After standing in the bitter cold for ten minutes, my face was cherry red from the frozen air, and my fingers were like popsicles after a year in the freezer.  Jumping into the warmth of the car was like breathing in the fresh scent of chocolate chip cookies. Until I realized that the car was only a few degrees warmer than the frosty outside air.  My dad eventually made his way into the car and cranked the heater up. Then we heard the rumbling of a truck coming right at us. We knew we had a problem!  How were we going to make it past the giant logging truck with such a skinny road ahead? Then I realized that the truck driver was mad at us. He looked like a bird almost ready to take off.  His arms were flailing in frustration at us for driving on a public road.  That was when the logger pulled the truck to a stop and made it so that my dad had to drive around him.  After a few minutes of meticulously driving around the truck, we were on our way. 
That is what happened frequently on our trip up to the cabin.  We would get hit by bumps and then continue on our planned activity, which took a lot of patience.  The trip had a lot more problems than we have had in the past, but it didn’t stop us from have a great time and keeping our family traditions.
Our traditions have developed over the years on what we do on the week on New Years.  Ever since I was little my family has gone up to our cabin for New Year’s.  There is a prodigious firework show we watch every year.  Over the years, I have grown to love the vibrant reds, pinks, violets, and blues of the fireworks over the lake.  It is not  hard to get used to this especially when I can see the fireworks from the warmth of the cabin window.  While we watch the beauty in the sky there is another tradition that we carry out.
My mom always makes homemade pizza on New Year’s Eve.  Smells of fresh sauce and pizza dough fill the cabin air and which made my mouth water.  The best part about making the pizza is that the kids get to shape our own pizza.  As always, I make two little circles and one big one to make a Mickey Mouse shape.  Our traditions are always fun to do, but this year they were delayed because of all the complications that happened on our trip.
Our traditions this year were jumbled up over a week of chaos.  The first problem was happening as our car was making the treacherous trip.  So we took a break to eat lunch when the first question came up was.  “ How high should we set the temperature  at the cabin?” says my dad.  Many different answers come from my brothers and two cousins.  Finally he just chose a temperature and typed it into his smart phone.  That was that and we were on our one way again to the cabin.
Finally after three hours in the car we stepped into the warmth of the cabin.  I rushed upstairs to ask my mom if she could turn the water on. She, in response, said yes and went down the steps to turn on the water. She reached the door to the hot water heater after traveling over the icy cold floor.  Opening the door she found that there was a faint smell of gas in the air.  She left the door open and returned back upstair to help put our food and clothes away.  After finishing up getting organized for the week, she decided that it was time to take a trip to the grocery store. Before going she makes the trip to a water heater to see if it still smells like gas. There was still a faint smell of gas , so after about fifteen minutes we were in the car on the way to a hotel.  The only topic of conversation between my brothers and cousins was if the house was going to blow up. Our stomachs were rumbling by then, and the hotel we were going to stay at was still unclear.  The day was saved once again by the internet. Within about ten minutes of driving, we had a reservation at a hotel about forty-five minutes away.
Driving forty-five more minutes to staying at the hotel was a complication, but it was for the best.  In the morning my dad was able to set up a meeting with a plumber to replace our water heater.  However, we still had to wait until late in the afternoon to come back to our cabin.  After a long while, we found that the cabin was safe.  After the hot water heater was installed, we agreed our problems were resolved, but it seemed that the universe was against us.
A day after the new hot water heater was put in, we were on the road to go bowling.  It New Year’s Eve which for us was going to be spent at the bowling and then watching a movie in the comfort of our cabin.  However, the night seemed to have different plans for us.  Five minutes to the bowling alley and the most unexpected thing happened.  We were rear ended for the second time in my life.  Fortunately, everyone was ok, well that is if you don’t include the car.  Now the car’s bumper is all dinged up.  After the police recorded everything, we proceeded to drive to the bowling alley where my little brother creamed everyone at bowling.  Finally, we saw the other side of our bad luck and we started to have some fun.
Uno, Guess Who, and Crazy 8’s were some of the many board games that we played at the cabin.  As always though for my brothers, the world of video games is their idea of the best games.  Their hands got so stiff from playing that they couldn’t even move their fingers, but they would keep playing anyway.  Finally, though my dad was able to peel them away from the screen, to play some pool.  Even though pool is better for their minds it seemed to create more and more chaos and arguments.  Since the pool was not working to exercises their brains we decided to exercises their bodies instead.
Climbing through the trees, and getting poked by the tree branches every two seconds was a lot more enjoyable than the constant arguments back at the cabin. Maybe that is why I enjoyed climbing through the woods so much. Hunting for a peanut jar covered in black paint somewhere out in the woods, was our treasure hunt or geocache.  Dragging my brothers and cousins into the  bitter cold took a lot of effort.  Once they were out of the house, they went right for the snow.  When it was time to go find the peanut butter jar they didn’t want to go.  As soon as we said that there was a treasure hunt the younger boys were all over going to hunt for the geocache and of course the two older boys followed.   All bundled up, we jumped into the car to go find what is called a geocache, that was when we ran into the anger trucker.  All I could think was, “Did Dad take a wrong turn?” Or, “Should we be here.”  
That is also what I was thinking when we first went down the hill late Friday afternoon when I saw the first ambulance pulling into the ski hill’s driveway. Before the trip one thing that we had planned to do was go snow tubing.  The tubing hill was also a part of a small skiing hill which seemed to have some safety problems.  Even though the hill was not the safest place to be, it was still fun to use.  There was a feeling of brisk winter air on my face as I slid down the icy tubing hill. Then I had to wait in line to get a ride back to the top in order to go again.  For two hours my family and I tubed and had the best time of the trip.  This was an adventure that had been more exciting than some of the other that week.
Overall we had some exciting adventure even though there was a lot of “unexpected” that happened. My family was still able to keep our New Year’s traditions despite problems that we had in the beginning. Not only did we keep the traditions alive but we also had a blast with each other. The trip took my family to some pretty unanticipated adventures. All the exploits were a life long lesson, that plans are not always going to go as expected but the unaccounted events may be a even better.  We were able to get past the trucker and still be able to keep driving just as we got past some of our struggles at the cabin and kept going.