Cecilia Garcia wasn't that surprised when she found out she was the winner of the $1.2-million PNE prize home yesterday.

The 61-year-old hairdresser is a strong believer in positive thinking.

"I'm a believer. I am a dreamer and now I've got the dream home, which is really logical," she said.

Garcia immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong in 1980 with her young family. Her son, Anthony Garcia, said that while they had little money, they always had big dreams.

"We dreamt of having a house of our own, but being new immigrants, it was very difficult. So we basically grew up living in a six-foot basement. So it wasn't until we started working that we started to build a life for ourselves and life got better. And with this, this is just the cherry on the icing," he said.

Both of Garcia's sons remember going to the PNE as kids. Buying a ticket to the prize home was a Garcia family tradition.

But Garcia didn't find out she was the proud owner of the home right away. When her name was called Wednesday night she was volunteering at Bard on the Beach and had turned her cell phone off.

When she got home there were more than 60 messages on her answering machine.

Touring her new home today for the first time with her sons and grandsons, Garcia was in awe of the luxury digs. One of the bathrooms has a fireplace, there's a library for all her books and the bedrooms are bigger than some apartments.

Since the prize home will be relocated to Kelowna, Garcia plans to keep her condo in Kitsilano and perhaps use the home as a vacation getaway.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Leah Hendry