Sea to Shining Sea

  Christmas 2020 I am sure this is a strange Christmas for everyone. We are most grateful for the remembrance of the birth of Christ. To be reminded that Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna each were blessed in miraculous ways. Joseph, Zechariah, and Simeon each were given a commandment from God about the coming of the Messiah. For us, we have been adapting each month as everything is changing around us. Even before the pandemic we were struggling to get last years harvest done. We were combining in Christmas 2019, January, February, March, and June! Also, a significant part of the farm was flooded and could not be planted. A blessing is that we got the part we could plant done early and that led to an early (normal) harvest for the 2020 crop. My scientific research now includes a grant to find new therapeutics for COVID-19 and continues work on Cholera, Crohn’s, and heart disease. Shell continues working with at risk veterans at the Debakey Veterans Hospital. Shell is anxiously waiting for the vaccine so that she can get back to more home visits. John Welch is close to closing on a condo. He has started a new job in construction and has been living in our boat for the past 3 years. Elizabeth graduated from University of Houston Clear Lake this year with a degree in communication! She is now working for a bridal magazine and organization that puts together the large bridal show at the George Brown Convention Center. Her wedding to Kevin Moody has been delayed due to COVID-19 and hopefully we can all gather in Jan 2022. Hannah is a sophomore in the CECN program at Texas AM. It is Computer Engineering with a Focus in Computer Science and just had to get through Engineering, Physics III, Calc III, Stats, and C++ doing remote learning. Interestingly, I had picked up both Jacob and Hannah to go to the farm during Spring Break (to combine again), but that is when the pandemic started to move fast and we just kept the kids at the farm where social distancing is the norm, with the closest neighbor more than a mile away. It gave them lots of space to run outside! Jacob is a sophomore in high school and came back to Texas this fall as we are doing in class school for our school district. We are doing this year’s Christmas staying at home with our immediate family here in Houston.
Best Wishes for the Holiday’s from the Craft’s,
John/Michelle
John Welch
Elizabeth / Kevin Moody
Hannah
Jacob

 

¶ 8:08 AM

  On the Town We have chosen to keep our circle small but not zero during the pandemic. Basically, we have our immediate family, our parents, and a couple of local restaurants that we go to. We are also blessed to have the rancheto, farm, and boat as places to go and get some elbow room without having contact with other people. Joe Lee’s seafood in Kemah is right next to the boat and is a small family run fish/shrimp place that I love.  

¶ 7:21 PM

  ROCK Patent The University had delayed the presentation of awards a number of times this year due to the pandemic. They ended up have a virtual event and I was excited that my patent on ROCK inhibitors was recognized at the event. We have been looking at heart disease but new research in Japan indicates that our ROCK inhibitors could play an important role in respiratory diseases as well.

I recently discussed our drug discoveries at theHewlett Packarad Enterprise Data Science Institute  

¶ 8:58 AM