Samantha's Play On! Weekend

The first weekend of Play On! this season we had 3 events, one of which was in Hamilton.  Scott and I were going down and we decided to take Samantha with us.  

A few days before the event, we found out there was a girls team that wanted to play in the tournament, but they didn't have a goalie.  The local operator called and asked if Samantha would be willing to fill in as goalie so the team could play.  She agreed.  

She drew up a practice schedule for her and Scott so that he could take shots on her and give her some tips in the final days leading up to the big day.  She was nervous about being goalie, and also about playing with a group of girls she had never met before. 

There were only 2 teams in this girls division, so it was the first to win 3 out of 5 games on the Saturday.  

Samantha did awesome.  They lost their first game, but won the next three.  And in the final game she got her first shut out as goalie!  

She was so excited to win her first Play On! Champion ship t-shirt and trophy.

She got to spend a lot of time with her two friends who had also come to the event, but didn't play on the team with her.  (Although one of them played against her!)

Here they were having fun inventing new flavours of Jelly Bellies.  Heaven help the poor souls who got duped into trying them.  I was not that brave, and not at all worried about offending the girls after all their work...   Let's be honest.   You can get away with pretty much anything when you're 9 months pregnant.

I was so glad to have Samantha at this event.  Not only did she have fun playing hockey on Saturday, but she spent the Friday working at Check In, and a lot of the weekend working as a rink monitor and scoreboard helper.  

Our hotel was right on site.  Literally.  But when I tried to get her to sleep in, she insisted on coming down with Scott and I at 6:00 AM.  She even wrote me reminder notes asking me to please wake her up so she could come down early.  And for those of you who know Samantha very well, that is saying a LOT!  

AND... when I went into labour on Sunday she helped time my contractions all the way home.  I love this girl!  She is so amazing and I don't know what I would do without her!