First Snow Cone

We brought Joshua and Benjamin to Texas from Siberia in August. Their orphanage was in  Magadan, which is roughly north of Japan and even with Anchorage. The city sits on the Sea of Okhotsk, and there are still icebergs in the harbor in May! Imagine their shock when they came to West Texas in the middle of August!! They had probably never felt temperatures over 80 degrees, and to come to Midland when it was over 100 must have made them wonder what they had gotten themselves into. Of course, they only spoke Russian so we had to do our best to guess what they were thinking. If fact, that first couple of months we played charades a lot trying to convey meanings for things. We were probably quite amusing to watch when we were out and about with all the kids trying to communicate with the boys.

One day, we decided to take the kids for a snow cone. It had been so hot that day, we knew everyone would enjoy a treat. We had to just guess what flavor the boys would want since we couldn't ask them. We all got our cones and sat down on the patio to eat them. Kregg and I were just talking when we noticed Josh and Ben were crying. What on earth??? We couldn't imagine what could be wrong! They were sitting there eating their snowcones with tears running down their faces!! We tried to ask them, but they had no idea what we were saying or how to answer us. 

Then it dawned on me!! BRAIN FREEZE!! 

The poor little things had no idea what was wrong! They loved these new treats, but suddenly, inexplicably they each had a horrible headache! Of course, never having had one before they didn't know to eat them slowly. And we didn't even think about it! We felt terrible! We made them stop eating for a few minutes to give the brain freeze time to go away, but I think they thought they were in trouble. They just couldn't win!!

Things sure did grow easier as they picked up some English!