My favorite thing I did over Christmas break was go to the State Cheer Championship in Hot Springs. We loaded the bus at 8 o’clock in the morning and started our 6 hour journey. We arrived in Hot Springs around 1 p.m and ate lunch at a nearby Subway. When we finished eating we went to our hotel, The Embassy, and unpacked all of our luggage. We had a 3 o’clock practice with our choreographer Brian so we immediately got dressed in our t-shirts and shorts and loaded the bus once again. When we got to his gym we stretched and ran our routine a couple times through. I’d say that practice went pretty well. We went back to the hotel to get all dressed up for our cheer family dinner at Outback. We waited in line for a while, got our seats and then ordered our food. After we ate we went back to our hotel to get ready for our christmas party. I was roomed with Casey, Marlana, and Lexie. We got our presents and went next door to our coaches room. We all sat in a circle so we could open presents one by one. My cheer brother was Ty so I went first. After everyone had opened their gifts from their cheer brother or sister we all dispersed and went to lounge around the hotel. At 11 o’clock pm we went back to our rooms to shower and get ready for the big day tomorrow. We were supposed to wake up at 6:30, but we woke up late at 7:15 so we skipped breakfast and had to hurry up and get ready to compete. At 8 o’clock we were in her room with our bags packed ready to go. Since it was pouring rain outside we ran to the convention center trying not to get our hair and makeup wet. We arrived at the enormous arena and started stretching. We went into the warm up room and waited our turn. We gave each other motivational pep talks trying to stay positive no matter what happened in warm up. We had 6 minutes to warm up our stunts and tumbling. Our warm up went fairly good since we hit everything pretty sturdy. After warm ups we went to wait behind the curtain. Knowing that the stands were full of people and the judges were waiting anxiously with your score sheets is the most nerve wracking part. They announced our team so we ran out from behind the tall black curtains and smiled as we took our spots on the mat. We waited nervously until we heard our music blasting so loud that it made me dizzy. We started with tumbling and then made our way to stunts which we all hit proudly. We then went to jumps and then started our cheer which was the best part. We went to our pyramid and ended strongly with our dance. After our performance we exited the mat we all jumped up and down because thats the best we have ever done. We all reassured each other that everything hit and that no matter what happens we did the best to our ability. We were happy with how our performance turned out. We walked around and watched other teams while we waited excitedly for awards. When that time came all the teams gathered on the mat and held hands hoping that they would win. We clapped for all of the other teams that won in their division. When they started to announce runner up for our division we all held our breaths. We had never wanted something so bad. We all knew in our minds that West Fork would get either second place or first place because they had done so well. So when he announced that Maumel had got state runner up our hearts dropped immediately, because we knew West Fork would place. He started to announce state champions so we all put our heads down and squeezed hands, we didn’t expect to win. When he announced that Pea Ridge had won we all jumped up and started crying because we worked so hard and we wanted it so bad. Winning state is an indescribable feeling and I’d say it made my break absolutely amazing.