Even yet still more Ballard

Big news! Grayson got his first letter back from one of his graduate schools, and it was a FULL-RIDE! Into a doctorate program! This made us both massively happy, as it means a looot of hard work has paid off. It's bittersweet though, because this basically seals the deal that I won't be "Seattle" Nat anymore by fall. At least for the next five years...

Following that bit of awesomeness, we finished our taxes this morning! Whoo! But then, the weather was too amazing to ignore again this weekend - although a bit cold - and we hit the pavement in search of burgers, camera repairs (Yes, the lens I broke all those months ago at Gasworks, I did not take it to the repair shop until today. L-A-Z-Y.) and cupcakes, but what we found dear readers, was so much more:

As the link above indicates, this was not our first sojourn into Ballard, we've been a couple of times, mostly for cupcakes, and it's a neighborhood that's grown on us. It's mostly known for its history of Scandinavian immigration, evidence of which pops up intermittently, but as we were walking from a newly discovered, HUGE book store in a converted library, we found these awesome relics...behold Leif Eriksson Hall:

Complete with bitchin' longship reliefs and a massive bust of Leif Eriksson, the head of which was the size of my entire body. Mostly.

But that's not all, right next door, observe Viking Bank!
How rad is that? I guess I'd like it more if it was shaped like a huge longship with trunks of gold all around.

And FLAGS:

Left to right: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, America

After that we made it to Cupcakes Royale, whose January-February special is Salted Caramel Cupcakes. Oh yeah. (Come on, it has been a while since I posted a cupcake...) The flavor was inspired by President Obama's favorite treat, salted caramels. The cake was dark chocolate heaven, and the top was coated in gooey icing that tasted like home made caramel. SOOOO GOOOOD. Oh my goodness.

A cupcake so good, it melted the color away from everything else...

Then we wandered around in artsy shops and record stores and came home. My lens should be ready in just a few days. Yay!