The High Points

Yesterday I experienced one of the greatest things a parent can experience. For the first time, we got to hear the heartbeat of our baby (due April 26). Even though I've experienced this before with Lyla, it was still exhilarating and also a giant relief. Having gone through two early miscarriages, being at twelve weeks and getting to hear that fast-paced thumping of the heart was amazing. Lyla is also very excited about becoming a big sister, though she has no clue what that entails. Her new favorite phrase is, "daddy, mommy! Baby's getting bigger!"

Unfortunately not all things this week have been as fun. Monday night while walking Gunther I tripped over an unused power line anchor and tore a gouge out of the top of my foot. This led to four hours spent at the emergency room waiting to get five stitches. I'm sad to say that I failed to take a picture before going to the ER. Happily, the anchor ended up losing anyways. JEA came and removed it the next day. Take that ya metal piece of junk!

This is the anchor that attacked me

We've been having lots of family fun over the past couple weeks. Vanessa always seems to be the one behind the camera. Guess I need to take more pics. Here are a couple pictures.

I love that this picture makes it look like Danielle has freakishly long legs

Billiam Rizzle Explanations #2

Here is the newest and final installment of Cross Cultural Misadventures. These movies were incredibly fun to make, and we had others planned, but we ran out of time before Todd (Billiam) headed west for deputation.

Cross Cultural Misadventures #4 from Aaron Herrema on Vimeo.

In this episode Billiam makes four mistakes. They are all things that would be considered to be poor manners. First, when entering his friend's home, he leaves on his shoes. In many Asian cultures, it is considered very impolite to enter someone's house with your shoes on. Many times, you are expected to remove and leave your shoes outside. His second mistake is playing with his chopsticks. On top of being impolite, there are places in Asia where playing with your chopsticks signifies that you're looking for a fight. His third mistake is hogging the main dish of food. In China especially, when eating from communal dishes, proper etiquette is to only take enough of a dish for a single bite. By taking a lot of a dish you are expressing that you don't trust the others at the table to leave any for you. The final mistake he made was implying that the Japanese are better people than the Chinese. This is a very touchy subject amongst Chinese, who have a deep sense of national pride, and deeply dislike all things Japan.