{simple saturday}: Not Too Shabby

I've only got a few minutes to sit at my trusty old laptop today.  A short, sweet, and simple post is what's required, because my husband and I are at another big family gathering in Upstate NY (and what better way to keep it simple than by joining Iris, whose Saturday blog link-up is all about simplicity?).

Earlier in the month we were up here with about 50 members of the Pearl clan; this time, it's my family's turn, and my baby sister and her husband are hosting what has come to be known as the "Palooza."  It involves not just our immediate family, but all of our far-flung cousins on my mother's side as well.

There are tents, pop-up campers, and RV's set up all over the vast grounds of my sister's lakeside house, but my husband and I are staying off-site, about 30 minutes away at his family homestead.  I've talked about this lakeside house many times here at "String of Pearls."  It's where my husband and his seven siblings grew up, and when their parents passed away, they decided to form an LLC and keep the house in the family so that there would always be a place where they could gather under one roof (or technically, two--because his older sister bought the house right next door). So we're driving about a half-hour over to the Palooza in the morning, and then a half-hour back home at night when the party finally dies down. But it's well worth it, when you consider the quality of our digs.  Nothing against camping, but we have a hard time thinking about sleeping on the ground in a tent when we can sleep in a comfy bed in a room with a view like this.

Yesterday, before heading over to my sister's, we brought our morning beverages down to the patio on top of the new sea wall (which the LLC had built this year to shore up the eroding bank).   THIS is what I was gazing at as I drank my morning coffee.

Not too shabby, eh?  (We're practically on the border of Canada here; the "eh's" may start flying, because when in Rome...)  

And now I must go, because my coffee's been poured and the patio--and that VIEW!-- beckons!

(By the way: this is day 6 out of the 7 Posts in 7 Days challenge, and I haven't missed one yet!)