We had a red-eye flight to California. When we arrived, the initial thing on our list was to go to the amusement park Knott's Berry Farm. My dad, who is also the coach, said to me, "If you don't sleep on the plane, you can't go to Knott's Berry Farm." After that remark, I slept like a baby so I could go. That was one thing I will always remember.

The hotel we lodged in had palm trees surrounding the outdoor swimming pool. I shared a room with three other girls: Shannon, Erin, and my sister, Kristi. Our room was always messy. Clothing was strewn everywhere, mixed in with food scraps. On the penultimate day, the maid did not clean our room because it was so disorderly. The only times the room was clean were our arrival and departure.

We had to win a number of games in order to get to the semi-finals. Those were called the preliminaries. Our team had to play five other teams. We lost to a team named Cal Selects, but fortunately, we won all of our other games. Now we were in the semi-finals in which we had to play a team called the Lady Ducks. We went into double overtime, and then we scored the winning goal.

There was a skills competition where we had to show our different skills such as goaltending, speed, shooting accuracy, and taking breakaway shots. Our goalie, Brittany, was competing by trying to stop all the shots taken on her goal, while the other teams had people shoot on her for the breakaways. She saved the most shots, so she got a prize. Kristi, Shannon, and Cari all took shots on other goalies. Out of five shots, Kristi and Shannon both got three. Unfortunately, another person got more than them, so they did not get prizes. For the speed competition, we had to skate around the rink once. We lost that one, too. Then we also lost the shot accuracy competition, where we tried to hit four foam circles in each corner with eight pucks.

Finally the championship game came. This was the key reason we came to California, and we had made it! The game was against the Cal Selects. They are the best team in California, because they picked really good people from all over to make up the team. In the first period, they scored a goal. After that, our playing went downhill. Some people were trying as if there was no tomorrow, but it still ended up 6 to 1, our loss. We were so disappointed that some of us even cried. It was fun while it lasted, and I will cherish it always.

Edited for content.