Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We want to wish all of our family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with happy times. Our Christmas season began Thanksgiving Day with a couple hours of snow. Nothing stuck but it was very exciting for all of us (except, maybe, Cheryl who was in town from Madison, Wisconsin looking for some warmer weather). I am excited to have a house that can accommodate my love of Christmas and all the decorations that come with it. I was able to put three trees in the living room, one in the kitchen and there is even one in the guest bathroom! Thomas isn't usually real thrilled about decorations but once they were all up and lit, he said it really looks like Christmas in the house. We look forward to the holidays and time spent with our family and friends.

Now for the annual holiday update that usually goes in the Christmas card...

This year has been quite an exciting year for us, filled with new opportunities: new job, new house and city, and big news. The most exciting news is that we are expecting our first baby in May 2008. Thomas and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little baby boy. All the grandparents, aunts, uncles and great aunts and uncles are very excited as well. The pregnancy is going well, the baby looks good and is already growing like a weed. Thomas has been a great husband from day one helping me through all of the nausea and happy times. We will keep everyone updated on the coming of Baby Winkler.

I've heard all modesty goes out the door when you have a baby so I decided to go ahead and start that early and post my funny looking belly pictures. The picture on the left is the morning of the home pregnancy test (my belly has always had the bulge above my belly button) The picture on the right is at 15 weeks 4 days. More to come.

Thomas is coaching basketball and track for Weatherford High School. He is the JV head coach and Varsity assistant for basketball. This fall we had a nice break from football and were able to enjoy football from the stands. I think Thomas has decided that not coaching football is his prefernce. I second that! Coach Ferguson, the head basketball coach, and everyone here in Weatherford have been so welcoming, making us feel at home. I will let Thomas update you on how basketball is going:

This season has been pretty good so far. The JV is 8-3 right now and 3-1 in district play. We lost our first two and then won the next 8 in-a-row. The kids are playing hard and we are having a lot of fun. The varsity kinda struggled a little bit but we think they are on the right track now. They are 7-7 and 2-2 in district. I don't know if you could ask for a better group of kids to work with. They do everything we ask them to do and they are a lot of fun to be around.

If you want to stay current on how our season is progressing you can check out our basketball team's website: http://www.weatherfordkangaroobasketball.com/

Thomas on the bench before a game

The Varsity team at a tournament in Joshua

I am still enjoying my job as a special care nursery/admissions nursery nurse. I will become a newborn nursery nurse at the beginning of the year when we restructure the nurseries. I will continue to do admit the new babies and help those that need a little extra TLC during the first few hours of life as well as take care of the new babies while mom and baby are in the hospital. I continue to be amazed every day I work of the miracle of life and how there are so many healthy babies born. And I sometimes pinch myself because I get paid to "play" with babies.

The new house is still good and it is really feeling like home now. We still only have one neighbor on our street but are enjoying the quiet. I'm sure they will start to build soon and we will miss the quiet. The guest bedroom has been broken in and is open for guests anytime, especially this summer, babysitters welcome.

Best wishes to all during this holiday season!

A New Season

Well it is basketball season again. This year is off to a rocky start. We went to Justin Northwest and the JV got beat by 20 and the Varsity won by 13. The JV was up by one about two minutes into the third quarter and then the wheels fell off. Saturday Arlington Bowie came to Weatherford and the JV again lost. This time we got beat by 37. We were only down 12 at halftime and then it slowly started to slip away. The Varsity also got beat by Bowie. It was a close game and there were some mistakes made that we all need to work on. Tomorrow we get Kennedale. They are ranked #6 in 3A right now. Should be a pretty good Varsity game. Hopefully the JV can get it going and get our first "W".

Thomas' Birthday

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!Thomas will probably disown me for posting this, but I will take that chance. Happy Birthday, Dear!

Good Ol' Texas Summer

I just got back in from mowing our yard and I was thinking it was a little warm out there. I went to check our little weather station that tells us how hot it is outside and this is what I saw.

The top line is the barometric pressure. The second line is the humidity and temperature outside. The third line is the humidity and temperature inside. It is good to see that some things never change. Even though we got a little spoiled here with all the rain keeping the temperature down, this is still August in Texas.

3 months later....

We are now a proud fightin' Roo household. Yes, Weatherford's mascot is the kangaroos, the mean kind (picture 1) not the cute, little, adorable ones (picture 2).

We've been in Weatherford for 3 weeks now and everyone has been so nice and welcoming. The basketball team helped unload the Penske truck and the 15 foot trailer (a guy who sells trailers loaned us). We feel very fortunate to be here.

Since there are still no Winkler offsprung, we have pictures of the house. Yes, I know Michele, it is a brand new house in a cute little subdivision.

Here is the front of the house, there is a house next door but no one lives there yet. We are the only ones on our little street so far.

Peace and quiet, for now....

This is the view out the back. We are at the edge of Phase 1, more to come when Phase 2 comes.

This is the habitat of the snake that I happened to run across and then ran far, far away from. It was five feet of creepy soon-to-be dead snake.

The great living room was the selling point of the house, we love it!

The kitchen is pretty nice as well except for the cabinet drawers. They are 3 inches tall and you can't put anything in them. Just another thing to add to the dream house list of what not to do.

These are the two doorways to the bedrooms, office and exercise room.

I know everyone is asking where all of our valuable stuff (crap) is. It was magically hidden for these pictures and has now exploded all over the house and has multiplied. I'm not really sure how it does it yet.

We did get new living room furniture and Thomas got a new gadget, one of those 400 disc DVD players. It took a while but he managed to get it over half full and enter all the info to catalog the DVDs.

So, if you are ever in the Weatherford area, drop in, we'll be behind the boxes of stuff.

Easter Weekend

This might be the last post for a while so enjoy(and yes I know that we just started putting stuff back up here after a long break)

This past Easter weekend I witnessed something in Temple that I haven't seen in a long time and never this far into Spring in Texas. We had a pretty good little snow storm. AND it stuck to the ground. I have never seen it snow as hard as it did that night. My guess is that we got some where between 4 and 6 inches of snow.

It started off as just a little snow....

And then it grew into a lot of snow.

It really wasn't even snow flakes that were falling. Instead it seemed like it was actually chunks of snow that were coming down. And it just kept coming.

I went out to get something for dinner and on my way back I was thinking that I would try to make a little snowman. I was thinking something in the 1 to 1.5 foot tall range. Well as I was pulling up to the house I see that some of our neighbors are make a pretty good sized snowman and I took that as a bit of a challenge. So I went out and I started to make my own snowman. This would be the first snowman that I have ever made by the way.

After I made him I started looking around for the accessories that you need to complete a snowman. I actually had some charcoal for the eyes. I found a hat that I deemed appropriate. I couldn't find any carrots for the nose though. However, I used a little Aggie ingenuity and found a suitable replacement...an orange can of OFF.

Not bad for my first snowman!

AH-64 Apache

This Christmas Laura gave me one of the coolest gifts ever. For quite some time now I have wanted to take a ride in an Apache. I don't really know how or why this started but it has now become a goal of mine. Anyway, one of Laura's classmates in nursing school just happens to be married to and Apache pilot. Her present to me was that when he got back from Iraq hes was going to take us out to Fort Hood and show us around the Apache hangar. This was awesome. It made it even better because I had no idea about it unlike the surprise party she threw for me in college(thanks Walt). Anyway, she told me that she had a surprise for me and one morning over the Christmas break we just started driving into Belton. I had absolutely no idea where we were going. We pull up in front of this house. She tells me that this is Susan's house and she askes me if I remember what her husband does. It didn't take me too long to figure out that he was the Apache pilot. Anyway, we headed out to Fort Hood and got to look at the Apaches.

Flying the Apache would have to be like playing the ultimate video game. There are some many screens and buttons and switchs that I don't think I would ever figure them all out. The guy showing me around said that you have to know what each button and switch does by the feel of it so that you can use it at night without having to turn a light on and let the enemy see where you are.

And now a picture of me and my Apache. Hopefully next time I am this close to one it is as I am getting ready to go for a flight. By the way, there are some better pictures of this but they are actual photos and therefore not on the computer. And lets be honest, it took me four months to get the digital pictures on the website-can you image how long it will take me to put up pictures that I have to scan!

Moving

It is almost official that we have sold the house. The planned closing date is April 26th. We put the house on the market hoping it would sell and we would move after Thomas' school year was over. We should know by now not to make plans like that, God likes to laugh. So all of our stuff (Thomas likes to insert a different word there) is going into storage until we know which of the dozens of school districts around Dallas we are moving to. It's been a great house and I can't believe three years have almost past.


This means that the computer will be packed up and posts will cease for a little while (Yes, we know it has been awhile for these posts too). So we are catching up on the posts from the past 4 months. They are in no particular order and Thomas has a couple to add once I'm done.

Happy Birthday, Graham!

Graham Dieckert celebrated his first birthday more times than Michele and Grady have moved. It was fun for everyone. He didn't know that he was only 11 months when he had his celebrations in Temple/Belton but he knew that he liked opening presents.

Yes, that is a Panera bag holding his presents. For all he knows, it says Graham.

I'm not sure who was more excited about the tambourine, Graham or Michele

Hornets at the AAC

Over the holidays, Gatesville played at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. They didn't play the Mavericks, they played Glen Rose and had a great time.

What I Like About Texas...

As you guys know, I have been driving back and forth from Temple to Dallas spending my days off work getting the house ready to sell, enjoying time with Thomas and now packing. I can tell you things about I-35 that I never really wanted to know. I do know that I love Texas (the good, the bad and the ugly) and a couple things I really like are:

Texas Bluebonnets

They bloom at the first sign of spring, then before we know it are gone and the heat of the summer begins. I love springtime in Texas, whether it is 3 weeks or a month and a half.

The other thing I like about Texas are the farm roads that let you bypass the major highways and traffic. For my treks to College Station it was Hwy 14 through Mexia, my new road is:

You pick it up in Italy (after trying some rattlesnake jerky) and meet back up with ol' 35 in Elm Mott just north of Waco. It's a great little curvy, hilly farm road.

I have been planning this post for a couple weeks and have a couple of amendments that I discovered while trying to talk to Michele on my latest trip to Temple.

1. They don't call it a FARM Road for nothing, passing tractors and farm implements that take up the entire road (on a 90 degree curve in the road) can be thrilling.
2. The cell phone companies would go under if they didn't have I-35 completely covered with service, I don't think they are too concerned about the citizens of Irene, pop 200ish.

So that's a couple things I like about Texas.

Craft Project

This is a project I have been planning since I got my Pampered Chef can opener 3 years ago. I made these for Angela for Christmas (the 4 in the middle) and was very pleased with how they turned out. They are just cans, ribbons and some glue.

Out of Order

To get the full effect of the last 3 post you will need to read them in order. The correct order is this:

Scouting
Scouting II
Area Play-offs


Now that I am done with basketball, hopefully I will be able to get some more post up here that I have been trying to get up for a while now. Keep your fingers crossed.

Area Play-offs

On Friday evening we went to Fairfield to play Pollok Central. We knew that it was going to be a tough game. They were 29-5 coming in. We had seen them play in person ( see Scouting Post) and we had watched for of their games on film ( see Scouting II post). We knew what they wanted to do. They were going to get in a 2-2-1 press and they wanted to shoot the 3.

We didn't play very well the first half. In the first quarter we committed 10 turnovers. It didn't help that the refs were very one sided. At one point the foul count was 8-1, not in our favor. At the half we were down by 13.

We came out in the second quarter and got down by about 20. Then the kids woke up and decided to give Central a run for their money. We cut the lead back to 13 by the end of the 3rd quarter. We continued that run in the fourth quarter. We ended up scoring 29 in the fourth. The kids played their hearts out. They never gave up and just kept fighting. They did this in spite of the refs who never got any better. We tied the game up with about 25 seconds left but we just couldn't quite get over the hump. We ended up losing 74-70. Our kids played with a lot of fight in that second half. It would have been easy to fold it up and pack it in but they never did. We just ran out of time.

This was my last game as a Gatesville Hornet. It has been a great 3 years. Who knows were I will be going from here.

Scouting II

The second scouting trip trumps the first one.

We played our Bi-District Playoff game against Hutto in Burnet on Wednesday the 21st. We hung on to beat them by 6. It was not easy. They we off from the 3 point line in the second half. They had a kid that took 2 steps across half court and hit a three. It was unreal.

On the way home from that game the coaching staff was talking about who might be able to give us film on Pollok Central. We knew that the coach in Carthage would be able to give us two games and the coach in Crockett would be able to give us two games. We got back to Gatesville at around 11:30 that night. By 12:45 we were in a school van on our way to Carthage, TX. Agian, if you don't know where that is you might want to go to Yahoo Maps. This was another 4 hour one way trip.

We got into Carthage around 5:00 am. There were long stretchs on the road were we saw more deer than cars. For over an hour we saw 9-10 deer and 0 cars. Once we got to Carthage we found a little diner and had some breakfast and then we went to the high school and picked up two films. We watched these two games on our way to Palestine. In Palestine we met a coach from Crockett and picked up two more game films. We watched these two games on our way back to Gatesville. We got back to Gatesville around 11:00 am. This was just in time to get ready for our athletic period. After 5th period we tried to take a little nap on the training tables but they are about the most uncomfortable things ever.

After laying there for about an hour we got up an got ready for our after school practice. That was one of the longest days I have had in a while. We were just hoping that saying up for 40+ hours was all going to be worth it.

We played Pollok Central on Friday night in Fairfield.

Scouting

This is going to be the first of a couple of post that should have happened a while ago so prepare yourselves.

The Gatesville Hornets made the basketball playoffs this year. We ended up second in our district so we played the 3rd place team from district 18. That team ended up being Hutto. We went to watch them play a play-in game on Friday the 16th. They beat Rockdale by about 25-30. On our way home from that game we ( the coaching staff) were talking about what we were going to need to do in order to get ready for out second round opponent. Not that we were over confident but we wanted to be ready should we beat Hutto. We knew that our next opponent would be a Pollok Central. We like to pronounce it Polock but I don't that is how you really say it. Anyway, they were playing a warmup game the next day in Tatum, TX. We decided that if would be a good idea for us to have practice at 7:00 am that Saturday morning and then drive out to Tatum to watch them play Roosevelt. If you don't know where Tatum is, I suggest you look it up.(Yahoo maps) Needless to say it is nowhere near Gatesville ( 4 hours away one way).
The plan was to watch the four films that we had on Hutto on the trip out there and back. We took my 13" TV/VCR combo and a power inverter. Once we got into the van we realized that the power inverter-TV setup was not working. After the game we stopped at a Wal-mart and got another Inverter. It didn't work either. So we went back into Wal-mart and bought a power inverter that you can hook up to a car battery and we bought a car battery. We thought that this was about the most redneck thing we could think of. Once we got it out to the van it didn't work either. Just as we were about to give up, our head coach took the first inverter plugged it into the second inverter and hooked the second inverter up to the car battery. For some unknown reason this worked. We got to watch all of the video on the way home. I actually took a video of it on my phone just to make sure people believed the setup that we had going. This was just the first scouting trip we went on. I think the second one was better.

Laura Winkler, RN

Yes, it's true, I passed boards and I am unofficially an RN (something about the Texas Board of Nurse Examiners verifying it before it's official, bureaucratic red tape). I will have RN on my badge for work soon and I can keep my job with babies! I've come to love the royal blue scrubs of Presby.

MyHeritage Fun

I ran across this website, MyHeritage, that matches pictures with celebrities (Thanks, Whitney). They are pretty entertaining.

Here's mine (I laughed pretty hard that Queen Latifah and I are a 60% match):

Thomas, I promise I don't see Jessica Simpson when I look at you...
And then I thought it would be fun to try the mustache picture of Thomas, hoping Jessica Simpson would be eliminated:

I hope you have enjoyed the pictures. The valuable time you have wasted does not compare to the time I have wasted putting these together. Have a good one!

PS: Someone needs to bug Thomas to post pictures of his Christmas excitement (sitting in an Apache helicopter and playing a basketball game at the American Airlines Center).

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!

Christmas was a lot of fun this year! We ended up continuing the Christmas celebration until New Year's Eve and loved every minute of it. We spend Christmas Eve in Dallas and went to the Children's Mass at St. Bernard (I always enjoy watching the kids in there angel and shepard costumes). Here's a family picture and one with Lorie and Matt.

Festivities in Walburg began with fireworks by Jason on Jan 30th and then Christmas with the Winkler's New Year's Eve. It is always fun opening presents and ducking so you don't get pegged in the head with a ball of wrapping paper (Thanks Thomas and Jason!!). We then got a little creative with the plethora of Toyata vehicles parked in the garage and driveway. (I'm not sure who came up with the idea but it was a good one) Someone needs to foward these picture to the marketing people at Toyota, anybody know someone?

We continued New Year's Eve with the Walburg fireworks show and homemade waffles afterward. We may have to make a tradition of holiday waffles, they sure were good! 2007 has already brought us good memories and great opportunities. We hope there are many more for us, our family and friends. Bob emailed me this New Year's Wish and I thought it was great:

My Wish for You in 2007

May peace break into your house and may thieves come to steal your debts.
May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet for $100 bills.
May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!
May your clothes smell of success like smoking tires and may happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be that of joy.
May the problems you had, forget your home address!
In simple words ............May 2007 be the best year of your life!!!

Laura Catherine Winkler, BSN

I'm finally done with undergrad! It flew by and, man, was it hard but worth every minute. I was pinned by the school of nursing on Dec 15th and graduated from UMHB on Dec 16th and finally posting the good news almost a month later. The picture below is my nursing school pin and cords. I was so glad to have my family there for the celebration.

Here's many of my classmates after graduation. And my friend Katie, who graduated from A&M and got her second bachelor's too.

Needless to say, things have been a little crazy since the end of school. But we made it through the holidays and basketball tournament are here now and I will be starting my new job at Presbyterian tomorrow. I will be working with the babies in the Special Care and Admission Nurseries. I am very excited about beginning the internship, working with babies and the paycheck will be nice.