I hope you participated in Earth Hour! On Saturday, March 26th, 2011, from 8:30-9:30 pm, lights did dim all over the world!
The Mom Goes Green family turned off the lights for the third year and this year was no less exciting. We started our day with a visit to The Rainforest at our beloved Cleveland Metroparks Zoo to really kick-off a day of appreciation for our planet and the wonders of nature. For dinner we stopped off at a local Indian restaurant to feast on cuisine from yet another part of our our world. And when we got home our kids rushed to take nice short showers (water conservation, right?) before we got started.
The lights went out, the soy candles were illuminated and our celebration began.
We were thrilled to once again look out at the Cleveland skyline from our backyard and see it mostly dark (Thank you, Cleveland!). Our hour (which actually stretched to an hour and a half!) included venturing to every corner of the house and plenty of silliness along the way. The kids’ flashlights (equipped with rechargeable batteries) were a great source for “The Shadow Puppet Show” and we snuggled under blankets on the floor to read stories from The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales.
This year’s Earth Hour had record participation (134 countries) and I wondered how many children from my kids’ school were participating with their families. Last week I sent home a notice with all 465 of them(!) announcing Earth Hour. If they sign the pledge that says they participated, some of them will be randomly selected to win an eco-prize reward including BPA-free water bottles, pencils made from recycled newspapers and TerraCycle pencil bags (made from upcycled drink pouches)!
If you participated, you literally joined families from all around the globe… Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Singapore, Beijing, Moscow, Sydney, Athens, Jakarta, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Oslo, New York City, Abu Dhabi, Bucharest, Capetown, Mumbai and Cairo (just to name a few!). When else can you imagine these cities and countries banded together in a unified cause? Earth Hour brought the world together in support of our common thread… Planet Earth!
You can still experience the magnitude of this event. Boston.com allows you to click the images and see the lights go off in locations around the world. BuzzFeed shows you the before and after from 40 notable cities and AolNews gives you the grand tour of the entire spectacular event.
Quite powerful, I’d say.
Now, let’s see what we can do to take this momentum and not allow this event to become just ONE hour in an entire year… what can you do to make every hour Earth Hour?




I hope you’ve circled the date on your calendar! This Saturday, March 26th, 2011, from 8:30-9:30 pm is
This comment would NEVER come from me… but I’ve heard it (at least 20 times from family and friends over the past three months).
f the storm.
So, Mom Goes Green just returned from a nice, long vacation at the OBX with my fantastic family! There is nothing like fresh ocean air each and every morning, noon and night. We experienced everything again this year… from dunes to surf, to sun to moon…
go on and on about all of our practices but, for me, the shining moment was when I took time to sneak to the beach in the late-night, moonlit hours while everyone else was fast asleep and stood there, awestruck. How amazing and peaceful.
Is 
Why? Well, because some days these efforts really feel in vane, don’t they?

Ready for the answer?… Cleveland, Ohio!
One of our new favorites is 
If you’d like to take on an additional adventure join in
Once again the Mom Goes Green household proudly participated in 
I loved being a part of Earth Hour again this year. It “moves me”… what can I say!? Now I’m also excited to see how many students from our daughter’s school participated. Last week I sent home a notice with all 402 of them(!) announcing Earth Hour and, if they sign the pledge that says they participated, some of them will be randomly selected to win an eco-prize reward including BPA-free water bottles, pencils made from recycled newspapers and