS!!!

But lets not forget. Christmas is not a time for presents, fancy wrapping, songs, decorations or even food! It's about JESUS ! His name is even in the title; CHRISTmas!!!! I love everything to do with Christmas because it is the celebration of our God loving us so much that he literally came to earth to save us from death!

oh wow.

I haven't blogged since May. That's right, you heard correctly, no spellin errors here people. May! So much stuff has happened in my life since MAY!!! I don't even know where to start.... Well I have graduated year 12 with a high enough ATAR to get into the course I want to do!! (That's Primary Education at UC) and..... My skating has imporved heaps! Clare has beeen and gone to America (for three months) I have had fight after fight with my friends, and then remake after remake! I'm still working at the same old place (but thinking about a change since I'm not at school anymore) I've been to Melbourne, Alice Springs, Sydney twice, the Coast, Jamberoo and a million other places!! I have acquired my P's and a car, I have given up going to parties, then started going to them again and have recently decided (on Sunday) that I'm NOT going to them! It was all about compromise you see. And I need to find a way to break this to my friends.. I can tell you now they will NOT understand... But all I can do is pray.
Which brings me to "The God Factor" I like to call it that, it makes it sound important! Which it totally is!! Over these past seven months my life has been up and down, a constant battlefield with friends, family, work, school and other trivial things. But God is the one who has constantly been there for me! He always hears me, listens to me and understands me and I'm great full for every last drop of love he has shown me!!
So much has happened in my life that it's actually hard to remember..... A big thing coming up next week is CHRISTMAS!!!! It's pretty exciting!! And not because of the presents or the food or the tree or even the lights (although I do enjoy those!!) but because of the ATMOSPHERE!! I don't know about you but I sure do LOVE Christmas time and the mood and the whole scene of it all! And of course who can forget the reason for it all???? JESUS of course!! I mean would we be here if it weren't for him?? I don't think so!!! So that's why I love Christmas!! And of course what follows Christmas every year? the UPCA Conference! To which my sister and I are not allowed to attend as we go to the coast every year at the SAME TIME!! It is always an argumentative subject because my dad says we can go but mum doesn't. However, this year my mum told my sister and I that we can go to the coast at a DIFFERENT TIME!! Can you imagine how we felt?!?! AMAZED!! So we are all booked for conference and it's in Canberra this year which makes it easier (not to mention cheaper!) and the excitement is coming upon me! This Sunday night, as tradition in our church is the carols service! One of the services that I simply love!! Basically the choir sing a whole bunch of Christmas carols and it's just a great night had by all!! I remember last year I sang my first solo ever in church in the Christmas Carols service to "Silent Night". This year I'm singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and let me tell you it is a difficult song!!! and it's tomorrow night!!! I am stressing about it a tiny bit, I won't lie.... We had a choir rehearsal on Thursday night and Josh gave me some great advice but I'm still worried. But I've been praying like there is no tomorrow!! So it shall all turn out well. My friends are coming too... which is awesome!! The first time any of them have ever been to church!! (:

So that's me..... and I hope you can all read and relate!!
Stay blessed!!

-Brooke ox

bleurgh

I'm so bored right now!
So I though I would be awesome and write a blog :)
so yeh... nothing really is new... I had work just before... but yeh that was good!
skating tomorrow! I'm pretty excited for my friend Hana's party on saturday. (and
yes its only tuesday evening but STILL!)

MAN will someone PLEASE!!!! take me to Melbourne!!! PLEASE!!! I will
do ANYTHING!!! agh!!! I want to go soooo badly!!! I miss all the youth down there!!!!
I might be going to their conference in the holidays but thats AGES away!!! waaaah!!!
boo I want to go now!! >< agh. patience. anyway... so school... we might be getting our hoodies which is good (mine says "JESUS KID" on the back) :D I'm pretty excited but yeh! anyway... I should go!

Thanks for reading!!!

love you all!!!

God Bless,
-Brooke ox

skating school and other stuff

man... I really need to get some new ideas for my blog titles...
Anyway moving right along. I thought I would find the time to write a blog to tell everyone how happy I am that I just FINISHED MY RELIGION ASSIGNMENT!!!!! Man it was tough!! I thought, as I had the whole Easter break to do it, that I would get it done... turns out I didn't do it. At all. not one little bit... =\ which was BAD as it is due on friday... SO I decided, as it is wednesday today that I should atleast START it!!!! and I got half done at school in my three frees and the rest done after skating!! So thank goodness its all out of the way!!! *sigh*!!! Now all I have to do is sociology but thats not due for five weeks so I'm sure I'll be fine! plus I have ALL holidays to work on it... but yeh anyway!!! So thats all good and done and hopefully I will be able to hand in a draft tomorrow... although word on the street is that all the drafts are getting DESTROYED because they are so terribly, terribly wrong! so hopefully mine is a little better?

Yeh so... I had skating today. It was good. I learnt this new hing called pivots which are hard to explain but they look cool! Still super excited for my party!!! yay!! And Kevin fromt he skatin boutique said that my skates would be here in one week! woo!! I'm going to the rink on tuesday with some friends so they can get a little practice done before my party and Clare and I are meeting in woden so we can buy outfits so we have proper skating stuff. I'm pretty excited about that, it should be cool! OH and my skating tights, the ones that you put over the boots came int eh mail today! So I'm excited to try them on over my skates. That should be good :D so yeh basically all I'm talking about here is skating... but thats ok because I LOVE IT!!! and I have decided that my "Photo of the Post" will be a photo of my skates from the website where I ordered them! yay! Skating is so much fun! Although I totally had to miss the extra two hours of english today because I had skating... but that didnt matter because we were just doing orals and I'd already presented :) OH while I remember, I got my math results back... I go 62% which I think is pretty super :) (as last year I was barely making 50%!) and religion the in class i got 53% which is... Well I guess its ok... I knew I did bad on that though and im fairly confident with the assignmnet so that should boost me up a little :)

But yeh... I think that is all for now.... Untill next post!!! Thanks for reading!!

God Bless,
-Brooke ox

whoa whoa whoa like whoa !

hey there!

I know, I know, I have been quite slack! haven't posted for quite a while... but hey what can you do! I've had so many assignmnets!! I only have one which I really should be doing now buuutttt... meh it's due friday and I have all day Monday because it's EASTER!!!!!

So yeh I just got back from work! (Well... at 6...) but I'm still COVERED in smoothie!!!

Anyway.... what's been new with me... well.. OH MY BIRTHDAY!!!! Yeh it was my birthday last.. week? or the week before? no it was definately the week before :D but yeh so it was my 17th! And I got to school aaannndddd..... my friends forgot =\ yep. all but four of my friends. great. thanks guys! But the ones who DID remember; two of them gave me cake and flowers, one of them gave me a hug, and the other just said happy birthday lol! But yeh everyone said happy birthday when they realized haha. They blamed it on me not having facebook. I mean REALLY I dont have facebook and I seem to remember everyones birthday finre!!! But whatever!!! So yeh one of my goodest bestest (yeh I know that makes no sense) friends who actually DID remember was "sick" I mean it was my BIRTHDAY for petes sake! she could of atleast made effort!!! but hey I don't mind, I got a hug from my lover ha! jokes!! but... not joking... lol =\ ...? so yeh anyway, I went out to dinner that night and got like $60 yeew!! haha it was awesome!!! lol but yeh other than that... my birthday SUCKED. epically! but i dont mind too much! haha!

So yeh apart from that.... I made my party invites which are absolutely AMAZINGLY AWESOME!!! and I handed them all out... 25 people who can't skate on the rink... we chall see how this turns out... haha but yeh obviously me and Clare can skate and we'll be pro but its gonna be funny watching everyone else!! LOL!!

So yeh... YOUTH CAMP THIS WEEKEND!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS I'M SO SUPER DUPER OOBER RADICALLY EXCITED!!!!! and i dont even think oober is a word... =\ buuut... it is now!!!! LOL! yeh so excited for youth camp... lol :D

SO I have hereby decided that I am going to do a "Photo of the week" or "photo of the post" if i update more than once a week... lol so I shall upload my favourite photo :) Hope you all like it!!
OH CHURCH TOMORROW!!! how exciting!!! yeahah!!! Youth on friday was a communion service so that was good.. and the friday before was communion at then all the youth fasted that day so we went out to dinner that night and ate HEAPSSSS it was awesome!!! :D so yeh... lol! At youth on friday me and Josh had a massive D&M which was heaps good!!!! I needed it! And then Anthony, Esther and NAthan chased me around the church in the dark with golf clubs like serial killers =\ I mean... no... no they... didnt...? =\ yeh it was scary. I was scared. I hid upstair in the DARKEST room!!! and I could hear nathan coming up the stairs and he was making freaky noises! It was insane!! lol but it was all fun :D so yeh night well spent? I think YESH!!!!

SO yeh I should probably get going now... but yeh! have an amazing week!!! see you next time!! (not that I can see you... but yeh... =\)

(I totally forgot to add the photo so I had to come back...)

God Bless
-Brooke ox

p.s..... Photo of me and my brother as nerds!

BIRTHDAY!!!!

It's totally on Tuesday next week! Don't forget it!!! ;)

newnewnewnewnew =]

Ok so I had just finished writting this MASSIVE blog right? and then I realised I had written it in the wrong place so I backspaced it all and then published and I forgot to post it!!! GAH so I lost all my blog! That was like last week but at the time I was so angry that I couldn't be bothered to write it again!!

So anyway. I don't remember what that one was about... but basically the new stuff for me is... I had a religion in class that I thought was thursday the next week and it turned out it was the next day. Thanks teacher! and then I had an english in class the day after that, and then today I had a sociology in class! the religion one was terrible, don't even get me started! I waffled on about nothing for like four pages!! The english I think I did not bad for someone who hadn't read the book... I mean... I read it... And then sociology today was great! I think I did really well!!! Which was good! I would explain them but it would be so boring I would probably put you to sleep!!!

So what else is new... My back at the moment is REALLY killing me!!!! I don't know why it hurts so much but it has been for around.. two weeks now? My mum rubbed some voltarten into it which lasted about thristy minutes so I decided to buy the voltaren tablets, which I got a couple days ago and they are good, however you can only take them once every 8 hours!! Ohmygoodness I just said "however" in a blog post!!!! It's official!! I have been writting too many essays!!! Goodness!!!!

So yeh I had skating today. so that was a good end to the day but my feet are SO sore now! They don't normally get sore at all but today they killed!!!!! Probably because we learned heaps of new stuff I guess. We leanred one foot spins, kick jumps, crossovers and backwards bubbles. AND we made a routine which was awesome!! haha.

hmmm.... Oh I have a driving lesson tomorrow which is good. it's at 9:45 so I still get a bit of a sleep in before school :) which I am extreamely happy about! Last lesson we started up three point turns. I was a little worried but they are suprisingly easy which is good :) And I also got hill starts and strait reversing marked off!!! FINALLY!! OH and Rachel got her p's! yay! ow exciting for her!!!! =D

So I was feeling a little bad for some reason so I decided to write my school freinds letters saying I'm sorry for all the mean things I've ever said and done and that was pretty coche. Except Rachel didn't really get it which was annoying... But oh well at least I tried!!!!

I am still awaiting an email from Anthony about what youth is this friday... I am at a loss, I have NO idea what it is. Last week he didn't email me at all so I just turned up on the night with NO idea of what it was!!!! It was a little annoying but it was a great fun night anyway!!!

On Sunday after church I went back to Hannah's but we went to tuggertanong first and she had a really cool top and said it was onl $9.95 and that I should get it so we could match so I did =] And while I was there I saw this other cool top and a bag I really wanted so I went back on wednesday to get them =] I also bought a new wallet because mine ripped :( and some colourfull bows for my hair :) Bows are the BEST!!!

hm... so what else.... Oh I only got one shift this week! a two hour one on tuesday which was annoying but atleast I have the whole weekend free! which is good! So skyfire on saturday night hopefully. So that should be good =] although I have a slight suspision my friends will be drinking... which is not cool... but yeh anyway, it will be a good night for those who can remember it =] we're planning a picnick of some description... so it should be fun!!! I think I will have to wear something warm though! like tights under my skirt and a cardigan or even a hoodie! because I went to some kind of fireworks last year and it was FREEZING!!!!! It was crazy! so definately one pair of tights, if not too haha!!! But I'm thinking maybe my new pink top and possibly grey skirt? I haven't put too much effort into thinking about it yet. But what I do know is I'm keeping myself free saturday day so that I can finish... and start my english oral! Well I' ll start it tomorrow afternoon and then if I don't finish it then, I'll do it saturday and I HAVE to get it done saturday! Because I don't want to worry about it during the week! I'd start it right now only;
a) I'm blogging, and
b) I left teh sheet at school and the intranet is down =[

DUDE whilst I remember, we watched the GROSSEST video in biology!!! It was like about the circulatory system and they had this dead naked guy on the table and they cut him open an took his heart and lungs and stuff out!!! (this bit didn't affect me, as I have seen my share off gore-movies, but he was NAKED!! and OLD!!! it was WRONG)....

but yeh... So I am thinking that is all I have to say for now.... except that AJ is putting all his Relient K onto my usb (so I am now usb-less) so I can have some more music to listen too!! Which should be good!!! Oh and also, we had a meshing test in amths. Like a test fll of hard questions so they can compare apps people with specialist and methods. I got 15 out of 50. epic. fail. Although my other friend got nine so in that respect I didn't do too badly at all.... So I am thinking, due to the massive amount of pain in myself (back and feet and arm from where Jason punched me three times the rat!!!!) I will attepmt to nibble my dinner and then scurry off to bed! And yes, it is only 8:30. But I don't care because I am cool and have been having quite the number of late nights recently! haha so yesh, thankyou muchly for reading!!!

God Bless!
-Brooke ox

Recentssss =D

Sorry I have not been on in quite a while...

I was just updating the Sunday School blog when I thought I should probably do mine too!
If you haven't already read the Sunday School one, go do it now! It's awesome!!! "ccsundayschool" is the name so go look it up :D (If that doesn't work, just look for "calvay chapel sunday school")

So what's been happening in my life recently.... I have no assignments at the moment... and I was hanging out watching a preaching the other day when I heard a line from it that said "Addictions are bad" and it really had nothing to do with what Wayne Francis was talking about but then I remembered that last year someone said to me "You're so addicted to facebook" and you know I just laughed it off at the time, but when I was watching it it really hit home. I had been debating whether or not to get rid of my facebook for a while, or at least to fast it for some time, but after that preaching the first thing I did was get on that computer and delete it! I thought it would be hard but it was actually really easy! So praise God that I have overcome my addiction!

Another testimony I would like to share, that may seem small to some but really was HUGE to me! I have been praying for over a year that could be a Praise Singer, and I was beginning to think that God just didn't want me to be one, so I was debating whether or not to just forget about it, but then, right out of the blue Chelsea tells me that I'm singing on platform that night. I thought she was kidding because we were talking about my throat (I had NO voice at the time, I was practically weezing) and Chelsea's all like "well you're singing tonight so rest that voice!" and I was like "Oh yeh right, I wish!" and then Hannah called me over and was like "You're singing tonight" and I knew she was telling the truth and I just cried! I thanked God so much because I had been praying for so long and I thought that I wasn't good enough but then, right when I'm about to give up, my prayer is answered. It's like that old saying goes, "When you're down to nothing, God's up to something" It was awesome!! So yeh I'm a praise singing now! It's GREAT!!!

Also, I was going through a bit of a rough patch a couple weeks ago. It was because I was stressing over this.. boy (I know right! how silly!) And I was thinking that I wasn't good enough for anything because he didn't like me (I know, silly) and I was just tripping and I was pretty down, but then at altar call one night, God really spoke to me and told me how much he loves me and I just felt so amazing!

So that's what's been happening with me recently :D

Today was moderation day and all the tertiary students had to go to school for two and a half hours to take a practice AST. We had to write a 600 word essay about Capital Punishment. It was pretty easy and I finished with like an hour to go!!! After that I went to the mall with Sam, Hannah A, Beck and Michael (who was just tagging along for a lift to the mall) and we had lunch and went to the movies to see Valentines Day! Except half weay through the movie work calls me and is all like "where are you?" and I'm like "I start at four?" and they're like "No. three" so I had to leave!! I was quite upset but hopefully I can go back and see it tomorrow! I really want to see the end!!! =D

Swimming carnival is tomorrow!! I don't plan on actually swimming but I am wearing green =D I'm wearing my green T-shirt that I wear ALL the time, my green hockey skirt and my sisters borrowed green tights (obviously I'm in the green house!) haha =D

So hopefully that will be good! OH I almost forgot!! News!!!!!! Me and Clare are taking up FIGURE SKATING!!!!!! I'm so excited!!! My fisrt lessong in on thursday! YAY!!! and I have a driving lesson thursday morning =D so hopefully that goes well! Fingers crossed! =D

OOOOH and it's 21 days until my birthday!... not that I'm counting or anything...

Anyway, mum has called me like twenty times for dinner! Hope you enjoyed reading!!

God Bless,
-Brooke ox

Schoooool

I haven't been on in ages because I have been quite busy with school work :(

year 12 is quite annoying! I got an assignment on the FIRST DAY!
so lame but I finished it already and got my draft back and like fixed it up and so that's all good :)

So yeh, school is boring old school and that's all for now :D

God Bless
- Brooke ox

Youth :)

As promised, the blog about youth :D

Our Youth group is called "Wildfire" and is for all highschool kids.. I'm not actually in Wildfire, I'm in senior youth but I'm on the committee so I can go anyway =D

We do lots of crazy stuff and are always laughing and going out :)
Some of the main members of our Youth Group are: (last yea, the older ones have moved up)

Hannah
Chelsea
Bethany
Kate
Esther
Clare
Joel
Nathan
Jordan
Moriah
and Me!

And of course there is our Youth leader - Anthony, and the Youth Coordinators - Ruth and Josh =D AND the Youth Superintendent of the whole of AUSTRALIA! - Jono

Youth for this year is in planning and I am REALLY excited about what 2010 holds!
Our fist activity for the year is a Youth Service and all the music is done by members of the youth :) Services are like my favourite kind of Youth activity because they really get the younger ones involved in worship, which I think is great and important! Each member of our Youth is amazing and has such great Potential and I believe that they will continue to grow stronger througout the year :)

God Bless
-Brooke ox

My Friends =D

Hey all,

I decided to take this time to talk about my amazing wonderful friends =D

Well I already told you about Hannah, She is amazingly awesome and wonderful and my BEST friend like.. eveeerrrr!!!
This picture is of me and Hannah being our silly selves :p haha





The there's all my RADICAL schoolies friends who I CANNOT live without!!!
So in NO particular order:








JADE!
Otherwise known as Jados, Jadneilla, Caramel, or (to her dismay) Gappy ;) ( sorry, HAD to do it!!)
She is amazing and I LOVE her veerrrrrry much!!!
This picture is us posing like we do SO WELL haha!!






RACHEL!
Otherwise know as Rachnilla, Vanilla or whatever else we can throw at her! This photo is one of my favourites! Rachel is amazing and always knows how to make me laugh!! haha!!








SAM!
Otherwise known as Swarley, Sambo, Samdog and many other things that I cannot possibly list because the number is so large!! haha
This picture was taken at Sams party :D




















HANA!
Yes I have two friends called Hannah but to make it less confusing I spell Hannah from school like "Hana" haha :D so yeh, Hana is awesome and I lover her!! we always watch movies together and sit around doing nothing which we are BOTH quite good at!! haha =D (this photo is soooo old!! but its the only one I could find of JUST us!)










JASON!
otherwis known as Jaycoon, coon, Jew, Jewson.. many different names =D
Jason is like THE funniest person I know and always knows how to make me laugh!! =D haha
this is a pretty shocking photo bu OH WELL haha














BEC!
Otherwise known as Beccers =D
She drive me like EVERYWHERE and absolutely KILLS me at eye toy!! haha AND singstar.. but she is still amazing and I love her! =D
(This photo is sooo old but its one of Becs favourites)












Well that pretty much sums up most of my friends.. except youth, but I'm saving a whole other blog for those special ones :D haha

God Bless
-Brooke ox

Sis Wehledge and Halie Adkins visit

On the weekend.. The 23rd - 24th Sister Wehledge and Halie Adkins came to visit our Church with their AWESOME childrens puppet Ministry! On the Saturday was the seminar for Sunday School teachers, where Mel made me do actions in front of everyone :p (THANKS MEL!). The Seminar was REALLY good and I learned sooo much! Mel and I were actually discussing getting a puppet for my class! How cool is that! haha anyway, the next morning was the puppet service and it was amazing! I'm fair sure everyone who left had "Ba ba ba, ba ba, we're lambs" stuck in their head!

The evening service was separated with Childrens Church out the back and it was pretty good =D Kids on the Rock did an excellent job learning and performing their new songs =D


Photo's and video's up soon!.. If I can figure out how to do that... :p haha


God Bless
-Brooke ox

First Blog! =D

Well I don't exactly know how many people will be reading this.. or how it works.. :s
haha But basically this is just going to be like a place where I can just share my day/
stories and stuff :) Hopefully this will be inspirational to some :)

Well.. I guess I'll start with me..
My name is Brooke, hence the URL and user name :p
I'm in year 12 this year and kind of dreading it...
I am part or UPC which is United Pentecostal Churches :)
I absolutely LOVE Jesus with ALL my heart!!

I haven't always been a Christian. I guess it all started when my Dad met Jeanette (his now wife)
and swhe brought him to Church. I instantly fell in love with this place as soon as I went! It was GREAT! I received the Holy Ghost when I was in year 7.. so 11 years old? And I was baptized in 2007, when I was 13 or 14 years old.

My life has been MUCH better since I devoted my life to Christ. I used to just be what people call a "Casual Christian" which I guess was just coming to Church on Sundays. I used to feel so uninvolved in everything, like there was nothing in the Church for me to do. All my friends had some kind of roll, be it sound, singing, music ministry etc. and I was kind of just.. there.
But since my baptism, God has blessed me SO much! I have found that I am involved in SO much! and I absolutely love it! I am currently in the Church Choir, I help run the Children's Choir (Kids on the rock - they're so CUTE!), I am a Sunday School teacher for the Pre-School class (aged 3-5) and absolutely love all my little ones! I am on the youth committee, and hope to one day be the Youth Leader :)

Umm I guess I should put some of my interests? I don't really know how blogs work, so I'll read some and find out.. I think that they're just like diary's? (correct me if I'm wrong), but I will just keep the first one about me and stuff, and the rest can be a follow on of day-to-day kind of stuff.. :)

So yeh, I really love music! I can play piano and I hope to learn guitar too! I also sing, and I REALLY want to be a Praise Singer in church so I can bless God with the gift his has given me :)
Some of my favourite bands/music groups are Casting Crowns, Hillsong, Owl City, All Time Low (I only know a couple songs), Relient K, Brooke Fraser, and stuff like that.. It's really all over the place :S I huess I'm not bound to one genre but enjoy all sorts :) I definately prefer Christian Music! it's pretty much ALL I listen to, bar the odd song from Owl City (Fireflies and Vanilla Twilight) and All Time Low (Dear Maria and Break Your Little Heart).

Ok so on to other things...
My BEST friend in the WHOLE WORLD (next to Jesus ofcourse!) is Hannah :) she is so amazingly superly awesome and I love her very much! I know I am not always the nicest person in the world to be around but she still sticks by me! We have been through so much together and I look forward to this year! (one of my resolutions was actually to start a blog, so I guess I can check that one off my list then! ha!)

So yeh.. This might do it for this blog... hopefully some people read it (thankyou for reading this byt he way!) and yeh... I guess I will keep updated :)

God Bless!

-Brooke ox