~ Experiencing Earth Hour 2011 @ Home ~

This is our 2nd time participating in the Earth Hour movement at home. Around 7 plus, we switched off most of the lights and electrical appliances. At 830pm, all lights and fans were off. I have prepared some handheld torchlights, fans, tealight candles in preparation for the lights off. How did we "survive" the 1 hour without TV, fans and computer?

Gladys seems to find it more exciting to play with her hand-held torchlight. She can't wait to start switching off the lights to make the earth happy (her way of interpreting Earth Hour). We played some games in the dark and did some simple housework together. The children have been a good helper by shining the lights at where it needs to be.

Time seems to pass fairly slow and the night is getting hot. Without their favourite TV programs and computer games, the children are starting to get bored. Although it is not a real black-out situation, Denver and Gladys had their first time experience trying to draw and write by the candle-light and torchlights. Gladys realised that she wasn't able to find the colours that she wanted under the dim yellow light. Her intended purple shirt became a brown-coloured top. Nevertheless, she did a nice drawing.

Denver on the other hand said he had no problem writing in the dark. He has outgrown the age of playing shadow games and suggested to play board games instead. We started with Scrabble and it wasn't too bad afterall. I still remember the times I spent playing chess, boardgames (e.g. Monopoly, Risk) with my brothers before we were introduced to computer games. I wonder how popular are Board games with children nowadays (apart from monopoly)? We seem to be very dependent on electronic gadgets (PSP, PS3, XBox) that we lost touch with the initial basic simple pleasure?

As soon as the Earth Hour is over, Denver and Gladys are definitely happy to see the lights and fans back on and be able to watch their cartoons again. As this year's Earth Hour's theme - Beyond the Hour suggest, we hope to substain this movement in our daily activities to save and conserve more energy. Hopefully that would means seeing a reduction in our electrical bills. Hahaha ^_^