The Lauritzen Family

Published!

2009-08-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

Chareen recieved an email the other day letting her know that her thesis is now available to read online!!! It is pretty cool to be finished and that others can search for her thesis. If you are interested the link is below.
http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd2882.pdf

Rocklin... here we come!

2009-04-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

Bryce got a call yesterday morning from the principal at Whitney High School in Rocklin, CA. He had applied for a position at the school in a Emotionally Disturbed classroom. This is the setting where Bryce really wanted to work in special education. So after knowing we didn't want to stay in Woodland for the rest of our lives, he found this job, applied, and got it! He was really excited since there were 25 applicants, 10 interviewed, and he was one of two who got a second interview. He is excited to be moving to such a great school as Whitney. While he enjoyed his time at Pioneer in Woodland, there were a lot of problems and ridiculous people he worked with. He feels a lot more comfortable with the new staff he has meet at Whitney.

The school itself is absolutely gorgeous. It was built three years ago and is an awesome campus. It looks like a community college, is way clean, and has awesome facilities. Chareen is really excited for the state of the art theatre that is on campus.

Chareen is likely get a new job closer to Rocklin. Rocklin is about 45 minutes east of Woodland and northeast of Sacramento. Rocklin is a great area where it will be nice to raise a family. The Rocklin Stake now has 15 wards and is likely going to be split shortly. We haven't decided if we are going to buy a house or rent, but we will decide in the few months. We think we will be moving to Rocklin around August 1st.

Once we have some pictures of town, we will post them.

Finished! Hallelujah!!

2009-04-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

So after one really busy month and one insane day, Chareen has finished her thesis!!! It has been completely crazy but it is finally finished. After a ton of rewrites and years of time and tears it is complete. She even flew out to Utah for like 17 hours total (yuck!) to get all the signatures and copies made. Her progress was severely hindered by Devotional and everything closing. But, it is turned in and should be available on the Electronic Thesis website at the BYU Library in a couple months. Chareen has decided Bryce know has to call her Master! :) I big thanks to all those who made it possible.

The Calm Before the Storm

2009-01-23T12:49:00.001-08:00

So I (Bryce) start school on Monday. I am going to Sacramento State University to get my Master of Art in Special Education. California is requiring me to go back and get 18 credits more to clear my teaching credential, so I decided to take a few more classes and get my masters. While I am glad I will soon (2 years, if that is soon) have my masters, I am really not excited about going back to school. Work has been going good. I have had a few problems with another teacher, but overall it has been smooth sailing. Life overall has been good. We went to Oregon last week to visit some friends and see my counsin who is currently in prison. It was a good weekend and relaxing. It seems everything is going well. I am feeling pretty confident with life right now. That's what scares me. I am sure once I start my program (I am taking 12 credits this semester at the advice of my advisor), things are going to get tough. Teaching right now is tiring enough and I can only imagine how tired I will be once I am in Sacramento two nights a week. So with some positive thinking, I am getting ready for school. I never thought I would be back in college so soon!

Breaking and Entering...

2008-12-30T14:41:00.001-08:00

When the police do it is it called breaking and entering? So before Christmas, Bryce and Chareen found out that two apartments in their complex had been broken into and their electronics and presents had been stolen. Bryce was leaving the next day for San Jose and Chareen was going to be home by herself for a couple days. Chareen didn't feel safe, especially since the rumor was a previous maintenance man was behind it and he had lived in their apartment. They then went to Walmart and bought new locks and Bryce changed them. Well, on December 29th their downstairs neighbor heard noise coming from their apartment that sounded like someone was up there and breaking things. So he went down to the manager and she called the police. The police thought they heard something and thought that someone was pressing against the door and the manager didn't have a key since they had changed the locks. The police then broken down the door and found nothing. Then Bryce was called and apprised of the situation. He called Chareen and she left work to get the new key and to see the huge dent in their door. If they had been called first they could have avoided the dent since Chareen works 3 blocks from home and could have met the police when they arrived. Overall it was a really interesting situation and they are not sure what to make of the whole thing.

First is the picture of the door frame they broke through. Next is a picture of the the dent in the door. Luckily they getting a new door this week.

Our Lame Blog

2008-12-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well, Chareen and Bryce have been so crazy lately we have not been good about keeping the blog up to date. Bryce is teaching Mild/Moderate Special Education at Pioneer High School in Woodland. He likes his job but the kids who don't care are draining. Chareen is enjoying being back as in the staffing industry, but she really needs to be working on completing her thesis. Well we hope all is well as we approach the Christmas Season.

Website about Pioneer High and details on Bryce: http://www.phs.wjusd.org/

Website about AccuStaff and details on Chareen: http://www.accustaffwoodland.com/

Chareen's New New Job

2008-12-22T15:02:00.000-08:00

Chareen has a new job!! She has been extremly blessed during this time of economic trial. She is back in the staffing industry! She is a recruiter at AccuStaff in Woodland. It is a temporary agency like she used to work at in Utah. She interviews, talks to clients, fills job orders and recruits people for positions. She is excited to be back in the industry. She was lucky because everyone hired at her last job at the same time and after her was layed off the week after she left.

New Job!!

2008-09-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

Chareen has a new job. She is working at an Clerical/Research Assistant for Legislative Intent Service, Inc. in Woodland, Ca. Her company researches bills from all over the country (but mostly from CA) to find the history and intent behind them. You can find out more about the company by visiting http://www.legintent.com/. Bryce is also working now at Pioneer High School. He is enjoying teaching English 10/11, Econ/Gov, Learning Resource Center and Algebra 1. You can learn more about the school by visiting http://www.phs.wjusd.org/. The school is only a few years old so it is nice and Bryce has a large classroom. We are enjoying our time in Woodland and if Chareen could just finish her thesis we would be done with school for a while!! Hope all is going well for you and yours!!

Hawai'i

2008-08-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

We just flew back from Hawai'i. We were fortunate to be there for two weeks!!! We flew on Monday, July 28th to Kauai where we spend the week with Bryce's family. All nineteen of us checking out the Garden Island. We snorkeled, swam, jumped off a waterfall, went to the Smith's Luau, got the flu and generally had a great time with the family. Then we (Bryce and Chareen) flew to Oahu where we spent four days where we went to Pearl Harbor, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Waikiki, and stayed in a nice condo we shared with Bryce's brother Brad and his family. Then Bryce and Chareen traveled on to the last destination of the Big Island where we spent two days seeing as much as we could. We saw the observatory, volcano, snorkeled and SWAM WITH DOLPHINS!!!!!! We were out snorkeling and they swam right around us. It was amazing!! A real once in a lifetime opportunity! We then flew home on the most interesting flight we have ever been on with the smell of throw up, a rude ground crew lady, cell phone use while we are taxiing, being thrown into the seat in front of us because the pilot had to stop until the call was ended, and a diabetic gentleman passing out. An interesting way to travel back to the mainland on Monday, August 11th. We could talk for days about our trip so maybe more later.

Moving Blues...

2008-07-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

So we have moved into our apartment in Woodland. It is nice but it is on the third floor. Couches to the third floor presents a problem but the elders of the ward came to the rescue. We have finally finished unpacking and it is wonderful to have everything arranged. We are realizing how spoiled we were in Utah since we had a difficult time fitting in all our stuff but we worked it out. Bryce is currently working at Gibson Elementary with 4-6 graders for extended school year. He is hoping his high schoolers at Pioneer in the fall will be easier or at least different. At least he will be doing less art projects. Chareen is hanging out at home looking for work and working on finishing her thesis. We are now reading lots of books and are hooked on Family History. Hope your stake will soon be working on the new Family Search program soon since it is awesome. We hope you are all doing well and we take visitors at anytime!!

Welcome to our Blog

2008-04-26T21:40:00.000-07:00

We finally are getting on the bandwagon and getting a blog up and running. A lot of our friends and family have one and we thought this was a great way to tell what is going on with our lives. A lot has happened over the past two years since we have been married. We have got a little bit of catching up to do, so let's get this started.

Graduation

2008-04-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

We finally finished! Chareen and Bryce graduated from Brigham Young University in Provo, UT. We walked at the Commencement Excercises on Thursday April 24th. Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke. Our parents came from California to be there with us. Chareen's sisters and grandmother were also there. It was nice to finally be finished.

We also went to our convocations in our colleges. It was nice for Bryce to be able to be there with so many of his friends from the program. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Special Education. He was so grateful for his friends Sam, Jodie, Alicia and others who had supported him along the way. We were suprised when Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve was also there. He was attending to honor his grandson who was also graduating from the college. After the program, Bryce even got to take a picture with Elder Perry.

We stayed on campus until Chareen's graduation. Our parents treated us to some BYU sweatshirts and other stuff to remind us of our time at BYU. We were grateful for them not only being with us, but also giving us several gifts. It was a nice time to spend with them.

Chareen recieved her Masters of Art degree in Theatre Arts. It was a hard road to get her thesis done. None of her friends were able to attend or hadn't finished yet, so there were few people to talk to during the program. We were also really tired from getting up early that mornining, so Chareen even started to fall asleep on stage.

After a long seven years for us, we are finally finished at BYU. We are going to miss campus. BYU truly is a different university and we will miss it. We loved BYU football, devotionals, friends, and faculty. It will be hard to leave, but we are really looking forward to a new life back home in California.

Bryce will teaching in the Woodland JUSD in Woodland, CA this fall. We will be moving there in August after some vacations this summer. We will traveling to Texas to visit Bryce's mission and also to Hawaii with Bryce's family.