Got an email from Carolyn’s brother, John, who’s in Iraq right now. He’s doing well and appreciates the mail and packages that he gets. He’ll probably be there until Feb or March. I’m preparing a shipment to send over there, so if anyone wants to send him anything, let me know.

After a long vacation in Canada, Carolyn and the kids are back into their newly renovated house; I stayed behind to install new laminate flooring and overhead ceiling fan, with some help from Shawn Steve, Manny, and Matt. Since he’s out of school for the summer, Shawn and I worked on the floor over a few days, cutting, pounding, and making sure it’s immaculate. Steve showed up one day and did the majority of the hallway while Shawn and I were at Home Depot shopping for baseboards. Manny and Matt installed the ceiling fan, which had been sitting in my garage over the past few months. Interestingly, the fan was a bit more complicated than one could expect, since it had a remote switch and it had to be assembled while attached to the 15 foot ceiling.

I joined my family in Canada after a couple weeks later, with my mother in tow. She enjoyed the visit to Buchart Gardens, with unbelievable arrangements of flowers and trees in the 55 acre garden. We also witnessed the lifelike reproductions of famous people and celebrities in the Wax Museum, which also housed a grim section on famous deaths and methods of punishment. North of Buchart Gardens is a area called Sidney, where we relished the outdoor farmers market that spanned a few blocks and featured live music, food and trinket shops, and a waterfront percussion show that the kids really enjoyed.

Michael started crawling recently, I’m happy to announce, and he desperately wants to play with Joshua! He also has a hearty appetite, as he wolfs down about the same amount (or more) of what Joshua eats. According to Carolyn, he also started saying “Mama”… not quite a conversationalist yet, but I’m sure he will.

Joshua recently celebrated his 2nd birthday with a family dinner, followed by swim/lunch with his friends the following day. He really loves being in the water, as he constantly runs up to the community pool when we go for our walks.

Heard that my nephew Patrick (born 5/29/07) was diagnosed with a heart murmur, high blood pressure in the lungs (Pulmonary hypertension?), and urinary infection (URI). Keep him in your prayers (to whichever deity you believe in).

In other news, I signed up to take the pre-requisite classes for med school…will be busy working on this for the next three years. Been talking to my buddy Vic, who’s in med school right now.