Hi and welcome to our home.  First, let us tell you a little about ourselves and how we met...quite an interesting story.

We met in July of 1996, on irc.qdeck.com, in a room called #Babyboomers.  Karen was a newbie and Russ had been on the net for several years.  He was the "class clown", and love to stir up the $hit with anyone that entered the channel.

We remained friends over the years, communicating via email and in the channel where we were the resident comediens.  Russ moved up North to the Chicago area in 1998 to look for a new job.  Karen helped him by finding job listings and helping him find his way around the area.  Well, after a while it became apparent to both of us that we wanted to be more than friends and started dating.  We were dating about a year when Russ proposed, and Karen said "Yes".  We were married on June 15, 2000 at the Will County Courthouse with Karen's son Brian in attendance.

Russ has a son who lives in Missouri and is married and at the time had two children, little girls, so this made Karen an "instant grandma".  There are now four grandchildren, 3 girls and one boy.

Russ also has a daughter who was living in Missouri but is now in Alaska and is expedting twins!  More about them later..