Barb has a cousin, Karen, in the hospital in Richland, WA.  She is a month younger than Barb and they saw a lot of each other growing up and continued to see each other in adulthood.  Barb, normally a morning person, would many times stay up late into the night talking with Karen when she came for a visit..  The last news I heard, a couple hours ago, was that Karen was on life support and they were doing an EEG to look for signs of brain activity.  Barb and her sister Nancy came over yesterday to be with her and her family and are staying with me again tonight.  The house I stay in is only a couple blocks from the hospital.

When I first started work over here I stayed with Karens mom and stepfather for several months.  Karens daughter Lacey is going to school at the University of Idaho just across town from our house in Moscow.  Lacey is a year older than our son James who is also attending the U of I. Lacey helped James getting into the swing of things at school and they even shared a class or two and would go to the gym to exercise together.  Lacey went to an IPSC match with me once and I borrowed her pistol because I had accidently left mine at her grandparents place.  During the summer of ’03 Lacey stayed at our house during the week while she worked at the university.  Lacey was there for the historic fireball video with our daughter Kim and provided the background expletives.  Lacey helped with Boomershoot 2003 (second picture from the top).  In other words our family is pretty close to Karen and her family and there will be a lot of sorrow in our house if she passes away.