Leftover night in my family was like a celebration. This is when we would bring out all of the food left over from the week and have an almighty feast. The table was packed with food; Tuesday's ribs, Wednesday's pork chops, and yesterday's meat loaf.

Dinner was always a time to share stories. To talk about what's happened, what's happening, and what is going to happen. My step dad would usually talk about his job in the park while my sister would ramble on about "who's dating who" nonsence. I usually minded my own buisness when it came to Dinner table chats. I kept my thoughts inside my head rather than shared them with the world.

"So..." My mom started, ending our dinner conversation about weed whacking. "I was thinking..." She said, stopping again. I widened my eyes waiting for an answer. "We should go on a summer vacation." She finished. I couldn't help but choke on the meatloaf I was swallowing down.

"A what?" My step dad aksed, wide eyed, staring at her in amazment. In fact, we all were prettty amazed. My mom never said anything about vacations. Usually she'd be so crammed at the job that she could'nt think of anything other than eyeballs.

My mothere worked at an Eye Doctor. She was always at work, doing things for the doctor and running around the office. We barely ever saw her, only at diner, and that was only sometimes...

"Well where to?" I asked her. I knew that this was the question on everyones mind right now. Since she brought it up, we wanted to know what vacation spot she had in mind.

"Well I checked with Disney..." She was stopped.

"We're FINALLY going to Disney!" My sister interupted.

My mom shook her head. "It's not in my budget at the moment" She said. The happiness evaporated from my sisters face.

I looked at my mom who looked about as down. In all 15 years of my life I've never been to Disney.
We've all wanted to, but the families never had enough time or money for the trip to Florida.

"Well, I did find somewhere." She stated.

"Where?" My stepdad asked immediately. My mom grabbed her laptop off the ground where it usually was to charge. She logged into her account and opened up one of her bookmarks from the internet. I knew this because I was sitting in a spot at the table where I could see everything. The whole kitchen, the livingroom, the makeup my sister wasn't alllowed to wear plastered to her face, and the long buger emerging from my stepdad's nose.

"Here." My mom said, turning the computer to face us.

On the screen was a light olive green page with a bright red Heading reading:

"Gravity Falls, Oregon"

"This place?" My sister asked sounding disgusted. "In Oregon?" She made an upleased sound, then went back to pushing her meat around on her plate, using her skinny fingers to manuver the fork.

"Do you know anything about it?" I asked my mother, still looking at the olive green page.

"Not much. It seems nice. There's a discount hotel there, around the falls. It just opened." She said, reading off of the same paragragh my eyes were on. I could tell by the way her eyes lit up at the word "falls" why she wanted to go to this place. She was in love with waterfalls. They were her favorite things besides working with the eye. She loved the way the water flowed along the rocks and down to the body of water it was meant to meet.

How do I know this? She told me.

"Well it...looks okay..." My step dad said, still wary about the situation. "How much will this be costing?"

My mom rolled her eyes and shut the laptop, handing it to me to place it back in it's rightful spot. "It's much cheaper than you'd expect, Dan. You'd be surprised" She stepdad gave up the financial dispute and turned back to his food.

I looked back over to my mom who seemed near defeat. She wanted to go on this trip badly, it seemed. Being a woman that had to look out for her family and work forty hours a week, it did seem she needed some leeway. And that's what she should get.

"Ma," I started. "I think we should go...you know, to this 'falls' place. It seems cool."

My moms face brightened when I shared this to her. Of course I was lieing. I WANTED to stay home all summer. It was what was always done in my family. We rarely ever wanded off from home. It was, to me , nice to always know my surroundings, my routes and my ways around a certain place, but I wanted to make my mom happy.

"Alright," She started "Is everyone else in?"

My sister nodded reluctantly as my stepdad looked up from his plate. "Yeah...I guess so..." He said, giving her a 'Is this what you really want' face.

She nodded at me and then smiled.

"I'll place our reservations in tonight"