My family and I participated in Earth hour last night, March 29th, from 8p.m. until 9p.m. We turned out all of our lights, turned off the tv and computer, and just hung out together in the dark. It was a lot of fun! At first I thought my little girls would be afraid (they are 6, 5, and 3) but my 12 year old son turned off all the lights and got his guitar out and the next thing ya knew the girls were having a lot of fun! They took turns telling me stories and singing songs-they pretended we were "camping".
We have some new neighbors that moved in yesterday, and when I walked by to check my mail all of the lights inside and outside their house were on. I saw the new neighbor guy walking up to his house and I said "It's Earth Hour! All the lights are supposed to be turned off from 8 until 9!", and started laughing. He said "Oh" and I thought he was probably thinking his new neighbors were nutcases-but, low and behold, we looked out the window a couple minutes later and guess what? They had turned all their lights out! How cool is that?
I was surprised at how well the kids handled it. At 9:15 I told the kids it was time for everyone to go to bed, and to make their beds for nighty nite time. My 5 year old, Jenna, couldn't find her pillow. "Turn the light in the bedroom on so you can find your pillow." I told her. She exclaimed "But mommy, we aren't supposed to turn on the LIGHTS YET!" Haha! I thought that was wonderful-and explained to her we were "allowed to turn the lights on" now, just for a few minutes while she found her pillow. We kept the lights off for the rest of the night, except for one small nightlight. For once the kids weren't afraid, and were actually ENJOYING the dark.
This activity made me very aware of the amount of electricity we use in our every day lives. I will definitely be more diligent about the lights we leave on, and the tv my little ones are constantly turning on. I am thinking about doing this one hour lights out with the kids one night per month to raise awareness in my household, lower my energy bills, and just plain use it as a good family time.
