"i am dreaming"

Last night.. got SOO close to becoming lucid for my first time. It was weird though cuz I haven't even been keeping up with this site, or doing any little tricks to help become aware that I'm dreaming. I'd pretty much given up a couple weeks ago.. I was just too lazy and kinda lost my motivation after a couple of weeks of not making any progress.

But then last night it just happened. I was walking around doing whatever dream stuff I was doing (getting ready for a martial arts tournament I would be competing in... I've been re-watching the Dragon Ball anime lately. So that explains it haha)
Anyway, totally out of nowhere I just stop what I'm doing and start thinking to myself: "I am dreaming right now."
No signs, no reality tests, nothing. It just came to me out of nowhere.
Then I started saying it out loud. "I AM DREAMING."
The other DC with me (basically Princess Zelda from the Nintendo series. She was helping me do something in what looked like a kitchen area. Whatever.) started staring at me like I was crazy.. After a couple times I was pretty much lucid. But I was losing the dream fast, so I stopped saying it and decided to just keep doing whatever it was we were doing. I tried busying myself with the dream world so that maybe I could just get lost in it and retain the dream... but that didn't exactly work out and I woke up. Damn :/

Well, I fell back asleep (probably seconds later) and went back in to the exact same dream! And what happens next? Nothing. I never became lucid or even aware that I was dreaming for the rest of the night, and just went on to the tournament in the non-lucid dream state. Although I did get to have a pretty sweet battle with Jackie Chun, I wasn't lucid so it kinda seems less awesome the more I think about what it COULD HAVE been like.

I just... thought I'd share this with whoever felt like listening. And while we're here, I guess I'll go ahead and ask:
What could I have done to help keep myself in the dream after I noticed I was dreaming? Are there any tricks? I've heard of spinning around, so I'll guess I'll focus on trying to remember to do that.. but if there's anything else you can do I'd appreciate the advice. Thanks for reading guys