Chromilo Amin

Wine tasting, fruit picking, beach-side resorts, and tropical weather just 4 hours away. I love Kelowna! We visited all the wineries that I recognized like Mission Hill, Cedar Hill, Summerhill, Quails, Boucherie, and visited smaller wineries like Calona and House of Rose. My wife and I weren't sober most of the day and the food at the wineries was awesome. We went cherry picking for a little over $2.50 per lb and it was so much fun. We also went apricot picking for $5 per bucket. We stayed at the Lakeshore Inn Resort by the beach and the vibe of the whole place reminded me so much of Hawaii. We'll definitely come back to the Okanagan region again, maybe to invest in one of the high-rise condominiums. You never know.

Philip, Ava, Grace, and myself stayed overnight at the Fairmont Empress in Victoria just to experience what the castle was like. It was much older than I had anticipated and the hotel was just ok. The ferry trip was nice. It's been a while since we saw the open sea. After we checked in to the hotel, we went out for dinner and walked around town. It was so windy and cold that Saturday and we didn't bring anything warm to wear. Great! The next day, we hit the Parliament Building, watched a parade go by, and headed out to the Buchard Garden. As good as I remembered it but not sure if the price was raised since because I could have sworn it was less than $25 ea. Overall, the trip was memorable except for the long wait at the ferry coming home. I think we waited for over 3 hours before boarding and that didn't include the trip back home after we got back to the mainland. We may fly by Harbour Sea Plane next time. :)

I just wanted to mention that we had Father Peter Ha from Saint Mathews parish come on June 16 to bless our home. It was held at around 2PM and we were all here - Grace, myself, Philip, Ava, Auntie Vicki including our niece and nephew VJ and JC. This was special. In the evening, we had friends and family come for more food and drinks. In addition to the house warming/blessing, we also celebrated my birthday including George's and Raul's. The place was in chaos in a good way, with all the kids running all over the place. We did get some pictures taken - take a look.

Here is a picture my brother Jade took of me and my wife at the Whiterock wharf. We took my mother out to lunch during Mother's day by a Greek restaurant across the street from the beach and then headed out here after lunch in an attempt to walk off what we ate. The tide was low that day and we were able to walk under the walkway for some awesome picture taking. To the right is a picture of my beautiful wife Grace.

We have finally made the leap to move to a house. Today is the day. I just got a call back from our lawyer and just heard confirmation that the sale of our townhome is complete and therefore, the moneys is available for the purchase of the house. What a relief. Because of the chain of events that are so closely linked to each other, we could have ended up with all our belongings in limbo. We have already packed up everything and are waiting for the movers to come in to take all our things at 2PM today. We do not get the keys to the new house until later this afternoon at 4PM so we could potentially be "living" in the moving truck until posession/completion. I don't know how other investors manage this for a living - buying and selling houses for profit. It definitely is very stressful. Here is a pic of the front of the house.

I am so glad that I have finished with the written part of my final homework for CMPT 371 (Data Communications and Networks) at Simon Fraser University. It usually takes me past midnight to finish any of the homeworks or programming assignments. Which reminds me - the programming part of the assignment is due on April 8 which is this Sunday. I haven't looked at it yet but I'll be glad when that is done. It's been hectic recently, especially with the sale and purchase of our home. It's been hard to focus in on the lessons and on the reading materials but I think I have learned a lot and am now almost prepared to tackle some more theories and research topics in Computer Science. I have missed this type of traditional classroom learning but am I tired!