"'Cause on the surface the city lights shine. They're calling at me, 'Come and find your kind.' Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small, that we can never get away from the sprawl. Living in the sprawl. Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains, and there's no end in sight. I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights." ~arcade fire

I've been singing that song for two weeks straight. I absolutely love it. Scroll down to my last post to watch Regine sing it at MSG.

I've spent the past week-and-a-half in Colorado visiting my parents. I've gotten to do lots of fun things here, including waterfall-jumping (scary and freezing), whitewater river tubing (SO much fun), hiking, and just relaxing. It's nice to have a change of scene. Many of our activities involved water and didn't really allow for bringing a camera, so unfortunately I don't have pictures of most of the fun stuff. I do have some, though, so I'll share those:

The view from the airplane:
We went to the County Fair. It was quite an experience. We got to see cows being shown:
And a tractor pull (I didn't even know what that was before this visit, but apparently it's exactly what it sounds like):
There were lots of cool tractors:
My friend Lauren rode a (mechanical) bull:

We saw Chimney Rock:

We also went to a hot springs. Apparently it's the largest and deepest hot springs in the world. It was a really great day. The springs were right next to a river, which we also explored.

Me and Lauren under a waterfall:
Me and my mom under the waterfall:
Exploring the river:
More river fun:


A view of the hot springs from across the river:
On the way home, there was lots of thunder and lightning, and we saw a beautiful rainbow. Actually, it was a double rainbow:

Can you see both of them?:

On my last night, my mom and I celebrated my birthday. We had molten lava cake and I opened my present from my grandmother, a beautiful copy of Winnie The Pooh in which she hand-painted all of the illustrations. It must have been an incredible amount of work, but it looks gorgeous and I love Winnie the Pooh so it's really special.
My parents got me a new couch, which is pretty awesome.

I'm looking forward to being back in New York, but I had a great trip. It was good to spend time with each of my parents (I miss them when I'm in New York) and it was good to spend time with someone my own age (Lauren).