A Bday and a Bulldog

Happy Birthday to meeee,

Happy Birthday to meeee,

Happy Birthday dear Brittan,

Happy Birthday to meeee!!

Yes...I am aware that it is not my birthday anymore...and I'm not one of those people who has a countdown to my birthday and lets everyone know OK PEOPLE...TODAY IS MY BDAY!!! But, I  haven't written a blog since Charlie's birthday, so I thought it was fitting! haha. ;)

My birthday was absolutely chill and wonderful!! Amanda Cooper, the superwoman of all women, organized a surprise birthday party for me on Sunday, November 7th at her house. Although she has a family consisting of 3 kids and a husband, she found time to cook me homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, fried okra, biscuits,  and deviled eggs, among other things. It was a FEAST!! She is seriously the best thing ever. After we ate, we played a trivia game about yours truly and we visited. Courtney Wilson (another one of my friends) made me the infamous Butterfinger Candy Cake. It was delish!! And Karen Cooper made chocolate chip cookies!!! I was seriously so fat and full when I left that house. Everyone that helped and/or made/bought something for the partay...thank you kindly. It was a fuuuun night!

And...as if Amanda didn't have enough to do...she made 30 vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing for my class and brought them to school. My kids were THRILLED. I only gave them to one class because I have 47 students, and luckily I had my favorite class in the morning that week, so I was able to give them the cupcakes without any hurt feelings from the others. ha. My whole class was like "Thank you Brittan's friend Amanda!!" They love her and they don't even know her. Amanda has been some of my saving grace here when I've thought that I can't do it anymore. She's been helping me try to come up with a plan of action with my talkative and somewhat disrespectful students...here's hoping we can pull it together. I love her though, seriously.

On my actual birthday, Yuyo, Megan, Isa, Oscar, and I went out to dinner at Monchi's (a delicious, cheap place by Yuyo's house). It was nice and totally chill...literally and figuratively...it was sooo cold that night!! After dinner, we went back to Yuyo's and just talked and visited. Megan left early from Yuyo's and when I arrived home, it was like 12 am. Now, if any of you know Megan Killen, you know that she has the sleeping habits of a grandma (no offense Mimi!). She goes to bed at like 10 pm to be ready for the day. When I got home at like 12, I noticed music coming from the downstairs and the lights were still on...I was thinking "Am I at the right house?" But I opened the door, and she was PAINTING OUR LIVING ROOM!!! It's soooo cute! I will post pictures later, because I haven't taken any yet. It's a burnt orange and a turquoise-ish color. It looks amazing. She said Yuyo was supposed to keep me at his house longer so she could finish. haha. Yuyo was passed out asleep when I left!! ha. Yuyo bought me tickets to see Harry Potter 7 this weekend. He also went to Dallas last weekend and bought me a sweater-ish vest thing and a scarf. I looove both of them. Both winter white...and I love me some winter white. Overall, it was a very lovely birthday.

Now I'm 24...when did that happen??

In other news...

YUYO GOT A PUPPY!!!!!!

Little QB sleeping like a baby

These pics are of sleeping QB, but he's a total beast when he's awake.

Like when he tries to rip earrings out of my ears...

Yes...you read that right. Yuyo Zorrilla got an English Bulldog puppy. His name is Querubin (pronounced Care-oo-bean). It means "cherub" in English. For short, we call him QB. He is SERIOUSLY precious. Yuyo came to pick me up one day, and he said "Be careful with what's in the front seat", so I looked and it was him. The precious little being. Now...Yuyo had been talking for about a month about buying a bulldog and I didn't believe him. After all, it was YUYO...talking about buying a DOG. I laughed it off, and then it actually happened. I couldn't believe it. 

The first time we took him to the vet, QB, not Yuyo (haha), Yuyo said something about him being an English Bulldog, and the vet said "A bulldog?!" with a genuinely surprised look on his face. Yuyo was like..."Yeah...? What does he look like to you?" and the vet said "A boxer." hahahaha. So, we were kind of undecided for awhile on what exactly QB is. Yuyo's roommate Luis' girlfriend Isa and I always like to ask Querubin what he is..."Que eres Querubin?" (What are you Querubin?) haha. And Isa came up with a perfect answer to that question: "Eres un bebe!!!" (You are a baby!!). Sweet little thing. Right now he is biting EVERYTHING.  He ripped a hole in my jeans last week. I was mad.

So anyways, he's like the new child here in this house, and we just watch him 24/7 like a first child to see what he'll do next. I have like 20 videos and 50 pictures of him already. Like I said earlier, Yuyo went out of town last weekend to Dallas and I was in charge of QB. My friend Courtney's birthday was on Friday, so i went to her party on Friday night. When I came to Yuyo's house to spend the night, I came in the door and usually QB runs up to his barrier and makes noise and wants to get out and see whoever is there. Well...he didn't run up, bark, cry, anything. I looked over in the kitchen (where he stays) and noticed that he had thrown up in his bed 2 times. So obviously I assumed he was a sick puppy to throw up where he sleeps twice. I went and put my stuff down and said a little prayer that he wouldn't be dead outside. So I called him and he walked up really slow and i picked him up and he was just sick. I cleaned up his bed and everything outside and texted Yuyo's roomie Luis to ask him if he'd had anything different to eat or just something different in his routine and he told me no...so naturally I started worrying. I called Yuyo, but his phone was off and I couldn't get in touch with him. I had the vet's number, but I didn't know if I could call him that late. By this time it was 3 am, so I set my alarm for 6 am and decided I'd call the vet in the morning at like 7. I slept for about 3 hours and when I woke up, he had thrown up again. Before we'd gone to sleep I made him drink a little water, because I read that puppies can get dehydrated and die relatively quickly. He threw up everything that was in his stomach. So...the next morning at like 8, Luis called the vet and he came over to look at QB. I really like our vet a lot. He makes house calls, he's not expensive, and he really loves animals. He took a look at QB and told us, if he throws up again, call me and I'll come get him. Right as the words were coming out of his mouth, QB threw up again...and then proceeded to (if you have a weak stomach, don't read any further) poop white poop. It was horrible. I've never seen anything like it. I read online later, that if you have white poop and brown pee, your liver is shutting down...but everything other than the poop and the vomiting was normal, his pee was yellow, so I ruled that out. Anyways, the vet took him away in a cooler on his moped and he has been staying at the vet's HOUSE since Saturday morning. He ran some blood tests and found out that he has a really bad bacterial infection in his stomach and intestines. Since Saturday, he's been giving him IVs, and now he's started him on vitamins. We went and saw him yesterday, and it's just so sad. He's so sick. He hasn't really eaten anything in 3 days and he keeps throwing up everything. He's so skinny now and he sleeps all the time, he's really lethargic. He's not like himself at all. It's really awful to see him like that. The vet is doing all he can...QB is staying in his house/room and he's monitoring him basically 24/7. He told Yuyo and I yesterday that he gives him a 70-30 chance of living right now...the 2 most common things puppies die from is not eating (anemia) and dehydration...so he's trying to keep vitamins and fluids in him so he won't be dehydrated, and is starting him on a bland diet so he can keep the food down. Yuyo and I keep saying...if QB can make it through this, he can make it through anything!!

So I know that was a looong story, and not about me, which is what this blog is kind of about, but I really do love him. I love him a lot. Not near as much as Hayden, but it's just really sad because he's so helpless and I want to just make him better and make him eat and be okay...but I can't do that. It's awful. So basically, at the end of this week, he'll either be better or probably gone. It's really hard and awful to think about, especially since he's so little and sweet. It's like he didn't even have a chance. Anyways, if you think God cares about puppies (which I really hope he does...), could you please take like 10 seconds and pray for this little baby boy? I know it seems kind of silly, but we love him, and don't want to lose him. :(

Haha. He always opens his mouth when you pick him up. 

So at school, the whole 3rd grade is working on something called Civil Ceremony where the grade level presents a ceremony about the month's holidays in Mexico and in the United States. Because we have November, all of the Spanish teachers are presenting the Mexican Revolution (which is on November 20th and it's the 100th year of the revolution this year) and the English teachers are presenting Thanksgiving. My homeroom class has the history of Thanksgiving. We didn't have much time to prepare for Ceremony, so it's been kind of a crazy week. In fact, we haven't done any schoolwork because we've been focusing on ceremony for November 23rd (next Tuesday). My class is doing a short prologue about the history and then a poem entitled "Thanksgiving at Plymouth". It's really simple and pretty cute. I really hope they pull it together. 

Also...we had a Halloween celebration at school where the kids wore their costumes and we had a parade, pizza party, and a lot of candy. Basically, I let them do whatever they wanted all day...there was no reeling in 25 kids with sugar highs and costumes. Here are some pics to narrate the event:

Group 3F. Notice Mario and Monsters, Inc. Oh...and MJ in the front

I asked the kid on the left if he was Edward Scissorhands and he looked at me weird

One of my little faves. Always does what she's supposed to.

Some of my girls

Little joker. 

RIP MJ

Shopping bags...so cute!

Mario and Michael Jackson. Standing side by side...

The vampire queen!

Yeah...he was def dressed as Hitler and it was not a big deal.
Nazi patch and all...I was seriously disturbed.

Me=football player, Megan=Nerd (Ms. Megan...why didn't you dress up?!),
Colleen=Barbie. Sooo fitting.

It's the SAME FACE

Where else can you find a skeleton, rocker girl, widow, and death in the same picture??

Soo presh.

I know...he doesn't look Mexican, right?

hahahahha. I think this is my favorite picture of the day.
I don't really know why.

So there it is...a new post...and it was a long, meaty one too!! This week is only a 3 day week (thank GOODNESSS!) because the Revolution started in Puebla, and as a gift to the state, the governor gave us Thursday and Friday off instead of yesterday. Yesss gov'na. I love him. On Saturday...Non, Dud, Tar, and Jo are coming!!!!!!!!! I am BEYOND excited. It's gonna be so great, and this is Jo's first (of many) international trips!!!!! I'm so privileged that it's to visit me in Puebla. I'm taking off Thursday and Friday of next week too to be with the fam, so I have 2 short weeks in a row. Then...3 more weeks until Christmas Break!!!

Ok people/friends/family reading this loong post (first of all thanks for reading!) and second of all, don't forget to pray for my little QB. I was so mad at him for ripping a hole in my jeans last week, but now if he would just get better, I would let him rip holes in whatever he wants to. He's so precious and I hope one day you all get to meet him!!

Thanks for reading. I love you all. And...see you SUPER soon!! <3 from Mexico.