Katy/West Houston A&M Mothers’ Club

P.O. Box 501

Barker, TX 77413-0501

281-578-3127

pennynelsn@aol.com

November, 2007

Howdy Aggie Moms!

November found us learning all about the ins and outs of Beutel Health Center. Ginger Westbrook introduced Dr. Andrew Dare, Chief of Staff at Beutel Health Center. Dr. Dare had a very informative PowerPoint that he brought with him. He gave everyone a card with important numbers on it, so we cold give it to our student and also keep one for ourselves. The moms then had a chance to ask him questions pertaining to Beutel. Numerous moms then told examples of how Beutel Health Center had worked so well with their child when they needed assistance.

At this meeting we had to line up according to birthdays without talking, just using fingers, head nodding and any other type of sign language to get lined up correctly. What matters is that we had FUN!! Our secret must be getting out – our membership continues to grow!

November is filled with reminders! November 18 th to most is just another day, but not to Aggies!! It’s the day Bonfire fell in 1999. I remember it well! My daughter Jennifer was a sophomore and she called very early that morning to tell us she was OK. The college was going around and having all the students call their parents to let them know they were OK and about the Bonfire incident. I got right up after telling her I loved her and thanked her for calling us, and glued myself to the TV. My heart ached for the Moms and families watching and waiting for word from their Aggie. As for the traditions at A&M, our kids were like the 12 th Man – always ready to stand in when they are needed, to watch them help pull logs off their friends and buddies. It truly was the Aggie Spirit!!

Our first social event was at Candela’s. It was a great start to the year meeting new Aggie Moms. We now have Onaida Reichen, mother of freshman John Reichen, who is taking over the planning for our socials. She already has one planned for December 13 th at La Palapa’s Mexican cuisine at the corner of Mason Road and Kingsland. More information about this will be given at the Dec. 6 th meeting.

The Aggie Moms’ Weekend Retreat Nov. 9-11 was well attended by the Katy/West Houston Aggie moms!! We had the most moms there again, which was a total of 28!! We had the Katy gals in three different camps! Camp Gig ‘Em, which was lead by our own Fran Miller and Sonna Lumpkins, Camp Aggie Ring, which was also lead by a Katy mom Sherri Whitehurst and her co-counselor Kay Stephens from Baytown. The third camp that found new Katy Moms attending was Camp Singing Aggies, with myself from Katy, and Janice Keith from Montgomery County. A fun time was had by all!! See some of our pictures on our website. Some of the activities included Aggie Wranglers dancing for us Friday night, along with Marty Holmes former yell leader leading us in some yells! You also heard rendition of Twelve Days of Christmas, but Aggie Mom Counselors style!! Sat. found us having the Texas Aggie Corpsmen putting on skits, and then some of the moms and students modeling clothes. I’m the tall one in the picture modeling a $1200.00 reversible coat!! I felt so GRAND in it!! We also had a mini- boutique where the different clubs set up tables and could sell their pretties! Margaret King from our Ways and Means drove up just for that and felt it was well worth her time, by our sales that we did. Saturday evening we gathered at the Archery room at the Rec. Hall for a catered barbeque from J’ Cody’s. Sunday found everyone after breakfast doing camp skits and having a lot of fun with them. Afterwards, it was announced that Gloria Graves and Kristi Spencer would be in charge of next year’s camp. Hopefully if you couldn’t make it this year, you will be able to make it next year!

Please remind your Aggie Mom friends that it is not to late to join this year. We received our membership directories at the November meeting, but even if they didn’t make it for that one, we will be doing an addendum in a couple of months for those who join later. Thank you Emma for getting this taken care of, and for sending out the newsletters to our moms.

The Care packages for our Aggie Students were delivered Friday at the MSC! When we left it was so foggy that morning that in some places you couldn’t see the headlights of the car ahead of you. We had a caravan of three vehicles going up, being led by myself, your fearless leader, Laurel Adami in the middle and Phyllis Timmons and Sonna Lumpkins bringing up the rear! This goes to show you we are fearless like the postmen!! We will go to any lengths for our Aggies!! Wow, again we out did ourselves! The file containers were filled with about 50 items, ranging from junk food to nutritional food. They were the hit of all the care packages again! We had students stopping by trying to buy them from us. We also had students from other clubs think we were the club their mom belonged too and drooled over our boxes thinking they were going to get one of those, and were quite disappointed when they found out it wasn’t the right club!! Way to go Laurel!!!

Winter-in-Aggieland also was going on Thursday and Friday at the MSC. We had a lot of moms that worked that booth both days. A big thank you to Margaret King, Kathy Keeney, and Chris McCaslin, Charlene McFarlane, and Kathleen Wilburn for setting up and packing up!! The gals have a lot of new ideas for new things they want to start selling at meetings and get ready for the Boutique in the spring during Parents Weekend. Keep up the good work!! We will have some new items in December at the meeting, might even make good Christmas gifts!

To make it convenient for our Aggie Moms to get the latest information about our club, call the Katy/West Houston A&M University Moms’ Hotline at 281-394-8108. You can call this number at anytime to find out what is happening or coming up with our Club. Marilyn Mokwa will have magnets available at the meetings for you to take home. You can also visit our website (www.katywesthoustonaggiemoms.com) to download general meeting minutes, newsletters, care package order forms, scholarship applications and see our Ways & Means items.

Our Big Event project this year is going to be making fleece blankets for the children at MD Anderson Cancer Center. We are calling it “Fit to be Tied!” Each blanket will take 1and one half yards to two yards of each color of fleece. You will need two pieces for each blanket. A suggestion is a solid color for one side and a print for the other side. The fabric can be found at various stores. JoAnns, Hobby Lobby, and Wal-Mart are ones that I have found it at. The size is usually about 54 inches wide. We will have the directions at the meeting if you wanted to make some before the March 29 th day.

We are also collecting change for the group that will be speaking to us at the March meeting. CHANGE is a group that helps in getting Aggies who can’t afford a ring, their ring, by collecting people’s change. So, until they come to speak we are collecting our change to give them when they are here in March as our donation to the group.

Please join us for the December meeting on the 6 th! Don’t forget to bring an ornament for the ornament exchange if you would like to participate. Remember we decided to keep it at no more than $5.00. Camp moms remember to wear your shirts this time. Look forward to seeing all of you there J

Aggie Mom Love,

Penny Nelson

Katy/West Houston A& University Mothers’ Club

President 2007-2008