Lutz Haus
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (December 2024)
Merry Christmas Family and Friends!
We started off our year with a vacation to Hawaii in January! Emily’s Aunt Vera and Uncle Doug were moving back from Hawaii to Minnesota this spring, so we went to visit them in Hawaii while we still had the chance. Once Emily’s aunt and uncle moved back to Minnesota from Hawaii, we helped move them in, and also got to cat sit Tulip and Iris for them. In exchange, we earned some golf lessons from Doug, and got to enjoy playing a few rounds of golf with Doug and Vera.
In April, we made a return to the Gigazone Gaming Convention in Bemidji! We are making it a yearly thing now. Last year, we played Super Smash Bros., but this year, we played a Trading Card Game called Magic: The Gathering. Emily put a lot of time and effort into creating a costume for a cosplay contest where she dressed up as Hera Syndulla, a Twi'lek from Star Wars. Sam dressed up as the 10th Doctor from Doctor Who, using a costume he had on hand.
At the end of April, Emily passed Real Estate tests, got a Real Estate license, and is now working as a Realtor for the Northwoods Team at RE/MAX Advantage Plus. She has had a very successful first year as a Realtor with nine closings both listing and selling houses, as well as helping clients find and buy houses! One of her closings was helping Vera and Doug buy their home in Forest Lake. Emily also still substitute teaches at Grand Rapids High School from time to time, and we work together in our spare time to convert people’s home videos to digital. Sam is finishing his third year of working for 3M, and this year he has been working on the Digital Materials Hub. He actually just created the landing page for the website in December! The landing page will go live in early January, so it might not be visible when you are reading this.
Emily threw a ‘May the Fourth' Star Wars themed Birthday Party for her 24th Birthday. We had a lot of fun, with activities including a Nerf Battle at the fairgrounds, Star Wars Bop-It. Stormtrooper Target Dart Practice, Star Wars Codenames, and more!
In the summer, we went to Brickworld Chicago, which is the largest LEGO Convention in the United States. Over 10,000 LEGO Nerds gathered to geek out at other people’s LEGO builds. We were really stoked to meet some of our favorite LEGO YouTubers in person! In July, Sam celebrated his 25th birthday. Over the 4th of July, we took a vacation and visited one of our friends on Madeline Island. It was fun roller blading around the island and viewing the best fireworks show we had ever seen. We also attended two family reunions. For one, we got to take a roadtrip to Missouri, and took some time off work, went camping, and then got to spend time with family for a few days, while staying at a mansion of an Airbnb! Our room was Harry Potter themed. On the return journey, we visited Emily’s mom in Wisconsin, and also got to stop and visit some friends in Madison.
To end the summer, Sam's parents sold their house (Sam's childhood home), and they are in the process of building a new house a couple of miles away. In the fall we also celebrated one year in our home. We also went kayaking a few times with our friends, bought a Jeep, Emily joined Rotary, and we got to go to two of our niece Lily’s swim meets in Grand Rapids.
In November, our cat Tubby passed away at age 16 1/2. He lived a long and happy life. Being a barn cat for 14 years of his life, he survived encounters with plenty of predators. In the end, he passed away peacefully of his old age. He was happy and purring his whole life. He was a loved member of our family. He enjoyed snuggles, cuddles, and relaxing. His favorite activities included laying next to Sam while he worked to make sure he was getting work done (Sam called him his ‘little supervisor’), and sitting on Emily’s lap to try and stop her from getting any work done (and succeeded almost 100% of the time). He also loved to adventure outside (as long as it was not garbage truck day) and wander over to our neighbor Diane’s yard, to watch over her garden among the stone sculpures.
This winter, Emily has been volunteering at Lights in the Pines, a Christmas Light Show at the Fairgrounds here in Grand Rapids. She dresses up as an elf and spends time in ‘North Pole Junction’ greeting, answering questions, helping kids write Christmas letters, etc.. Our hobbies for the winter include: LEGO (of course), reading, and playing a couple of trading card games; Magic: The Gathering and Star Wars: Unlimited. We also plan to go skiing and skating since there is actually a proper winter with snow this year.
We hope all of our family and friends are doing well, and that you all have a very Merry Christmas!
With love,
Sam & Emily Lutz
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (December 2023)
Merry Christmas Family and Friends!
We have a lot to be thankful for this past year. In February, we adopted Emily's childhood barn cat Tubby into our family. He is now as spoiled as can be and loves being pampered in his fifteen-year-old age.
In April, we entered into the Gigazone Gaming competition, where we competed playing the Super Smash Bros Video Game. There were lots of people, a huge stage where people competed, and during an intermission, Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple) was there to give a talk! It was a lot of fun. Sam got eliminated right away, but Emily made it three rounds before being eliminated. For the event, there was also a cosplay (dress up) competition, so we dressed up as The Joker and Harley Quinn from Batman. We did not win that either, but lots of people wanted to take pictures with us! We are planning on attending the same event on April 20th, 2024.
Since we were living next door to Sam’s parents this Spring-Summer, we took advantage of being on the lake. We spent a lot of time reading on the dock, putt-putting around on the pontoon, and enjoying nice weather with friends and family. Over the summer, Sam picked up the hobby of home brewing beer. He has made four separate five-gallon batches of beer this year. He has had a lot of fun learning the process of brewing.
On August 7th, we celebrated two years of marriage! To celebrate our anniversary we went on a trip across Wisconsin. We stayed in a cute little tiny cabin, attended a friend's wedding, got to visit friends and family, and ended the trip by camping at Madeline Island, which caused us both to get Bronchitis for the next couple of months. On September 26th, we closed on the purchase of our first house! We are living in Grand Rapids, MN. Feel free to text us for our address.
September 30th, we went to Brick Fest Live, a LEGO Convention in Minneapolis. We had lots of fun looking at all of the LEGO builds. The next day, Sam went to a Macklemore concert with his sister Meghan! They had a lot of fun. A month later, Sam and Emily went with Sam’s parents to a Queen + Adam Lambert concert. The rest of our winter and fall has been filled in with unpacking and settling into our house. When we are not doing that, we have been spending time with our siblings, nieces, nephews, friends, and family. Our favorite winter activities this year have been Board Games and LEGO (of course). Emily started a YouTube Channel earlier this year and likes to to make videos about LEGO in her free time. If you are interested in showing your support and keeping up to date on our LEGO-building activities, you can find the
Average Brick Chick
YouTube Channel here. There has not been much snow yet this year, but we hope to get enough to do a little skiing and skating in the new year.Sam has just completed his second year of working for 3M as a Software Engineer. Emily has begun taking realtor classes. As she has worked on her classes, Emily has also been substitute teaching this winter. Emily has been doing all of this in addition to her self-owned business: MemSTAR Studio, where she converts customers’ home videos to digital.
We hope all of our family and friends are doing well, and that you all have a very Merry Christmas!
With love,
Sam & Emily Lutz