It’s hard to believe we have passed the halfway mark of our journey! Last Monday the 10th, we departed Michigan and headed to Cleveland, Ohio for the night where we saw my brother, his girlfriend, and a good friend of mine. Then on Tuesday, we drove to Newark, Delaware because on Wednesday afternoon, we had another optometrist visit through our Hoya connection. Newark, Delaware is where the University of Delaware is. Despite growing up in New Jersey, I never had had a reason to visit Newark, Delaware (which is apparently pronounced New-ARK so as not to be confused with NEW-ark, NJ). My mom and I loved the town, which is a cute and friendly college town. Plus, right on Main St., we found an AWESOME teacher store, the Learning Station. We resisted buying a huge spinner on sale, but still managed to buy a large number of things, of course! Simon Eye Associates was another incredibly friendly location, where we had our largest turnout of kids yet–about 5. We’re realizing that we need to change our model because despite marketing efforts, kids are not showing up. However, what was awesome about this visit was that Simon Eye Associates had contacted a local organization called Paws for People, which brings therapy dogs to events. In our case, kids who came could read to a dog to practice their reading skills! The kids who were there loved these dogs…as did we! I tried to convince my mom that we should get a Literacy Lab mascot and reading dog, but we agreed that my dad would definitely not appreciate that.

After the event, we left Newark, Delaware for my hometown, Summit, New Jersey! Since my parents have moved to Florida and New York City, I don’t get back to Summit very often, so wandering around town was a nostalgic trip. Then we learned that one of my elementary school teachers was still teaching at the same school! On Thursday morning, I visited Mrs. O’Leary’s second-grade classroom to present a program. When I told the students that Mrs. O’Leary had been my teacher when I went to Brayton, their eyes all opened wide.

On Thursday afternoon, we went to a school that my mom had taught at, and on Friday, we were all day at Lincoln-Hubbard Elementary School, which had been my mom’s main school where she taught Spanish. I don’t have much new to report on how the lessons went, except that we never get bored doing them.

And then came the repacking. This time, the repacking was major: we were excited to invite my mom’s good friend and a recently retired school librarian on the rest of our trip. However, after all of our garage sale and teacher store purchases, our back seat kept on piling higher and higher, which meant there was no room! Luckily for us, this friend Jane allowed us to use her garage to take everything out and re-pack. My mom is the master of repacking. I still have a LONG ways to go…

But we made it! Jane is with us and we’re excited to be in Rockville, Maryland. We visited with my cousins last night and this afternoon are headed to a school to give away around 200 books. Yeehaw!