Attenders at this year's Bellevue Strawberry Festival were blessed with one of the most perfect days we've had so far this summer, and the Crossroads Park couldn't have been more beautiful. Bellevue does such a terrific job of keeping their parks clean and well maintained.
The playground is as nice as any I've ever seen, complete with a large scale reproduction of a Killer Whale for kids to crawl on and over. The water spout ran a steady stream of cool water that made for more excitement of the kids sliding over it back to the ground. 
One of our highlights was stopping by the Reading with Rover booth with our dog Gracie, an Anatolian Shepherd. Reading with Rover is a community-based volunteer organization that provides a unique literacy program to schools to support those children who have difficulties with reading. Kids are able to increase their reading skills through time spent in the classroom with the dogs and their handlers who have been carefully selected for this purpose.
They also bring "Rover" to the local libraries and bookstores around Puget Sound. The goal is simple, to increase literacy at all levels, using a unique approach of being near a pet who can calm a child's anxiety in a non-judgmental way. Children gain additional time with the pet by accomplishing the assignments and reading to the pet.
Interested pet owners who have the desire to qualify their pet can visit the website for Reading with Rover.
The organization would like more dogs whose termperment is calm and submissive, gentle is best when working with small children.
Our dog Gracie fits the bill perfectly, loves kids, is well trained, and loves the interaction. We've been looking for the right opportunity and this looks like a great fit. There were so many attractions at this year's Strawberry Festival it was a really fun time to experience the joy of being a Bellevue resident in our richly cultural diverse neighborhoods.
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