It's been a while

Well like kicked into gear for me, yesterday started work. Today I woke up at 4:30 and got home as 7pm in my 1st full 12 hour of work. So pretty much I am absolutely pooped (hence this will be a short post) but I thought a little update would be good. In the last week:
*Stephen took his 1st anatomy exam and is now moving on to dissection of the upper limbs. I think every day his complete knowledge triples (not to say he had any lack of knowledge before med school, but now there is just SOOOOO much to learn)
*I started work and hence our fridge is empty. No time to grocery shop. I am going to have to figure this whole thing out. But work is a real blessing. I went from not a lot to do to having a ton going on.
*Had our 2nd Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) which is really great. Lots of  RVU students (and their significant others if applicable) along with christian doctors from the school and the community.
*2nd Jonah bible study meeting, and now Jen ((Our awesome friends Jess and Jen are now going to Hillside church too! :) we couldn't be happier!) is doing it to, which is fantastic!
*tons more is going on, i just can't think because my brain is practically dead :)

Prayer request: (1) adjusting to our new schedule and all the ways it impacts our lives. (2) continued prayer for Stephen and all he has on his plate. God has been so faithful to continue giving us strength and joy for each day, but we can always ask for more!

Much love, I will try to write again soon!
(if there are any errors with spelling or grammar, I am sorry, i am just to tired to read through it. I am going straight to bed, and yes it is 9:00 :)

XOXOXOXOXO

a glimpse into the mastermind room :)

I just thought is would be a good time to share with you a little piece of Stephen's study room and all it holds within. (every weekend it gets picked up, but during the week, everything is put back where stephen would say it belongs :)
Ok people stick with me there is a lot to notice

Ok here is the study man himself. Now here is a list of things to notice
1. The look on his face... sometimes studying makes him feel like a coloradian wild bear
2. the many books and manuals on the floor
3. the flip flops that are at the bottom of the picture... med school leave no time to put such things away :)
4.The large blanket on the floor on the left hand side (when he's been at the desk to long, he moves himself to the floor)
5. the white erase board (middle bottom, next to the flip flop) that currently has a cell drawn on it.
6. the Swiss army bag (leaning up against the infamous desk) which is full of blood pressure cuffs, stethoscope, reflex hammer, otoscope, opthamascope, etc.
7. the beautiful curtains that are closed when distraction must be at an all time low.
8. the shiny backpack that is getting much use
9. the numerous sweatshirts :)
10. The printer that has already printed out 70 pages of typed notes for this next test (on monday, if you remember to pray) 

and just for another view

:) just thought I would share some fun, but somewhat useless info :)
and on another note... sunsets over the rocky mountains have been BEAUTIFUL! now that it doesn't rain everyday we actually have a sunset. here is yesterdays

Alrighty, well tomorrow is a big day, so off to bed!
Love to everyone reading (and if your from California, we miss you a TON!)

The Hunt

In Colorado there is tons of hunting! Yes, there is also a "save the planet" group of people, but they don't compete with the hunters. Well we have found our way into a different kind of hunting. Clothes hunting to be exact. Its just so hard to know what all you need for snow, occasional blizzards, and whatever else is going to come with Coloradan winters. Some how every time we go shopping we find great stuff for Stephen, but I always walk out empty handed. But not today! When Stephen left this morning to go  to an OMM review seasion (Whats OMM you might ask... find out here http://stephenandhannahzerlang.blogspot.com/2010/09/day-in-life-of-wife-of-do-wow-now-thats.html) I took off to the Park Meadows Mall... which just happens to be less than 15 min from us and absolutely beautiful and has tons of great shops. I won't tell you how much I spent, but it was so great! (don't worry I didn't get into triple digits, we are on a med school budget here :). I finally found a warm wool pea coat that fits, and three warm sweaters, one of which was wool! It was a jack pot day!

It is an absolutely beautiful day here. I am bogging from our porch because I just couldn't help but be outside. It rained this morning and now its breezy and sunny, probably in the low 70's. I decided that today officially started fall because I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season, and oh boy, i forgot how much I love those babies! I don't know what it was, but drinking that just made me realize its fall!

On a completely different note, I started bible study this week with the ladies in our church. I am so excited about it! We are studying Jonah... and going in to it I had no idea what else we were going to dig out of that small 4 chapter book, but holy cow, there is so much to learn. This week we focused on how God interrupted Jonah's life and call him to a hopeless place. So often we consider interruption as being a bad thing because the person or the need is insignificant compared to what we are currently doing. But when God interrupts, its because in his divine knowledge and plan, he has something so much greater for us or other people he is calling us to serve and sacrifice for. If we really think about who is "interrupting" our life and our plans, it should not be something we are frustrated about. But so often in my human mind I find myself asking why God is doing what he is doing. And here we are in Colorado, missing family and friends back home, transferring nursing schools, and it would be so easy to view this season of our lives as an interruption, but only if we forget who lead us to this place of "interruption". God has great and wonderful things for us here, and in the last two months we have already experienced so much of his blessing. We are continuing to grow in our relationships with our friends from school, which has been just amazing and so much fun! We are getting planted in the church we absolutely love and are so excited to be apart of! God has blessed me with a job that is wonderful and very flexible! Stephen just finished his 7th week of med school!... and the list goes on and on. So in conclusion, I will challenge you as I have been challenged. What has God put in your path that seems like an unneeded problem, a distraction from "important" things? And would you join me in looking more to the one interrupting us to see that He is unimaginatively much more important than "our plans". 
Much love to all!

Today is Wednesday

Today I made peach jam... yep that right... here in Colorado they have peaches... in the grocery store :) And hey, they were on sale so I took the opportunity to store up for winter!
And tomorrow... I start a Jonah bible study with the women from our church (and I am very excited!)
And the next day... IS FRIDAY!!!

And Yesterday I got my Colorado CNA license in the mail!!!! This means I finally get to start work! After waiting for 5 weeks, checking the mail everyday, I had almost given up! When I first saw the lovely letter I thought it was just another of a bazillion adds we got in the mail yesterday, but when I reached my car I realized it had FINALLY come!!! So I get to start next thursday :)

And tomorrow Stephen meets his cadaver! and the dissection begins :)

And thats about it!

and your now sick of the word and :)
:) Lots of Love! Hannah

Sunday Serveday :)

We had such a wonderful time with our new church family this morning. We all met at church at 9 (there were no less cars in the parking lot than a regular sunday) and then we all split up in to our teams and headed out to work sites. The other groups went to a neighborhood that the church adopted a few years ago in downtown Denver, and our group went to The Joshua Station. As I said in the last post, they take homeless families and provide a system for them to overcome being homeless. They have a great set up where people are not learning to be dependent, but independent. They offer counseling and a vibrant community. We got to power wash the walls, organize a shed and deep clean the kitchen and kids play room.

I had a wonderful time scrubbing stove pans (you know the things under the electric stove tops... didn't know what else to call them :) After the men had finished organizing the storage them came and moved all the ovens (4) and refrigerators (18) and scrubbed, swept and mopped behind them. It was awesome to being getting to know more people in the church by serving along side them! This kitchen is the community kitchen where all the residents come and cook.

This is one of the kids from our church reading with a little girl who lives there :)

And this is our team :) We just can't wait to get more involved with this church and become apart of their family. I am so excited to start bible study this Thursday with all the woman. We are doing a book on Jonah! If your interested in reading more about our church here's the website: /http://www.hillsidechurchfamily.org/

On another note, Stephen got all his doctor gear... ottoscope, opthalascope, stethescope, bp cuff, reflex hammer, etc. and I couldn't help but take a pic.

Only $800 bucks later we have an in home Dr. office :)

Alrighty well I am off to stock up on peaches at Sprouts (grocery store) b/c they are have a 3lbs for $1 sale, and well, the Californian in me is being starved to death by the lack of fruit!

Saturday Slowday

Tonight was wonderful! We had ribs for dinner (because I discovered the sale meat section at King Soopers, our grocery store), talked to our Zerlang parents and Kellie on skype, talked to Gabi on skype, went to Cold Stone and shared sweet cream with brownies and walnuts as we watched a beautiful sunset over the rockies, and took a great walk where I scared Stephen real bad :) You see, there are a lot of snakes around here and Stephen doesnt really care for them, so... I made a quick move and he jumped about 6 feet in the air. It was awesome. Now we are sitting down to watch Extreme Makover Home Edition on Hulu :)

Tomorrow we are going with our church on service Sunday. So instead of having normal service we are going out in teams to serve the community. Stephen and I are excited to be going to a christian organization that helps homeless people get back on their feet. Hopefully a few pictures will follow if possible.

Thanks for all your prayers, Stephen finished his first section of med school really strong! Starts cadavers on Monday :)

Love to All!

Sibling Adventures

Wow, what a wonderful weekend! We had Kellie, Aaron, and Jonathan over for the weekend :) They flew in on Friday night and got to stay till monday afternoon. It was such a blessing to have them here! Definitely the best Labor Day ever!!!! Here's a little snap shot of our wonderful time

Kellie, Aaron, Jogi and I set off Saturday morning to drive to the top of Mt. Evans (14,200) and we all sadly left Stephen behind to study.

The view from the top of the mt. evans was breathtaking (both because of the beauty and the fact that we were almost 3 miles above sea level :)

You felt like you could see forever, and the sky was SO blue!

This beauty is a fluffy white mountain goat Jonathan easily became friends with.

On our way home we stopped by Stephen's school and took a peak in the cadaver lab. (on another note, Stephen starts cadaver dissection next week)

And I just realized that I forgot to get the rest of the pictures from the weekend from Kellie :( bummer

Anyways we had 3 wonderful days, including a trip to the dollar theater and discovering an Italian/Mexican restaurant. Stephen stuck to his Italian roots and the rest of us to our Californian :) On monday we also got to explore Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World.

I hope to put more pictures up soon.

But in summary, both Stephen and I were overwhelming blessed to have them all here! Seeing family is so encouraging! 

Now off to bed, tomorrow is the final for Stephen's 1st section (Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms... for geniuses)

Open invitation to anyone else who wants to visit the beautiful Colorado.

A day in the life of a wife of a DO (wow, now thats a title)

Well, last night I really felt like the wife of a DO. Among his many classes Stephen is taking what they call OPP (hang with me, there are a lot of abbreviations... and yes there will be a test at the end). So OPP stands for Osteopathic Practice and Procedures (which is what makes a DO different than am MD). In OPP they learn OMM :) also know as Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine. This OMM consists of moving the body and bones in a certain way to either relieve pain, heal disease, relieve pressure, increase body functioning, etc.

So yesterday I got the full work up of everything they learned in OPP lab yesterday (ha, told you there were lots of abbreviations). This included manipulating and stretching the neck muscles to relieve tension headaches, stretching specific back muscles to help them relax, stretching hip muscle, etc. etc. etc. It took a few min for me to really relax because i have heard all these stories about students realigning necks and backs with a quick jerk of your head. But I guess none of that yet. Anyways, just wanted you to all know that next time you visit and get a headache, Stephen is now able to take it away. And coming soon, back/hip/and neck realignment. Schedule your appointment today!  :)

upcoming events:
*** THE VISIT OF THE ZERLANG SIBLINGS*** yep, we are eagerly awaiting their arrival on friday night and are so excited to spend the long weekend with Kellie, Jonathan, and Aaron!

* next Wednesday is Stephens final for this first section. Prayer for peace, a good memory and successful study times would be appreciated. And then its time to move on to the musculoskeletal system and begin the dissection of cadavers (I am sure there will be some good blog entries coming:) 

And just because I am eating chocolate at this moment, we'll skip the test today :)

Love to all!