Eat, Pray, Pets

Once upon a time, I, Cortnie, worked at PetSmart in Bloomingdale, IL. I believe my love of animals came about from growing up with cats, hamsters, fish, horses, a rabbit or two, and I even had a chameleon for a while there. Some of my friends (including my husband) may even describe me as a "crazy cat lady", but I don't care. In fact, I embrace it as a compliment - I love kitties and I'm proud of it! Hehee:) Okay, so I might have gotten a little off the subject there... anyway, what I wanted to say is that because of my past pets, I naturally can't wait to have a pet of my own. However, we aren't quite able to have any right now, so one of our favorite things to do is find new pet stores and browse:) A couple of weeks ago, we located two new stores: Puppy Luv & PETBOX!

This is the puppy Matt and I wanted to take home from Puppy Luv - he was SO cuddly!

We literally had to pry his paws off of me!

PETBOX - "Always Together"??

"Favorite Dog! Favorite Cat! Etcetera Pet!" LOL - SO Japan!

An employee weighing a little puppy

This puppy was moving around so fast he was just a blur

Matt and the bulldog...

We never figured out what kind of fish this was - they had a few of them for sale at PETBOX, and all of them were around the same price: Y598,000.00 (about $6,000.00!) What is it?!?

Tiny, green moss-ball, anyone?

Some adorable bunnies! They were hopping back and forth over the little divider walls into each other's cages:)

The little gray one was my favorite, and Matt was trying hard to bond with the tan one, but it wasn't working

Dog and cat nail polish - testers and all! (I'm a fan of the Marine Blue)

And now it's time for...

Updates in the Life of Matt & Cortnie:

Update #1: Earthquakes

As many of you know, we had a very large (7.0 magnitude!) earthquake take place here in Okinawa, Japan earlier this month. Despite the size, there were no damages, injuries or deaths, because the buildings here were built to withstand them - if I had any doubt about this before, I am definitely convinced after waking up to one of the most violent earthquakes I've experienced! Following the quake, we weren't just under a tsunami watch (which never happened BTW), but we also experienced several smaller "aftershock" quakes for days. I was starting to become paranoid that I was feeling them all the time! I've actually done quite a bit of research on earthquakes since, and found out that Japan has the most recorded earthquakes of anywhere in the whole world! Hmmm... they forgot to tell us about that little piece of information prior to us moving here...

A video clip of the sirens we woke up to the morning after the earthquake (tsunami warnings):

Update #2: Jet-Ski's

Matt and I are still enjoying our Jet-ski's on most weekends that the sea conditions are favorable. Most recent updates: We've started the process of totally overhauling our trailer (new rails, welding, rust-busting and re-painting are in the works), we also got brand new matching covers for both the ski's, and the other weekend, we went out on the Pacific Ocean, island hopping with some sort of "jet-ski gang" (a group of other jet-skier's like ourselves:) which was different, but tons of fun!

Matt cleaning one of the jet-skis

Update #3: New Job

Yes, it is true - I have finally found a job here on-base that I am enjoying enough to give up my life of island unemployment:) I've been back in the work force again for almost 2 weeks now! Although it isn't anything close to my career back in the States, I believe that working as a 30-hour/week teller at an on-base, government bank is going to work out nicely for me while living in Okinawa for a few reasons: it is easy, it keeps me from getting bored during the day, the hours are nice, I get to meet some new people, and it's flexible enough for me to still take time off for trips. Basically, this is exactly the type of job that I was looking for while living here in Japan - nothing too serious, but a way to make some extra spending money for trips, going out, etc. and possibly making some friends here! Banking isn't my true passion, but I can honestly say that I'm enjoying it much more than I expected to!

Me - not at my new job - just wanted to add the pic:)

Update #4: Hong Kong!

Matt and I have been living in Japan for 6 months now (it was 6 months on March 11th to be exact), and I am READY to get off this island and do some traveling! With our 5-year Anniversary (March 24) as well as both of our birthdays (April 16 & 22) all taking place within the next few weeks, we decided to make our first trip out of the country to Hong Kong & Macau! We will be gone for 5 days and 4 nights (April 14-18), will be staying at a cool boutique hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and will even get to meet up with my ex-boss from Gettys in California as he will be there on business as well! The flights have been purchased, the hotel has been booked, and we are now just waiting - I can't wait to see another foreign country and share it with all of our friends and family here on the blog!

Thanks everyone so much for following - we love and miss you all so much and are so appreciative of the love and support you all give us over here on the other side of the world!

xoxo

-C