Tucker Hours: 100

At the outset, I predicted that the 5000-piece puzzle would take us at least as long as five 1000-piece puzzles, and probably no longer than twice that.

I was wrong. We figure a 1000 usually takes us around four hours, working together, which would have made for about 20 hours working together (or 40 Tucker hours) for the large one. In fact, it took us a total of 100 Tucker hours but still, with an average of 50 pieces an hour, we feel we've done pretty well.

(I figure it was probably 60/40, by the way, since Lisa generally kept going while I was off cooking, parenting, chauffeuring or acting as Official Secretary to the Surveyor.)

We were right about the missing piece. Actually, there were two. It seems that eBay seller "j_gordon_fan" was not being entirely forthright in his claim that "All pieces are accounted for." But we had fun.

We'd do it again (maybe with a fully interlocking puzzle, though.)