Olympics, Cupcakes, and Dinosaurs

What do the Olympics, cupcakes, and dinosaurs have in common?  Probably not much, but they have all been a part of my life in the past few days.

Let's start with the Olympics.  Have you been watching?  I am pretty much glued to the TV every time I have a free minute.  I generally am not a huge fan of sports, but there's just something about the summer Olympics that always has me riveted.  My favorite event is gymnastics, with swimming and then diving coming in a close second and third.  I am embarrassed to tell you that I actually cried when I watched the women's gymnastics from Sunday night.  When Jordyn Wieber found out she didn't make it to the all-around competition, seeing her tears just broke my heart.  

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That being said, I am a huge Gabby Douglas fan, and am rooting for her!  She is adorable, and I love that she said she focuses on scriptures when her nerves start to get the best of her.  I can't wait to watch more of her!

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Anyway, I have really enjoyed watching the Olympic games so far!  And I've been racking up Viggle points like crazy!  Viggle is my favorite app right now (it's an app where you can check into TV shows, and gain points toward rewards). And the 50-point trivia questions you can answer during the Olympics, along with the bonus points for checking in, have helped me rack up a few thousand more points in the past few days!  You should check out the app if you don't have it yet!

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Okay, let's move on to cupcakes.  Yesterday was my friend Lindsey's bridal shower.  Her wedding is in two weeks, and I am honored to be a bridesmaid!  My mom and I did the decorations for the shower, and I made cupcakes and also cakeballs as favors.  My cupcake-making has been a bit hit-or-miss, so I'm really glad they turned out okay!  I found two awesome recipes for basic chocolate (found here) and vanilla (found here) cupcakes.  I used standard butter-cream frosting.  And the cakeballs were the same as the ones I made for my sister's shower a year ago (found here).  I love baking and decorating, so I had a lot of fun with it all.

Here I am with Lindsey and her sister Lauren.  We are lifelong friends, and I am so excited for Lindsey's special day!

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And finally, that brings us to dinosaurs.  *Giant sigh.*  It turns out that ASHA (the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association) requires all SLPs to take certain gen ed classes in order to get our CCC (Certificate of Clinical Competence) once we graduate.  It also turns out that I didn't get a natural science course in my undergrad classes at Malone University.  The easiest way to fulfill this requirement is to take a class on dinosaurs which is one week long.  So I decided to do that. We literally have a midterm on Wednesday and a final on Friday.  And I'll be spending three hours a day in this class every day this week.  I was really dreading it to say the least.  But I have to admit I found my first class today to be really interesting.  Of course, as a firm believer of creationism, I didn't agree with a lot of what was being said.  But other than that stuff, I was pretty into it.  Who knew I was such a science nerd?  I totally felt like I was channeling Ross Geller.

So here's to 12 more hours of dinosaur info!  I think a Jurassic Park viewing is in order after this week!